News – Page 3 – Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy

It’s hard to apply for asylum. This clinic makes it easier for many seeking protection | Charlotte Observer

Posted on November 17, 2022

By DJ Simmons

When Erika Salamanca journeyed to the United States, she brought her daughter on her hip with hope for more opportunities for her child. Desperate to escape gang violence, Salamanca fled El Salvador to the United States seeking asylum. She traveled through Guatemala and Mexico last winter to find safety for her family.
“I just wanted my daughter to have a better future here,” Salamanca, 26, said.
But with a one-year deadline to file for asylum after arriving, navigating complicated forms — especially in a language different from one’s native tongue — is difficult. The process can be discouraging. Some immigrants, likely so focused on surviving, are unaware they need to apply.
Recognizing that, the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy offers a one-day asylum clinic for immigrants and pairs them with lawyers to file their applications, which would increase their chance of success in gaining asylum.
Salamanca was one of 30 participants Friday who came to the center’s East Charlotte office for assistance.
CCLA is the only nonprofit offering this type of pro-se clinic in North Carolina and South Carolina. This was the third clinic held this year by CCLA.
Charlotte legal advocates host asylum application clinic | Charlotte Observer

Courts jostle over DACA, casting a cloudy future for Charlotte ‘Dreamers’| Charlotte Observer

Posted on October 27, 2022

By DJ Simmons

With federal courts jostling over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, its future hangs in limbo — affecting thousands of recipients in Charlotte and across North Carolina.
Recent activity pulled the Obama administration policy back in the headlines — judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who ruled against DACA earlier in October, said it needed more review. That decision sent it back to a lower court judge, who now ruled the program can remain temporarily, with limitations, as he reviews Biden administration revisions made in August.
For Marisela Ceniceros, a Charlotte mother of two DACA recipients, a new worry is now front and center — how a potential reversal could affect families like hers.
“Right now because it’s on hold there’s no way to determine if or when DACA will end,” Ruth Santana, an immigration attorney with Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, said. “That uncertainty for immigrants is very unsettling to say the least.”
DACA rulings leave the program and Charlotte Dreamers’ in limbo | Charlotte Observer

Hospitals said they lost money on Medicare patients. Some made millions, a state report has found | Kaiser Health News

Posted on October 27, 2022

By Fred Clasen-Kelly

Mecklenburg’s food stamp delays catch eye of legal advocates as immigrants still wait | The Charlotte Observer

Posted on October 10, 2022

By DJ Simmons

Most Mecklenburg County households receiving food stamp benefits can expect an increase this month, but an ongoing delay with applications has spread to Charlotte’s immigrant community — and catching the attention of legal advocates.
Charlotte Center of Legal Advocacy generally fields a few calls daily from clients seeking help with food stamp applications or recertifications. But after public records revealed Mecklenburg County had continued delays, the advocacy center in August sent out a tweet asking anyone facing problems with their applications to contact them, Dee Grano, a spokeswoman with the center said.
“We’re paying very close attention to the situation and are always looking for ways to effectively advocate for our clients, but larger legal action remains to be seen at this point,” Grano said in an email.
In the past few months, the center has seen the number of requests for help spike. “Where I used to get maybe two or three calls a day, we’re now getting three times that — if not more,” says Elizabeth Setaro, a paralegal advocate who works with the immigrant community. Her client, Elida Valdez as of Friday is still waiting for benefits she applied for early in July.
She decided to apply for medicaid and food stamps after giving birth to her third child in May. Valdez, who is from Guatemala, was leery of applying for food stamps and concerned it may affect her immigration status, including her reapplication for her U Visa. The documentation is granted to victims of certain crimes. But since her children are U.S. citizens, they could receive the benefit, her attorney told her. Valdez told the Charlotte Observer she received a letter from Mecklenburg County’s Department of Social Services asking for additional documents in August, roughly a month after she applied. After turning those in, a week later Valdez received a call stating the documents were never received.
After several more calls, social services said it did have all of her documents, but by then it was too late, she said. “At that point, they had already terminated the case,” Valdez, 25, said.
Legal advocates home in on Mecklenburg’s food stamp delay | Charlotte Observer

