Hi, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar, Responding to Immigrant Sexual and Domestic Violence Survivors, Part One, Legal Rights to Access Healthcare, Public Benefits, and Family Law Protections. This webinar is being brought to you through International Association of Forensic Nurses Technical Assistance Project. We are grateful to be able to host Leslie Orloff and Rafaela Rodriguez from the National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project for today's webinar. Next slide, please. I would like to share a few housekeeping items with you before we begin. Today's webinar is possible due to funding provided through the Office on Violence Against Women, and the presenters of today's webinar disclose no conflict of interest. If you have multiple people watching today's webinar, please send a list of all attendees that have not formally registered to safetya.forensicnurses.org and share the evaluation link with them at the end. Members of IAFN are eligible to receive one and a half contact hours for this continuing education activity. IAFN is an approved provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Centers Commission on Accreditation. For members to obtain CE for this activity, they are asked to attend the webinar in full and complete the post-activity webinar evaluation to obtain a certificate documenting the contact hours for this activity. For non-members with the completion of the post-activity webinar evaluation, you will receive a certificate of attendance. This webinar is being recorded today and will be available on the safetya website for viewing at a later date. All registered attendees will receive an announcement once the webinar is available online. Next slide. I just want to introduce myself. I'm Kari Knadel. I'm a grants assistant here at the International Association of Forensic Nurses. I'd also like to introduce today's presenters. With us, we have Leslie Orloff, adjunct professor and director, National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project, American University Washington College of Law, presenting with Rafaela Rodriguez, Immigrant Women Law and Policy Fellow, National Immigrant Women's Advocacy Project. And if it is okay with the two of you, I will turn it over to you to get started. Great. Thank you so much. Welcome, everyone. We're very excited to be here presenting to you. I can't tell you how important it is for immigrant survivors, the role that nurses and healthcare professionals play. And we're here to help you increase your knowledge of immigrant survivors of domestic and sexual violence, legal rights, and access to healthcare, public benefits, we will also be talking about. And a big picture overview of family law protections available for immigrant survivors as well. Hi, everyone. Today, the learning objectives of this webinar at the end will be better able to help immigrant survivors access the services necessary to protect life and safety, including healthcare that are open to all persons without immigration restrictions, and also identify immigrant sexual and domestic violence survivors eligible for victim-based immigration protections, and also provide information and support for immigrant survivors who seek protections, custody, child support, and other family domestic violence remedies. So, we wanted to get to know you and who is attending this webinar today. So, if you can, I think you need to, oh, there's a poll. I was going to say you type in the chat. No, but you have a poll. Check the box that best describes you. Are you a SANE forensic nurse, healthcare professional, victim advocate, attorney, and if your role is not here, please type in the chat. So, while we're doing that, as we wait for them to come in, I'm assuming, Breanne, when they're all in, you'll explain or you'll show us. And I see we've got somebody from Army joining us. I'm having trouble reading the chat. Yeah. Great. So, we've got about 47% of you are SANE forensic nurses. We have victim advocates, an attorney, and it looks like the person, I mean, as well. Great. Okay. So, today we are going to learn a little bit also about the demographics and the immigration population in the U.S. Can you please type in the chat, what are the top five languages other than English and Spanish spoken at home in your state? What do you think it is, actually? And also, what is the language that you see the most when you are working with immigrant populations? And this one, you can type in the chat. Cora Mung. I'm sure many of you, all of us that work in this field, see a lot of cases of co-occurring domestic violence and child abuse. Anytime there's a co-occurring domestic violence and child abuse case and the perpetrator of the domestic violence is the, or the child abuse, I'm sorry, is the father of the child or the mother of the child, the parent of the child, parent perpetrated abuse, abandonment or neglect, a child who's a non-citizen or an immigrant who is abused, abandoned, or neglected by at least by one of their parents, and this could have taken place anywhere in the world, is eligible for special immigrant juvenile status. And that means, and those cases have to be adjudicated within six months. So you're talking, like if you have a mother who's a victim of sexual assault and their child was also a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence, or child abuse, that child's immigration case, if the child files additionally for the special immigrant juvenile status case, in addition to the UVISA case, that their mother be included in their mother's application, the child's case will move much faster by filing for special immigrant juvenile status. And that this is available, the two big categories of people you'll see are children abused by their parents in the United States, but you could also see children who are abused or, and the abuse could have been sexual assault or domestic, you know, or child abuse, or child abandonment or neglect occurring abroad. So you could have a child sexual assault victim where it's stranger sexual assault, who was abandoned by a parent in their home country, that would also call. Next slide, please. So the next one that I want to describe is called, is a T visa for human trafficking victims, and the T visa covers foreign-born people who are victims of severe forms of human trafficking, and that is either sex or labor trafficking, involving either a victim under the age of 18 or an adult who's subject to force, fraud, or coercion in context of either the sex or labor trafficking. They have to be physically present on the United States on account of trafficking, which may be they went to a workplace and were not allowed to leave, they were locked in, or they were tricked, or they, you know, they thought they were getting a job, you know, at a restaurant, and they ended up in a brothel, and it could be a lot of these kinds of situations. And they have to be, comply with reasonable requests to be helpful in a prosecution, either state or federal, unless they're under the age of 18 or they can show physical or emotional trauma, and then they have to show extreme hardship if they would have been removed to the United States. The definition on the next slide, we give you the full definition of labor and sex trafficking under federal law. It's also similar in most states. This definition parallels state law. Some states have broader definitions, but it's basically, and that what's really important is that sex trafficking