Throughout the semester, RILC has been working on assisting its Ukrainian clients with renewing their Temporary Protected Statuses. We are pleased that one of our young clients from Ukraine recently received her TPS approval. Her dream is “to go to college and study international diplomacy” — and one day promote the peace that she and many other children have not been able to experience during their childhoods.

 

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We are so happy for another young client in Kona who recently received Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and got their removal case in Immigration Court dismissed! Thank you to Adriana Martinez of Legal Aid Hawaii for representing this client in the family court proceedings and SIJS petition to USCIS.

 

 

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We are pleased for our Afghan clients who recently received Temporary Protected Status. Even though their TPS approvals came after they received asylum, a more permanent form of relief than TPS, we understand the importance of TPS to keeping the recently arrived Afghan community in the US safe.  We encourage Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act and provide a pathway to lawful permanent residency for our Afghan allies that doesn’t require processing through our very backlogged asylum system.

 

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This Thanksgiving, we’re so happy and thankful to have kept a longtime Hawai’i resident and his family together for the holidays by obtaining the dismissal of his removal case!  In this case, our client had a singular petty misdemeanor conviction from over a decade ago that landed him in removal proceedings. Although his state criminal punishment was a mere $50 fine, the conviction was enough under federal immigration laws to have him deported and separated from his family and community here.  Thanks to RILC’s Immigrant Advocate, Kara Teng ’17, who put together a request for prosecutorial discretion, ICE agreed to exercise its prosecutorial discretion and join in a motion to dismiss his case, which the judge recently granted.