Iowa JFON is 10!
Celebrating ten years by expanding in faith
For ten years, Iowa Justice For Our Neighbors has been providing free professional legal services for low-income immigrants who are "in the immigration line." Judy Kading was a Church and Community Worker in Sioux City in 1999, and she, along with others in Iowa who were working with immigrants could see that their most pressing need was for legal assistance as they worked their way through the maze of the U.S. immigration system. A notice came from Lelia Fernandez of the United Methodist Committee on Relief that gave congregations the opportunity to be sites of the newly formed Justice For Our Neighbors where immigration attorneys would come and assist immigrants with their immigration process. The Iowa Conference applied and JFON sites were established in Sioux City, Des Moines and Omaha. Volunteers staffed the program under the supervision of the attorneys who flew in from Washington DC every month.
It wasn't long before it became apparent that it was essential to have a resident attorney for the JFON program, so a Church and Community Worker Immigration Attorney was hired to serve the three sites. After four years, the Iowa Conference Board of Global Ministries formed the Iowa JFON Committee to expand further by hiring a full-time Iowa JFON immigration attorney and establish sites in Cedar Rapids and Columbus Junction. The Nebraska JFON attorney continued to serve the Sioux City JFON site for another four years.
In May, 2008, the Nebraska attorney told the Iowa JFON Committee that she was resigning to go into private practice. More expansion was in order, and the committee decided to take a big leap of faith and hire a second full-time attorney. The Church and Community Ministry of the General Board of Global Ministries agreed to the committee's request for a CCW Immigration Attorney. The NW Iowa JFON Site was moved to Storm Lake, and in August Trina Scott Zuor was hired to serve it and the Des Moines JFON Site. She began her work with more than two hundred Iowa JFON clients whose cases are pending. Trina's JFON office is in the Wesley Student Foundation house at 2718 University in Des Moines.
The resignation of the Eastern Iowa JFON Attorney created the need to hire a second new full-time attorney, and Gary Walters filled that position in October. Gary also is starting with about two hundred current JFON clients. Gary's JFON office is located in Cedar Rapids at 1420 1st Avenue NE, Suite 203. The types of cases which Gary and Trina are working with include asylum applicants, families in consular process, extensions of Temporary Protective Status, and people awaiting hearings in the immigration courts. The attorneys will begin monthly legal clinics at the four JFON Sites in January as Iowa Justice For Our Neighbors celebrates its ten years of providing legal services to immigrants.
For more information about Justice For Our Neighbors, or if you would like to schedule a speaker to learn more about our newcomers and immigration issues, call or write Doris Knight, Executive Director, PO Box 41006, Des Moines IA 50311, 515-277-4719,
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