involves a commercial act against involving somebody under 18 or induced by force, fraud, or coercion. Labor trafficking is recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining a person for labor of services using force, fraud, or coercion for purposes of subjection to involuntary punish, debt bondage, or slavery. Now, what's interesting here is the Department of Homeland Security has recently come out with, and you should be looking for, labor trafficking occurring in domestic violence relationships, because many, like if they force somebody to work and they don't pay them or they will abuse them if they don't work, they could be a victim of human trafficking. So, the question that came in is, let's say you encounter someone potentially eligible for TBJ, what would be the next steps in the context of seeing them in the hospital for an acute exam? What I would say is that in the healthcare context, you want to document their experience of the abuse and whatever you can identify in terms of your human trafficking and refer them to a victim advocate who can assist them in getting training and support. Age is really important. We're going to be talking about this in a little bit, because trafficking victims under the age of 21 are eligible to get assistance from HHS through the Office of Trafficking in Persons program, and it gives them lots of access to public benefits, and we'll be talking about that in greater detail. We're going to show you, through this hypothetical, how easy it is to identify people who are eligible for immigration relief, and I just want to say, Audrey, to your question as well before I go there, is that anything you can do in a forensic exam to document injuries and the harm to the patient will be helpful in any type of immigration case we're talking about, because victims have to prove that the criminal activity or the crime that they suffered harm, either in the UVISA case or the T-VISA case or even the VAWA self-petition, that the abuse occurred and the documentation you can do in a hospital setting is a really, really important piece of evidence that can help them. So, Clara met Eduardo in a lawful permanent resident when he came back to his hometown to visit his family in El Salvador. Eduardo started dating Clara, who was raising her nine-year-old son Miguel. After Clara became pregnant and gave birth to baby girl Lupe, Eduardo decided to bring Clara, Miguel, and Lupe to the U.S. to live with him. When they arrived in the U.S., Eduardo took Clara, Miguel, and Lupe's passports and became physically and sexually abusive of Clara and abusive of Miguel, who tried to protect his mother from Eduardo's abuse. Eduardo also physically beat Lupe when she, quote, misbehaved. Within a year following their arrival in the U.S., Eduardo forced Clara and Miguel to work for his family business and never paid them for their labor. One night when Miguel was 13 and Lupe was five, Eduardo's rage led to severe beatings with the belts of Miguel and Lupe. When Clara intervened to protect the children, Eduardo strangled her until she passed out. The neighbors called the police for help. Clara talked to the police when they arrived. The police arrested Eduardo for attempted murder and child abuse and took Clara to the hospital for a forensic medical examination. Rafaela? So we are going to ask you a few questions about the scenario that we just read. So what forms of immigration relief did Clara qualify for? A, a new visa? B, a valid self-position as a parent of Lupe? C, a two-year visa? Or D, all of the above? And you can go ahead and guess, guess freely, and you'll see how easy this is. I'm going to go back here to the scenario if someone wants the details. Brianne, you'll share the results when they're ready. Okay. So 86% of you said all of the above, and 14% or one of you said self-position as a parent of Lupe. And next, we're going to give you a bunch of these. So hopefully some of the other ones will jump in and guess. The answer is all of the above. So she's eligible for a new visa because of the physical and sexual assault she suffered from Eduardo. She's eligible for a self-petition as the parent of Lupe because Lupe is a child abuse victim. And even if Clara wasn't abused herself, a foreign-born parent who's trying to protect their child is eligible to self-petition as well. And she's eligible as a T visa victim because she was forced to work and not pay. Okay. And I think I'll stop there. Yeah. So the next one is what forms of immigration relief would Lupe not qualify for? A, a vow of self-petition. B, a new visa. C, a T visa. Or D, SIJ. And this one you can check all that apply. Oh, no. This one you're checking. Sorry. Okay. Shall we see the results? Okay. I think we're intimidating them a few fewer answers this time. So the answer is a T visa. Lupe, because Lupe is a little girl and she wasn't forced to work. Yeah, Miguel was forced to work. Miguel was forced to work. Okay, wait, okay, there we go. So Lupe can self petition because she is a child abuse victim abused by her lawful permanent resident father. So she's eligible to self petition. She's eligible for a U visa because she's a child abuse victim. Again, she was beaten with the belt and beaten a number of times by her father. And she's eligible for special immigrant juvenile status because she's a victim of child abuse by her father without regard to a father's steps. Now, if her mother Lupe, no, her mother Clara filed the T visa, Clara could have been included as a child in her mother's T visa application even though she herself wasn't trapped. Okay, next one. One more, we're gonna try Miguel now. And this is, go ahead, Rafaela. What forms of immigration relief would Miguel qualify for? And this is a check all that apply. So A, vows of petition, B, new visa, C, T visa or D, S, IJ. Come on guys, guess away. You don't have to be afraid. Okay. Brianne, how are we doing? Okay, so this one is, so let me start from the top. As to vows of petition, so this is actually the trick question or one of the trick questions. Miguel, if Clara and Eduardo were married Miguel would be a stepson and would be eligible for vows of petition. But because in this scenario, there was no marriage he's not eligible to vows of petition. He is eligible for the U visa because he was beaten by his mother's boyfriend and he's eligible for a T visa because he was forced to work and wasn't paid. He's not eligible for S, IJ, S because even if there was a marriage because you have to be abused by your parent not your stepdad. So, but you can see that no matter what if you have child abuse and you have domestic violence and you have sexual assault, you'll fall into one of these buckets which is really the point of this. And that we have checklists and tools that we can give you so it's really easy to screen if you have a client and you're trying to figure out what they might be eligible for. Next slide, please. Thank you, Brianne for the polls. Okay, so one of the reasons you go through this is that, so Miguel, let's turn to Miguel for a minute. So Miguel was forced, a child forced to work. So he's a child trafficking victim, labor trafficking. Your agency, so your SANE program, your victim advocacy program, your legal services program can file a request for assistance with the office of trafficking persons at HHS on Miguel's behalf. It's a simple form that gets filled out. Anybody can do it on behalf of a child. And basically what it does is it says, this child may be a victim