Statements

Mission

Our mission is to provide quality, free and low-cost immigration representation to low-income Mid-Southerners, to seek justice for the entire immigrant community, and to advocate for fair immigration policies.

Background

MIA was founded in 2013 by experienced Memphis immigration lawyers seeking to address the lack of access to immigration services for low-income families in Mid-South region. The government does not provide free deportation defense to anyone, including the most vulnerable people in our community; there is no public defender for a child in deportation proceedings. We work to fill that gap. MIA represents noncitizens who reside within the jurisdiction of the Memphis Immigration Court, which includes Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Mississippi. The areas in which we provide representation shift based on emerging humanitarian needs and immigration policy changes. In addition to direct representation, MIA engages in legal orientation programs for unaccompanied minors, sponsors of unaccompanied minors, and detained asylum seekers.

Impact

In our first 6 years, MIA provided direct representation to more than 700 Mid-Southerners, mostly children and families. Around 80 percent of our clients never receive a bill for our services. MIA's clients range in age from infants to seniors, and they come from all over Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Caribbean seeking safety and economic security. MIA serves a significant number of immigrant victims of violent crime, particularly domestic violence and sexual assault. This includes both asylum seekers fleeing persecution in their home countries as well as immigrants who have been targeted for abuse in the U.S.. Since 2016, MIA has provided legal orientations to thousands of unaccompanied minors and the family members or guardians with whom they have reunited in the U.S.. We provide this service each week at the Memphis Immigration Court's juvenile docket. In 2019, MIA began an Asylum Initiative that originally connected with asylum seekers in detention facilities. The current project represents recent Afghan arrivals, in collaboration with the Welcome South coalition.

Needs

MIA has grown rapidly since our founding in 2013 because our programs offer essential, life-saving services. Our programmatic funding does not cover the general operating support we need to grow sustainably. We are seeking foundation support and individual donors who will provide the funding we need to ensure our institution can manage our programs effectively well into the future.

CEO Statement

Having joined MIA at the end of 2021, Alicia Horst has continued to support the programmatic efforts of its legal staff by deepening structural support and expanding financial oversight. Ms Horst continues to prioritize sustainable growth with healthy oversight. Programmatic funding alone is not enough to provide meaningful staff support through the demands of immigration legal projects. Ms Horst leads our efforts to connect with donors who have a vision for justice projects that also sustain legal staff.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Crime & Legal - Related  - Legal Services
Secondary Category:	Human Services  - Ethnic/Immigrant Services
Tertiary Category:	Human Services  - Victims' Services

Areas Served

MIA provides free and low-cost legal representation to immigrants living within the wide geographical jurisdiction of the Memphis Immigration Court. With offices in Memphis and Nashville, the majority of our clients live in Shelby and Davidson Counties. Our Nashville branch of MIA's Children's Project provides free legal screenings, know-your-rights presentations, and deportation defense to unaccompanied immigrant children in the custody of the federal government.

TN

Other

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