You can help make a difference in the lives of immigrants and their families in Central Texas by giving money, volunteering your time and talent, and becoming informed. Please help today.
American Gateways depends on donations of every amount from a wide range of donors. Your gift in 2010 will help make a difference in the lives of immigrants and their families. Thank you for all you do to help.
In 2009 American Gateways provided direct legal services and legal rights education benefiting 10,634 people. Unlike U.S Citizens, immigrants, even those who are here through a legal visa, have no right to a court appointed attorney and often do not qualify for government funded legal assistance programs. Without American Gateways, many, if not most, of these persons would have no access to legal representation and no ability to escape persecution or abuse. Because of us, thousands of low-income immigrants have become working, contributing members of the Central Texas community.
Since 1987, American Gateways has helped tens of thousands of low-income immigrants in Central Texas and from around the world escape abuse either in their home country or here in the U.S. American Gateways assists immigrants with finding legal means to live and work in the U.S. Whether helping El Salvadorian youth escape certain death due to gang activity in their native country; a working mother in the U.S. seek her own legal status, independent of that of the husband who is abusing her; or assisting families with reuniting with loved ones still trapped in an abusive or oppressive homeland, American Gateways helps low-income immigrants break away from those who would persecute and exploit them and to establish productive lives for themselves in the Central Texas area.
Please help us today and your gift will be put to work in 2010.
Making a Difference for the Future
Over the past few years, as the debate over immigration policy reform at the national level has grown, the need for our services has greatly increased. An ever growing of number of immigrants have found themselves detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and/or placed into legal proceedings intended to result in their removal from the U.S. Unfortunately, many immigrants have found themselves in this situation even when they may have a legal reason to be in the U.S. because they lack the financial resources to obtain quality legal representation. In response, American Gateways has increased our efforts on such immigrants’ behalf, expanding our educational services for immigrants on their legal remedies and responsibilities and increasing legal representation for those who have a meritorious case but simply lack financial resources. Additionally, we have also increased our services for immigrants who have fallen victim to domestic violence, trafficking and other mostly violent crimes, as well as for asylum seekers, and those who qualify to become a legal permanent resident or a U.S. citizen. American Gateways is committed to helping immigrants and their families who want to live, work and contribute to our community by assisting them through the often complicated legal path they must travel to do so.
New Services for New Needs
As immigration and the debate surrounding it have increased, American Gateways will be here. We not only plan to expand our current programs and services to meet the needs of more and more people but to develop new services to meet new and changing needs. As more and more immigrants come to us after being victimized by domestic abuse, long-term detention, governmental persecution, trafficking, violent crimes and family separation, these clients’ psychosocial and non-immigration legal needs are often overwhelming. American Gateways has recently established a social work internship to offer on-site counseling and case management for our clients each spring semester and is seeking financial support to add fulltime counseling and case management to our staff and to contract with another nonprofit agency to provide non-immigration legal representation and advice.
We believe that with your support we can work with our clients and other organizations to meet the needs of a neglected and growing portion of our population. Thank you for all you do.