of human trafficking. We're notifying you and then HHS will investigate. They'll get back to you and say, how can I talk to the child? Who else might've seen what happened? And they'll make a determination about whether or not Miguel is a child trafficking victim. And if he is, they will issue an OTIP letter, an office of trafficking persons letter, which will give Miguel access to federal public benefits to the same extent as refugees. TANF, SSI, food stamps, subsidized healthcare. It is the broadest access to public benefits that immigrants can get. And he can get that before he ever files for a T visa or a T visa or for a U visa. And he can get those benefits when he files his immigration case while he's waiting for the immigration to go along. So those wait times we're talking about from a benefits perspective, wouldn't apply to Miguel. Okay, next slide, please. And you might ask, why am I giving you all this immigration stuff? We do healthcare. What do we care? And the reason it matters is from an immigration perspective, what public benefits in your state a victim is eligible for depends on which type of immigration relief they have or qualify for and applied for. So once they start applying, their benefits access increases. And this is a cheat sheet for you. I'm not gonna go over all the details here, but it gives you a picture of how broadly, like, for example, in the healthcare subsidies issue, if somebody is, if a child, Miguel or Lupe, are either a T visa or a VAWA self-petition or they apply for special immigrant juvenile status, in 35 states, they're immediately eligible for healthcare subsidies. So it moves quite quickly. Whereas if they're a U visa victim, it takes five years. Okay, and for adults that those wait times are much longer as you can see for adult health care down below. That the shortest are VAWA self-petitioners and T visas. In many states though, the victims have much longer waits up to 21 years if it's a U visa. Okay, next slide, please. And the other reason this matters is that we've done social science research and that once immigrant victims apply for immigration relief and they get to the point in their immigration case where they get work authorization. So that's gonna be three months for some VAWA self-petitioners, 18 months for others. SIJS children, it'll be six months. U visas, it'll be five years. But once they get to that point, their lives change dramatically. They begin using the justice system more. Their mental health improves dramatically. They're more likely to seek like healthcare for themselves and their children. And so you can see the major differences in their sleeping better, easier to make decisions, more focused, independent, less depressed. All of that starts happening before they ever get the immigration relief when they get work authorization and formal protection from deportation. Next slide, please. So now we are gonna talk about how, we are gonna talk about benefits that are open to all immigrants regardless of their immigration status. So- Can I just say one thing, Rafael? Yeah. So this is, just so you know, we've been talking about all those immigration reliefs, but Rafael is gonna now be talking about what they get before they file, what everybody gets, whether or not they file for immigration. Back to you. Exactly. So we have some benefits that are available to everyone regardless of immigration relief. So if you are working with an immigrant and you encounter them and they haven't applied for any type of immigration relief and you wanna help them or you wanna know what are the benefits that they can access being an undocumented immigrant. So here we have a list. We have legal service that they can apply for. They have access to emergency medical care. They can also access care from community and migrant health clinics. They also have access to immunizations, primary and secondary educations. They have access to shelter, transitional housing, child custody and support, and also assistance for crime victims as well. So there's a attorney general list of required service. And these are the servers that are open to all immigrants. They need to be in-kind service. They need to be provided at a community level and they are not based on an individual's income or resources. Meaning you don't get any questions related about their income and how much they receive to access this immigration benefits. So, and this benefits also, they need to be necessary to protect life and safety. So this in-kind service that are necessary to protect life and safety open to all immigrants are victim's assistance, the soup kitchens, community food bank, and as I mentioned, the shelter and transitional housing as well, and nutrition programs for those requiring special assistance, treatment of mental illness and substance abuse as well. So federal benefits that are available to all immigrants are the elementary and secondary education, school lunch and breakfast, week as well, immunizations, testing and treatment of communicable diseases and emergency Medicaid as well. So when children qualify, also this is an important one for instance, nurses and the victim's advocates that we have here. When a children qualifies and their parents do not qualify, immigration agency may only ask questions about the child's eligibility to the benefits. No questions can be asked about the parent's eligibility or their immigration status to a child's access to the federal benefits. Yeah, do you have anything else to say Leslie about this as well? No, and that it's just important for you all to understand that, and cause you can be the kinds of, you can be supportive of people because a lot of times people are afraid to apply cause they think they have to answer questions. And sometimes you can help connect them with victim services agencies and things like that so that people can accompany them in applying for benefits that their children apply for. And that company is really important not only in that context, but as we'll be talking about a little bit later in the webinar, as they apply for immigration relief they become more eligible for benefits and victims are often turned away from benefits they're eligible for because people, the benefits workers make presumptions based on their perceptions about their immigration status and whether they qualify. So it's really, good advocacy is, this is an area where good advocacy is super helpful. Mm-hmm. And related to that, again, those of you that are doing, as seen nurses and others, is that it's important to understand that both Office of Violence Against Women funded legal services have no restrictions based on immigration status, that it's open for anybody and that legal services corporation, legal services are also available to victims of domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking and anything that was on that long list that Rafaela showed you in the beginning, if you're a victim of any of those crimes, legal services is able to represent you as a crime victim through their anti-abuse legislation, regulations and that they are immigration restrictions do not apply to immigrant survivors. And this is another area we're doing a forensic exam either a sexual assault exam or other kind of hospital exam documenting somebody's injuries could be a key piece of proof that somebody would then take to legal services and say, I'm a victim, I can get representation without regard to their immigration status. Next slide, please. So the question