Launch delayed for Medicaid tailored plans – NC Health News | NC Health News

Posted on September 30, 2022

BY Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven

Back in August, Lucy Plyler was mailed a 19-page letter from the state health department.
The letter said that the way Victoria, her 24-year-old daughter with multiple disabilities, received Medicaid was about to change. Instead of being in NC Medicaid Direct, Victoria would be put on a “tailored plan.” That meant all her care would no longer be coordinated through the state Department of Health and Human Services, but through the regional behavioral health organization, called an LME-MCO.
Where Plyler and her daughter live in Rutherford County, their LME-MCO would be Partners Health Management.
This switch is happening for nearly 200,000 people out of a total of more than 2.8 million North Carolina Medicaid beneficiaries. These tailored plans are targeted primarily for those with complicated health problems, severe mental health needs, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and traumatic brain injuries. It’s the next phase in the state’s transition to managed care, which started back in July 2021 when about 1.6 million people saw their Medicaid change from being state-run to being coordinated by one of five private insurance companies called managed care organizations.
These tailored plans will be quite different from the other managed care plans. Unlike the rest of the Medicaid population, those on tailored plans will not have four to five managed care plans to choose from. In fact, they will have no options to choose from. They will be automatically enrolled in the tailored plan that is run by the LME-MCO that covers their county already.
“The big fear is will a very, very vulnerable population — people with profound disabilities — lose access to care that they really need?” said Doug Sea, an attorney with the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy. “The fact is that the General Assembly set this up in a way that directly discriminates against people on the basis of these profound disabilities.
Launch delayed for Medicaid tailored plans – NC Health News (northcarolinahealthnews.org)

One year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Afghans in Charlotte are in legal limbo | Axios Charlotte

Posted on August 31, 2022

By Danielle Chemtob

Afghan refugees find ‘different world’ in Charlotte — and a new set of challenges | Charlotte Observer

Posted on August 29, 2022

BY DJ SIMMONS AND WILL WRIGHT

Americans watched the Afghan government fall from afar. But for Bahroz Mohmand, the moment marked the high-stakes culmination of a plan two years in the making to relocate his family.
“Because of me my whole family — my brothers, my sisters, my parents, my in-laws — most of them were at risk,” said Mohmand, who worked as a translator for U.S. Special Forces. “Working for the army in Afghanistan was not easy. You’re basically putting your family and their life in jeopardy by working for them.”
Now, safely in Charlotte, Mohmand fears for his family’s future. Their work permits are set to expire in 2023, and the uncertainty of that leaves him wondering what will happen.
“If their work permits expire, they’re, of course, not going to let them work anymore, and then they’ll have no income and (will) be put on the street,” he said.
Tahira Askira, Mohmand’s niece, recalled the tense days in Afghanistan before she was evacuated last year.
Askira said she was out grabbing groceries with her mother and sister when they heard the Taliban took over the country. Soon, the day descended into chaos. “People were shouting,” she said. “Everybody was looking for a way to get back home.”
Askira was fearful. She heard from adults what life was like under Taliban rule. For two days, they were stuck at home as Taliban fighters surveyed the streets, looking for people.
Mohmand feared the worst. Through his job as a translator, he was given a pathway to citizenship and emigrated to America in 2012 through the Special Immigration Visa program for Afghans.
The program, however, didn’t guarantee their families similar avenues. And interpreters’ jobs often placed targets on their backs, as well as their families, Mohmand said.
Mohmand also garnered a higher profile after being invited to the White House in 2018 for a Medal of Honor ceremony for a soldier he worked with. During the ceremony, he was individually recognized by then-President Donald Trump.
While the moment was one of his proudest, it also placed his family directly in danger.
As Askira fled the airport with her family, all she was able to grab was a backpack full of a few belongings. Meanwhile, Mohmand stayed on the phone with the family and used Google Maps from his home in Charlotte to help them navigate to and through the Kabul airport. Askira spent almost two nights sleeping outside the airport before they were able to get inside.
“I was running the operation basically,” Mohmand recalled. “I was telling them where to go.”
Now in America, they face hurdles applying for asylum.
GETTING SETTLED
Rebekah Niblock, a staff attorney at Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, said applying for asylum is one of the more complex areas of immigration law.
Refugee resettlement centers such as the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency contacted the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy to assist the influx of Afghan families. The center soon undertook the task of creating a program to link Afghan families to pro-bono attorneys who could help them with their asylum cases.
For Niblock, the case with Mohmand’s family is even more personal. Her father, a builder in Concord, has helped to house members of Mohmand’s family and is Askira’s neighbor.
”I feel the family is meant to be here,” Niblock said.
Niblock said a bill in Congress called the Afghan Adjustment Act could be key in helping these families have a direct path to citizenship. The bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress in August and would allow Afghans with temporary status to apply for lawful permanent residence.
“There’s precedent for the bill,” Niblock said. “If you think about the Vietnamese coming to our shores, we passed similar legislation to allow them to have more of a direct path to residency and citizenship status.”
Asylum cases could take years, Niblock said. Currently a special provision allows Afghan refugees to have their cases heard within 45 days of filing.
“But that means you need to have everything ready,” Niblock said. “That entails a detailed statement, corroborating evidence, sitting down the client and asking very difficult and traumatizing questions.”
Read more at: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article264677989.html#storylink=cpy

