Description

Armed with up-to-date legally accurate information victim advocates, attorneys, and campus based programs and university staff are better able to support campus community members students, faculty, staff, and their family members who are immigrant victims of sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, and/or human trafficking.  Participants will gain practical skills to better screen, support, and assist immigrant survivors eligible for immigration legal remedies (e.g., VAWA, T visa, U visa) and VAWA’s confidentiality protections.  As immigrant survivors of sexual assault file for victim-based forms of legal immigration relief, their ability to access benefits and services expands and there is a significant increase in survivors’ willingness to seek civil protection orders. The webinar will discuss how to design protective measures and accommodates when the survivor is an immigrant, including student visa holders. Participants will learn how to identify which immigrant survivors qualify for which public benefits and services in Colorado using NIWAP’s public benefits map, infographics, and state-by-state charts. Attendees will also be introduced to NIWAP’s technical assistance, materials, tools, directory, web library, and NIWAP’s community of practice for ongoing peer-to-peer learning.

Learning Objectives: By the end of this training participants will be better able to:

• Identify and support immigrant survivors on Campus eligible for VAWA, U visa, T-visa and SIJS legal immigration protections;
• Build and sustain collaborative relationships with law enforcement, prosecutors and court that help notify ICE that the survivor is a victim entitled to VAWA confidentiality’s protections;
• Assist immigrant survivors in obtaining creative protection order remedies; and
• Use NIWAP’s public benefits map to ensure that immigrant survivors and their children apply for and receive all of the benefits and services for which they legally qualify.

REGISTER HERE

Presenter:

Leslye E. Orloff is an Adjunct Professor and Director of the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at American University, Washington College of Law. NIWAP provides training and technical assistance that supports attorneys, judges, police, prosecutors and victim advocates in their work with immigrant victims of domestic and sexual violence and child abuse. NIWAP promotes implementation and improvements of laws, policies and practices that enhance legal protections for immigrant women and children and immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. Ms. Orloff’s 43-year career includes working collaboratively with experts across the country to develop and implement immigration relief, public benefits access and family law protections for immigrant women, children and survivors. This work includes staffing the State Justice Institute supported National Judicial Network. She was involved in drafting the protections for immigrant victims in the Violence Against Women Acts of 1994, 2000, 2005, and 2013, the Trafficking Victims Protection Acts of 2000 and 2008, and legal services and public benefits access for immigrant survivors in 1996, 1997 and 2005. She has also worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to implement these laws. Ms. Orloff has published numerous law and social science journal articles, curricula, and training materials for attorneys, law enforcement, judges and other professionals on legal rights and services options for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes. Ms. Orloff received her J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brandeis University.

This training was supported by Subgrant No. 2025-VW-26-259-02 awarded by the state administering office for the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice’s STOP Formula Grant Program. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition/training are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Division of Criminal Justice, Colorado Department of Public Safety nor the U.S. Department of Justice.