for you now, where can immigrant survivors receive health care that is subsidized without regard to immigration status? Undocumented immigrants, where they can receive health care that is subsidized? Type in the chat, please. Some of you must have some ideas. There we go. Please put your responses in the chat. Thanks, Brianne. Anybody? Health departments. Yep. Where else? Anyone else? Public health. Yep. Anybody else? Okay, let's go to the next slide. So social work. Yep, you can get social work assistance. Emergency department. There we go. So basically migrant and community health clinics are open to anyone without regard to immigration status. And you can go to the HHS website and type in the zip code or the National Association of Health Clinics, type in the zip code and find assistance. VOCA-funded post-assault health care is available without regard to immigration status. Emergency Medicaid is available to everyone without regard to immigration status. And I think we have one more. Yes, next slide, please. And people can get immunization and testing. For example, COVID treatment was available without guard. But hospitals also, in addition to emergency departments, some hospitals are funded by an act from years ago called Hilberton. And you can go into here and look up, go to HHS, type in HHS Hilberton, and you can look up what hospitals in your community are obligated to provide free care without regard to immigration status, free care for people who are poor, that came with the funding they received to build their hospitals. So you can look those up here. Next slide, please. And federally qualified health centers, I don't know what MTALA, if you could spell that out, that would be great. Federally qualified health centers can provide a full range of health care to survivors. So not only can they treat immigrants, their immediate needs because of the domestic violence or sexual assault, but they can become where they get, you know, well, you know, their regular internal medicine treatments, you know, checkups and where they can take their children. So it's much broader. Next slide, please. So yes, that's correct. It's emergent, that is MTALA. And we actually have a tool, which I'll, when Rafael is presenting, I'll put in the chat for you on looking up what immigrants can get, and everybody gets under emergency Medicaid by state. But basically emergency Medicaid covers, it covers treatment for when somebody, the patient's health is in jeopardy or there's an impairment of a bodily function or dysfunction of an organ or part. And it did include COVID-19 treatment and testing, or does include. But where do you think most immigrant victims, where are you gonna see most immigrant victims seeking emergency Medicaid? Any idea? There's a clue in the chat. Anybody wanna guess? We are, yes. Emergency department, yes. But what are they seeking? What are they seeking? Yeah. What is the emergency? What's the emergency? No. It's childbirth. Yeah. So most of the immigrant survivors, you will get emergency, the two main areas they'll be seeking emergency Medicaid are childbirth, not prenatal care, but childbirth. And the physical injuries is, well, three actually, childbirth, SANE exams, and the physical injuries resulting from the domestic violence or sexual assault, are the three. Next slide, please. So these are the resources we have. They're gonna be on a website link that we'll send to you, but I'll try to put a couple of them in the chat as we're talking, but we have state-by-state charts on VOCA funded post-assault healthcare, emergency Medicare, forensic exams, and prenatal care by state for immigrants, where you can see what they're eligible for, which is pretty much everything, but it explicitly talks about immigrants. Next slide, please. This one. And so our forensic exam chart tracks eligibility, including immigrant eligibility and what services are paid and how key terms are defined, and the forensic exam application process in each state, as well as notice reporting and record requirements. Next slide, please. So I think this is a, yes. So we have a fact or myth question. I think it's the next slide, this one. Okay, so I'm talking about immigrant victims have legal right to access emergency shelter and transitional housing. Is that a fact or myth? So we're gonna start with emergency shelter. So is it fact or myth? Can they access emergency shelter? Oh, yeah. Fact, 78% and myth, 22%. So the answer is, it is a fact. There are no immigrants restrictions on emergency shelter, not domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters. None of them have any restrictions. And there'll be a ton of materials on the website that we send you where you can look up the memos from HUD and OVW and HHS on them. Next slide, please. Do we have transitional housing? We do have a question about undocumented immigrant victims have access, legal rights to access transitional housing. Is that fact or myth? Or is it a fact or a myth? Okay, 83%, the fact, 70% is a myth and it is a fact. It is a fact. So all the transitional housing programs nationally are open to people without regard to immigration status. So let's go to the next poll and dig a little bit more deeply into this. If you have worked with an immigrant victim who has turned away from transitional housing, why were they denied access? A, they did not have work authorization. B, victim's immigration status. C, lack of self-sufficiency. And D, all the above. And if you haven't actually worked with somebody, what would you guess might've happened? I think this question is more based on your experience and what you heard from the field. Yep. Brianna, are we ready? Okay. 38% of the above. 25% did not have work authorization, 25% as well lack of self-sufficiency and 13% victims immigration status. Right. And it's correct. The answer is all of the above that what happens is, well, it's not correct. Actually, all of these are wrong. So what's supposed to happen is they're not supposed to turn anybody away without regard to their immigration status but what happens with immigrant victims and this is another example of we're having good advocacy is really important. Because some programs will say, if you're coming into transitional housing, you need to be able to show you can be self-sufficient, and then they'll decide how people have to prove self-sufficiency. So if somebody is cleaning a bunch of houses and getting paid in cash, they might not they might want to, you know, proof of, you know, paycheck or something that they won't have. But they are working. A lot of immigrant survivors will be working. And so they may be able to prove self-sufficiency but in a different way. And if they are screened and begin the process of filing for immigration relief. All of those immigration cases will end up with the victim getting work authorization, so that they'll be on a path to self-sufficiency, they can prove they're on a path of self-sufficiency. If they can show they've applied for immigration. Now the question about employer letter enough, absolutely employer letter could be enough. Again, none of these programs should be imposing any of these restrictions on transitional housing. But if they are and they are working. Sometimes it's easier to get the employer letter and turn it in to them and say she she qualifies, then to argue about whether they're doing it right or wrong. So, they'll be victims who are undocumented and in the process of applying for VAWA and TNU, think about it