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November 21st, 2014 – Churches Respond to Immigration Executive Action!

Post by Damon Schroeder

Damon Schroeder is the Director of US Church Mobilization for World Relief located in Wheaton, Illinois and has been seconded to The Immigration Alliance as its Executive Director. He is the founder of a Mosaic DuPage and leader of the Mission on Our Doorsteps Movement. Damon grew up as a missionary kid in Cyprus where his parents served with Open Doors with Brother Andrew. He is a Wheaton College graduate with ministry experience with urban youth, single mom’s transitional housing, refugee resettlement, and “glocal” partnerships between North American and indigenous churches. In his current role, he seeks to build bridges among national immigrant and non-immigrant church leaders, so that local churches across the US might effectively love and welcome immigrants. His wife Crystal and four kids live in West Chicago, Illinois.

The President’s Executive Action has exponentially increased the need to provide trustworthy, authorized legal services to foreign-born, non-citizens living in the United States (approximately 5 million affected). Even now many immigrants need access to the right information about Administrative Relief, perhaps through an informational session at your church, in order to prevent fraudulent legal practitioners from scamming immigrant families.

For churches who want to get involved, we have four immediate recommended resources to explore below:

  1. WATCH 30 MINUTE VIDEO: Capacity Building Attorney, Courtney Tudi at World Relief, explains in 30 minutes what is involved in Launching an Immigration Legal Ministry
  2. READ CHURCH LEADERS’ GUIDE TO IMMIGRATION: 85 page FAQ manual for church leaders on immigration. Three sections: (1) One: Biblical & Missiological Foundations for Immigrant Ministry (2) Immigration Legal Issues (3) Developing an Immigration Legal Ministry.
  3. READ IMMIGRATION LEGAL SITE IMPLEMENTATION KIT: This kit provides a high-level programmatic overview of how to start an immigration legal services site in your local church. The primary audience for this 21-page resource kit is church or not-for-profit leaders.
  4. TAKE BASIC IMMIGRATION LAW TRAINING: The Immigration Alliance provides a centralized, national training calendar for in-person 40 hour trainings provided by various organizations. A six week online only basic immigration training provided by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. is an alternative to in-person training.

NEXT STEPS: For more information about (1) how to start a church based legal services site or (2) become a legal info-center in your community or (3) to learn more about immigration and immigrant ministry, please fill out this FORM and someone from The Immigration Alliance or your denomination/organization will get back to you shortly.

Damon Schroeder, Executive Director

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