San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties are home to more than 1,020,000 foreign-born residents, 47% of whom are not U.S. Citizens.
WHO WE ARE
United Coalition for Immigrant Services is a partnership between two collaboratives, CRISP (Collaborative Resources for Immigrant Services on the Peninsula, established in 2005) and SBLISN (South Bay Legal Immigration Services Network, established in 2009), comprising 16 organizations that provide free and low-cost immigration legal services to children, families, and older adults in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
THE NEED
As residents of a region with one of the nation’s highest costs of living, these community members often cannot afford full-cost immigration legal support.
When immigrants wait for months to receive affordable legal support, they frequently go without healthcare, adequate nutrition, and stable housing and employment.
The need for free and low-cost immigration legal services will likely only continue to grow as refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants from Central America, Afghanistan, and Ukraine arrive in the United States.
What We Do
Provide Direct Legal Assistance
Regularly convene members for collaborative problem solving and to address capacity constraints by referring clients across the network.
Raise and provide funding to flexibly support members’ immigration legal services.
Educate and Advocate
Provide free community forums, trainings, and other events for immigrant communities, both as collaboratives and as individual members.
Conduct outreach and policy work on issues affecting immigrant children and families.
OUR SERVICES
With support from CRISP and SBLISN, in 2023, members provided over 17,600 instances of immigration services, including:
Over 9,900 Consultations and brief legal services
Representation in more than 5,000 baseline immigration cases for issues such as temporary protected status, family visas, citizenship applications, work permit renewals, and DACA renewal petitions
Representation in 3,500 complex cases, including but not limited to removal defense, trafficking cases and cases involving facts such as a disability, trauma, or illiteracy that impact a legal issue
Members offered over 500 free community forums, trainings, outreach events, and other events
OUR IMPACT
Our services have life-changing impacts on immigrants in our community:
Income: Helping a family with undocumented or temporary status gain permanent immigration status or citizenship increases family income by an average of $25,200-$64,000.
Health: An estimated 50% of undocumented non-elderly adults lack health insurance. This number drops to 18% once individuals have lawful status and 6% for those who become naturalized citizens.
Employment and Housing: From intake to asylum grant, asylee clients see a 68% increase in full time employment and an 82% decrease in homelessness and unstable housing.
The local economy: Obtaining lawful status for San Mateo and Santa Clara County residents would increase county tax revenue by an estimated $14 million.
Testimonials
“Our ability to respond swiftly to the changing political and health climates, deliver informational presentations, and provide individual legal consultations to help families understand their immigration options and rights has helped to take the edge off of this uncertainty for hundreds of families. As a result of this work, immigrant communities on the Peninsula are better informed about their rights and their options, including potential immigration relief.”
- Collaborative Member
“After waiting more than half my life, through several petitions that were almost approved but somehow never completed, my case was finally approved for permanent resident status (green card). I will be forever grateful because this is something I have only dreamed about and now it is a reality. I have been given a new and brighter future.”
-Collaborative Client