this way, somebody applies for a new visa is going to be formally undocumented for 21 years while they wait the visa to be available. Or actually, it's 15 years or something like that. But it takes a long time before they ever get a document. So they're undocumented, they're here with legal presence, DHS knows they're here, they're not going to deport them. But they're not going to have work authorization for five years and they're not going to have a visa for 15. And so, the, these programs so the point here is that. And that's a good question about who is size, nobody should be deciding what self sufficiency is as to victims of domestic violence sexual assault, human trafficking stalking dating violence transitional housing program shouldn't be asking any of these questions for eligibility. And this is an area where we have all these tools that can help you support them. You're working with victims who are applying. So I think I'll stop there because I can talk about transitional housing travel. Next slide please. So, we already, we were spoken about speaking about how the benefits are available to all immigrants, but now we are going to learn how immigration relief can actually increase the access to to federal benefit benefits to children and victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. 57% said it's a myth and 43% said it's a fact. So it's, we got it pretty even, right? It's a myth actually, that there are only, so in order, so an immigrant who has the wherewithal and the money to purchase health insurance, who wants to purchase through an exchange cannot. They have to be what's called a qualified immigrant in order to be able to purchase healthcare on the exchange. And so even if they're not getting a subsidy, they have to qualify to purchase. And so what we're gonna do now is walk through the various forms of immigration relief and which ones lead to somebody becoming a qualified immigrant and which do not. Yeah, so the qualified immigrants benefits are, qualified immigrants are the ones that are eligible to federal and state funded benefits. And these are the local permanent residents. And this includes the recipients of the U visa and SIJ. And for example, the recipients of the U visas can take, I don't know, 21 years now, less than to receive local permanent residency. We also have the refugees and asylums. Values of petitioner, it takes up to three years to receive. Actually, they become qualified immigrants in three months. Three months, okay, yeah. And trapping victims with continual presence or when they receive the HH letter, which is the bona fide determination and TB petition. The ones that are not qualified immigrants and they usually not, generally they are not eligible to federal and public benefits are asylums applicants, the DACA recipients as well. U visas applicants and U visa recipients, but not up to when they have the local permanent residency. Working student visa holders and undocumented. And we are saying here generally because it also depends on state law. So sometimes you'll have federal law that says these immigrants are not qualified. And then you have some specific state laws that are, they guarantee access to immigration. But it's also depends a lot of state by state. And also we have, we are gonna see that we have states that gives more than the federal law, but we also have states that are more restrictive and give less. So qualified immigrants, qualified immigrants. Can I go back for one second to go back to the slide? So one of the things I wanna make clear, you can go back for a second, is that as to qualified immigrants for SIJ and U visas, they actually have to become lawful permanent residents before they become qualified immigrants. Whereas VAWA self petitioners and trafficking victims become qualified immigrants much earlier. So those are, that's why you wanna screen for all of the different kinds of reliefs because you wanna try from a public benefits perspective to fit as many people into the VAWA self petitioning and trafficking buckets as you can. Yeah, under the qualified immigrant umbrella, as you said. Exactly. So, and it depends on, for example, VAWA self petitioner and trafficking are doing the process of applying for immigrant relief, which is different from U and SIJ. Right. So all qualified immigrants can access some federal public benefits and these benefits, they also depends on some things. So it depends on the immigration status. It depends when they enter in the United States. We have sometimes immigrants that enter before 1996 have more access to public benefits than the ones who entered after 1996. And whether they meet the higher program requirements for some, from some benefits and what benefits are offered by the states. As I mentioned, you have states that are more restrictive regarding public benefits and you have states that are more generous regarding public benefits. So what are the federal benefits? So federal public, so the ones who has restrictions on immigration, immigrants access are the ones that are categorized as federal public benefits and state public benefits or what they call federal means tested public benefits. So it is a public benefit or federal and state public benefit when he has a payment that is made directly to an individual, a household or a family eligibility unit. If you don't have a payment that is made directly to individual household or a family eligibility unit it's probably not a federal benefit. So on here, we have examples of what is the federal public benefit. So grants, contracts, loans, and the professional and the driver's license, they are all federal public benefits. So you have a payment that is made directly to this, to the agency or to someone or to some organization. And also federally funded benefits are retirement, welfare, health, disability, post-secondary education when you receive a loan, for example, public or assisted housing, food assistance and unemployment insurance, for example, they're all categorized under the umbrella of federally funded benefits. So I was gonna say one of the examples, for example, what is not a federal public benefit is we already mentioned transitional housing, even though the organizations or a shelter, for example, an organization that is running the shelter receives federal money or receives a grant. If this payment is not made directly to an individual or a family or a family unit, this is not considered a federal public benefits. And that's why it's open to all immigrants regardless of their immigration status. And who are the qualified immigrants? We already spoken a little bit about them, but they are the lawful criminal, residents, refugees, islanders, Cuban, Haitians, veterans, Amerasians, the trafficking victims, filing for or with the T visas, filing for who has the bona fide or the HHS letter, person granted conditional entry, parole into the U.S. one year or more and person granted withholding of deportation or cancellation of removal and VAWA as well. And just one thing here. So for example, right now, Ukrainians and Afghanis if you're seeing Ukrainians and Afghans, they're gonna fall into the person's paroled into the United States for a year or more. And that's how they become qualified immigrants. And there's an independent law that treats them like refugees. So again, just to reiterate, we've talked about this a lot that human trafficking survivors for children, you want to identify them early in a file for an OTIP letter. For adults, they