Afghans in U.S. await stability and immigration answers | WFAE

Posted on August 25, 2022

By: Kayla Young

A year after the fall of Kabul, Afghans who fled to the United States still face an uncertain future. Organizations such as the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy are now pushing for passage of the bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act and a pathway to citizenship.
When Taliban insurgents took control of Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, in August of last year, Bahroz Mohmand watched the news in disbelief from the United States.
The 33-year-old interpreter never expected to see his home country revert to Taliban control.
“I was surprised. I was pissed off. I was sad,” Mohmand said. “It was a very difficult situation for me to basically calm myself down because I was worried about the family.”
Mohmand moved to the United States in 2012 under a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV), made possible by his work as a Dari and Pashto interpreter for the U.S. Army.
“I was born in war. I was raised in war. I never saw the good side of my country,” he said. “The only time that it was good was basically when from 2001, when the U.S. Army came until, you know, August 15 that everything collapsed under the Taliban regime.”
He is now a U.S. citizen. But for many of the 76,000 Afghans who fled to the U.S. in the past year, their immigration options are more limited. Many fear eventual deportation, including Mohmand’s niece, 17-year-old Tahira Askari.
Askari described the chaos of her evacuation in her native language, Dari. Mohmand interpreted.
“Everything was falling apart. People were running around stores. You could see families getting desperate, separated from each other. Everybody was heading towards the airport,” she said.
Askari and her family boarded an evacuation flight to Qatar, then Germany and eventually reunited with Mohmand in Charlotte.
Mohmand says for Askari, life under Taliban rule is a foreign concept.
Read more: Afghans in U.S. await stability and immigration answers | WFAE 90.7 – Charlotte’s NPR News Source

Tahira, a 17-year-old Afghan evacuee and Advocacy Center client, shares her journey to the US and what it is like to live in legal limbo | Spectrum News

Posted on August 19, 2022

When 17-year old Tahira Askari fled Taliban controlled Kabul last August, she did not know what life would be like for her in America. Tahira and her uncle, Bahroz Mohmand, a decorated Afghan interpreter who supported US military operations in Afghanistan for 10 years, joined Spectrum News on August 17, 2022. The two shared their harrowing journeys and the legal limbo Tahira and other Afghan evacuees now face as the Advocacy Center helps them apply for asylum. The two stressed the importance of the passage of bipartisan legislation known as the Afghan Adjustment Act. The legislation would provide a clear path to citizenship for Afghan evacuees, fulfilling a promise the United States pledged to keep them safe.

With Evictions Returning to Pre-Pandemic Levels, Charlotte Attorneys Describe Human Consequences

Posted on June 3, 2022

By Sam Carnes, Queens University News Service
Evictions in Mecklenburg County have returned to pre-pandemic levels and are now averaging 2,500 per month, a rate that keeps Charlotte among the nation’s top cities for evictions, say attorneys with legal aid organizations that represent tenants.
The most recent data from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts indicates a level of 30,000 eviction cases annually, said Isaac Sturgill, an attorney specializing in housing with Legal Aid of North Carolina. The Eviction Lab, a project of Princeton University, ranks Charlotte sixth in the nation for evictions. A 2017 UNC Charlotte Urban Institute report indicated that 28,471 eviction complaints were filed in the 2015-16 fiscal year.
These rates have human consequences, said Toussaint Romain, who recently became chief executive officer for the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy. Romain recalls visiting Charlotte’s tent city of homeless people in August 2020.
“We really saw whole families, like a mom and a dad and three babies who were living in a tent for the first time in their lives,” Romain said. “They were there because they worked in the service industry. And when COVID happened, shut all that down, and they were kicked out of their places because of not paying rent. … and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a 2-year-old baby, you know, that was homeless.”
Sturgill and Romain are two of dozens of attorneys who represent people experiencing the worst consequences of the rising cost of housing in Mecklenburg County. Without a course correction in the cost of housing, these lawyers say, Charlotte risks becoming a city like San Francisco.
“Charlotte is on track to be a city for white-collar professionals that make a certain income, [with] an underclass of people who serve the professional class,” said Ismaail Qaiyim, who founded the Queen City Community Law Firm and works with the Housing Justice Coalition CLT and the Latin American Coalition.
Read more: Charlotte Journalism Collaborative