get the letter from HHS saying they're eligible for benefits by applying for their T visa or by applying for continued presence. And that it's also important to understand that with children who get OTIP letters, it comes not only with benefits but with an HHS assigned caseworker which could be super important to that child. Next slide, please. So this is a partial list of what people get when they... So if you're a qualified immigrant, what do you get? You get to purchase healthcare on the exchanges. You get access depending on the state to subsidize healthcare. You get public and assisted housing. You get supportive housing for the elderly. You and any children you have included in your application gets access to post-secondary educational grants and loans through FAFSA, subsidized healthcare. You can receive foster care payments, adoption assistance. There's a whole list of things you get without if you're a qualified immigrant. And then there are like four buckets of programs that are the hardest to get that will depend very much on state law. And that's subsidized healthcare, both Medicaid and CHIP, TANF, food stamps, and SSI. And this will depend. Some of you, particularly those of you working, seeing sexual assault survivors, I always get them. I have a math issue here, but anytime you're working with a sexual assault survivor who entered the country prior to August 22nd, 1996. So I don't know if they entered in August 1st, 1996, how old they would be today, but they could be- 27, 28. 27, okay. So anybody 27 years or older, and this is like in the sweet spot of what you're gonna see in terms of clients of domestic violence and sexual assault, you wanna see if they entered the country as a child. Because if they entered really young before 96, these five-year bars don't apply to them and they're directly eligible for benefits once they become qualified immigrants. So it's just important to know that in addition to what Rafaela is gonna show you about the benefits chart, finding out when they entered the country, particularly with people in their 20s and 30s is really important, and older. And based what Leslie already explained and how complicated can be access to public benefits, the access of public benefits for immigrant survivors, that's why we made a public benefits map. So we have a public, interactive public benefits map in our web library. We have public benefits for all 50 states and territories in District of Columbia, that also is divided by the immigration status of the applicant. So we are gonna do a demonstration in a few minutes, but here we have also a guide to the public benefits map, teach you how to navigate the map. So you go to the map and then we have three different resources. We have a screen chart, a full public benefits chart and the list of demographic of each state. So when you enter the web page, and I will show you in a few minutes, you have this three resources and they are three different things that contains some of the same information. So the screening chart is a quick desktop reference. You wanna know very quickly if your client is eligible or not for the benefits, you can go to the screening chart and you are gonna have a very simple explanation of eligible, not eligible or eligible with conditions. And if you wanna know more details on what are the conditions that this immigrant can access this specific benefits, you can go to the full public benefits chart which has all the information and all the laws regarding to that specific public benefits. So I will show you this in a minute. You can also open, yeah. So the maps, our benefits has all this public benefits included in the map. So we have tenant child care, we have driver's license, emergency and transitional housing and safety programs, emergency Medicaid, family medical leave, healthcare insurance exchange, prenatal care, VOCA and WIC and all of this and Medicaid as well. So I'm gonna open here. Let's hope that this is gonna work. Yeah, you can see it, right? Yep. Okay, so here is our public benefits. Choose a state, Leslie. Oh, I don't know, Missouri. No, take Illinois, take Illinois. No, I'll just click Michigan. That's Michigan. Okay, so yeah. So here, as I mentioned, we have the screening charts and the full public benefits chart. Here, this information that you have, that we mentioned, the quick desktop is the same information that you're gonna have in the screening chart. So you can have here also online here. So as I mentioned- And can I jump in and say one thing? The screening chart combines different kinds of immigration status, like the asylees and refugees are together. But if you really wanna look for a particular client, the screening, the online map divides it up into tiny categories. So you can specifically see the battered spouse waiver versus the VAWA self-petitioner versus the Afghan versus Ukrainian, et cetera. Yeah, I was gonna mention that we also included here on the online map, the Afghans and the Ukrainians as well. And you can see that we have most of the, actually all of the immigration benefits or immigration reliefs that we are mentioning. So we have continuing presence, especially immigrant and juvenile status, U-Visa, and U-Visa is divided in three categories. The U-Visa recipients, the U-Visa with bona fide- Bona fide determination. Determination, and the U-Visa applicants and petitioners. And we have also the undocumented one. And if you- Oh, you're good, good. Yeah, so if you wanna see it in a larger version, you can click here in the bottom, your larger version, and it's gonna open the online table for you. So it's a better visualization as well. You can also sort by, you can also choose the, let's do a tall one, and then you can see all the, you can see all the information that we have here. So if we go here, emergency Medicaid is easy because it's open. Let's do- Here we go. There we go, legal services. Legal services, okay. So legal service here, and then we can go by legal service in Michigan and the status of our self-petitioner. You can see it's eligible with conditions and fully eligible. And then you click here to expand and read the whole stuff. So eligible legal service with condition fully eligible and victims fire lawful permanent residency. Eligible for VAWA funded legal service. So if you want more information about which conditions are this, and then you go, what we mentioned, to the full public benefits chart. You wanna click one and just show them what it looks like when you open it? So this is where lawyers and law students love it, but we have, you can look everything up. And if you go all the way to the bottom, there are all the footnotes you need to know what the law is so you can go in and advocate for the client. Yeah, and one of the thing is here on this full chart, we have here on the regular writing, you can see that we have here in italics and here on regular writing. The regular writing is federal law and the italics are the state law. Yeah. Excellent. So I was just gonna show you what has been mentioned. See, we have all this footnotes and it's all the laws regarding the benefits. So you don't have to ever learn it. You can just look it up by client based on what's happening because I'll tell you, I do this for a living. I'm one of the experts in the country on this and I can't remember all the different statuses in every state, which is why we did this partially. Yeah, and we also do our best to get this most updated as possible. But if you know that your state changed the law of specific benefits, please send it to us and we can update the public benefits as well. We usually do it within 44, 42, two or three days of you calling us we can get it updated. Yeah. Which happened to hit us when we have no students, which, you know, during exam period or something like that, it might take a little long. Yeah. The last thing that I want to show to you on the screening chart is that we have links to all those state websites as well. So the screening chart, as we mentioned, is way more simplified than the full chart. And all these programs here, they have links to the state programs where they can, it takes you to the website where you can directly apply for the benefits. That's it. I think that's good. So we're going to spend just the last 15 minutes of this presentation. So any questions, let me just pause for a second and say that that was part one of benefits access for immigrant survivors. And can you go back to that full list, Rafaela, for a second? Yeah. Yes. Perfect. So we're going to have a part two of this webinar in which we're going to describe to you more information about immigrant eligibility for all of these different programs. So in addition to using the map, we're going to give you a little bit more depth on immigrant survivors access, particularly around everything related to healthcare. So that'll be part two coming up next month. Okay. Back to family law, please. So now what we want to do is give you an overview of some of the big picture issues. I mean, you guys, again, people in the healthcare setting, forensic nurses and nurses in particular, are screening for domestic violence and sexual assault and victimization all the time. And you're also kind of the first person who might be able to say to a victim, you're eligible for a protection order, whether or not you're an immigrant. And so what I wanted to do is spend the last several minutes, and please, if you have questions about anything we've covered so far, or anything you wondered or you expected to hear that we haven't covered, type them in the chat and you can play, like, stump the faculty. But usually we're pretty good about being able to answer things. So please ask us whatever you're insisting. And if we don't answer them today, we can build those questions into the next webinar. So what I want to start with is, next slide, please. So basically, from the victims that you've worked with, what do the immigrant survivors tell you about their fears about obtaining a protection order or custody of their children from the family court? What do you hear? What do you think their fears might be? You know, what, if anything, do you know about that, or have you had clients ask or patients ask? We'll take a sip while you're filling in the chat box, Opal. Thank you. Rafaela, maybe I'll ask you to think about an answer if we don't get any about what, you know, you've heard from technical assistance or some of the questions we get. Well, immigrants also, they are a lot of times afraid to, afraid of deportation and to go to courts as well, or fear of enforcement and prosecution against them. And they also are afraid to lose the custody of their child as well because they are immigrants. Have to return to another country and their spouse will keep the children in the United States. That is absolutely one of the biggest issues. So let's go to that one first. Next slide, please. So the first thing that is important to note that we should all know as service providers, health professionals, and everything else, is what the social science data shows us, is that when immigrant mothers get protections or non-abusive parents get protection, seek protection orders, get immigration relief, begin applying for benefits, that those protections from mothers dramatically lower the coherence of child abuse in those families, in immigrant families, and substantially reduce, they're one third less likely to receive threats that the perpetrator are going to take the children away. And so another fear is that the perpetrator might become violent or the perpetrator is the main source of income. And I'm going to, OK, let me pause for that other question a second, I don't want to lose my train of thought. So next slide, please. And so what's important to understand about custody is that immigration status is generally what it's relevant to in a custody case is proof of, let's say, the power and control, the way users are using immigration status to control their victims. So a victim in a custody case would say he could have filed papers for me and withdrew them, or he's threatening to turn me in for deportation, or he said, if I come to the court, I'll be arrested. Those kinds of things are relevant in a custody case. Other thing to mention, just because I can't remember if I have slides on this, but immigration enforcement against crime victims is prohibited by federal statutes across the country and has been for decades. Under VAWA confidentiality laws, and so courthouses and now there are policies that prohibit immigration enforcement against anybody at a courthouse without like supervisor approval way up in the Department of Homeland Security. And it is so strict that cases have to be every single time ICE or CBP thinks about doing that. It has to get reported to Secretary Mayorkas's office. So it's not happening right now. So it's good. It's important for you to know. And that for custody purposes, immigration status isn't relevant to who's the primary caretaker, evaluating parenting skills, best interest of the child determination and requirements that non-abusive parents don't get custody. So, in fact, as to custody, immigrant victims who have this is where a well-documented case of the abuse they've suffered from the hospital could be helpful. Also helpful is if they got a protection order, if they're a victim of domestic violence and they prove they're a victim of domestic violence. All of that can help immigrant survivors win custody. And so and that it's also important to know, and I will get to the protection orders as well. Rafael, just help me track this, make sure I don't miss anything when we go to the next slide. And there's also a lot of myths is that sometimes the victims will be afraid that he'll get custody because she's undocumented and think that they're imminently going to be deported. Well, that's not true. Immigrant, only certain immigrants are likely to be deported. And I'll show you that on the next slide. In fact, generally speaking, undocumented immigrant parents are not likely to be deported. And if they get either protection orders or custody orders or they have evidence that they're abused, domestic violence victims, again, where the hospital records are important. They're much less they're they're supposed to not be they're supposed to be protected as crime victims and as caregivers of children and not deported. It turns out that the parent most likely to flee the United States with the child is not the undocumented immigrant. It's somebody who's a dual national or has a visa to come and go from the United States. And getting to the question you first asked about, they'll argue, well, I know the abuser is supporting the family and therefore is the one that will get the children. Not true. Courts can order child support. Protection order. Courts can order economic relief. And if victims file for immigration relief, they're on a path where they're going to gain more benefits, which is economic relief and have a path to work authorization. I also found in my own cases as to the question about the abuser and support in many, many cases with immigrant survivors, the perpetrator is promising to support the family, but actually isn't giving the victim the money. And so that support isn't really there in many of the cases. So as to be an issue. And when the victim can have her own path to work authorization, it becomes even less of an issue. Next slide, please. This slide I give you to show that the only people who are and have been for many years at most risk for deportation are people with criminal convictions. And so unless you're working with clients with criminal convictions, you don't have to worry, particularly if they're crime victims, that they're going to be removed. If you do have a crime victim that you're working with with criminal convictions, call us. We do technical assistance on that. And we can help her connect, get connected to the kinds of legal services and support she needs. Next slide, please. OK, so before we go to child custody, can you answer the question about how protection orders work, how perpetrators track? Last question, how to protect an order of work so that. OK, so as to protection orders, which I think is coming up in a slide or two, but that's fine, I'll do it now. OK, that's OK. Protection orders are basically civil orders of protection that order the perpetrator not to molest, assault, threaten or physically abuse the victim. They're open to everyone in every state, whether or not there is a criminal case at all. It is an independent remedy that the victim can pursue who's a victim of domestic violence. Many states also have sexual assault protection orders. Some state have stalking and some states have trafficking victims protection orders. And I'm happy to announce that there's going to be a brand new webinar on protection orders that we can send you the link to sign up to attend in detail about protection orders and immigrant victims. And I believe it's August 17th is the date that we're going to be doing that. I'm going to be presenting with two state protection order judges or experts in protection order. So you can join us for that webinar as well. The other thing that's important to note is that every parent, without regard to immigration status, whether they're undocumented, whether they're in immigration detention or deportation, have a constitutional right to care and custody of their children. Next slide, please. This slide, let's skip this. This slide summarizes all the different places that are protected from immigration enforcement. And it includes not only courthouses, but shelters, rape crisis centers, victim services programs and medical and health care facilities. So DHS policies currently prohibit immigration enforcement at all of these locations. And we wanted to be sure you were aware of them. Next slide, please. We're now going to turn to protection orders. And in addition to what I said, so civil protection orders are available in every state. They're available in every state for domestic violence, intimate partner cases and family violence. So abuse by a parent against a child or a family member against another family member related by blood or marriage. Some states, many states also have sexual assault protection orders. But what's important to understand about the immigration status part of this is is that all persons are eligible to receive protection orders without regard to immigration status of any parent, any child, any party, the victim or the abuser has no effect. Issuance of protection is no effect on their immigration status. Violation of a protection order is a deportable offense. And so it's important, you know, victims have to do safety planning around that. And it's important that victims don't get protection orders issued against them. Next slide, please. Immigrant survivors also need creative. Every state has the power to issue what we call creative protection order remedies that can stop immigration related abuse. It can protect victims who continue to live with their abusers. And we know that 40 to 60 percent of VAWA self petitioners and new visa victims, immigrant victims stay with their abusers until they get work authorization. And so they don't have to be separated in any state to get a protection order. And we do a lot of technical assistance around that. If you have questions or cases where people are telling you otherwise, they can help deter parental kidnapping. They can order the abuser to pay the child and the victim's health insurance. Next slide. And I'm going to end on kind of two just I'm going to say two final points, you don't have to show the slides. One is that immigrant victims who get and seek child support, it's a way to show that they're by seeking child support, it's a way to show that they're a person of good moral character and it helps in their immigration cases. And the last point is, is that divorce can be problematic for immigrant victims because it can cut them out from certain forms of immigration. And so if you have a client who's considering divorce, call us. We'll connect you with a legal services provider or an immigration to make sure that they don't do something that could connect, could harm their ability to get legal immigration steps back to you for resources. So here is our phone number. We receive technical assistance questions from our phone number, but also from our email. This is the the address of our web library. Most of the resources that we have, most of all the resources that we have are on our web library. And also we put in the chat the materials list for this training. So you can also access and we have also the materials page. But if you are receiving on the chat, the PDF with containing all the the resources for this webinar. And this these are the hotline numbers. This is how you as a health care advocate or a nurse can call us for technical assistance. And I think we're turning it back to IAFN. Yes. Oh, actually, do you want to talk? Yes, of course. So I just want to thank everyone for attending today. This webinar is being supported through IAFN's technical assistance grant. Through this grant, we have the SAFE TA website that houses educational opportunities, resources and national guiding documents. You can contact IAFN with your request for technical assistance by calling the TA line at 1-877-879-7278. You can also visit SAFE TA dot org to submit a request form. The button is located on the web page of SAFE TA dot org. Next slide. We do have some upcoming webinars that you can continue the learning. Visit SAFE TA dot org backsplash events backsplash events to learn more and you can register today. As noted earlier in this webinar, there is a part two to this. I will follow up with everyone who registered for today with the link for that webinar. That's going to be happening in August. And I just want to thank Leslie and Rafaela for being with us today. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We will be sending an evaluation out to everyone who attended today with an email following this webinar. We look forward to connecting with you all in the future. Thank you for attending and have a great day. Thank you so much for hosting us and thank you, Brianne, for your support. Thank you, everyone.

webinar

immigrant survivors

legal rights

healthcare access

public benefits

family law protections

forensic nurses

U visas

T visas

VAWA self-petitions

SIJS

protection orders