This fall it’s back to school for me, too! My classes start in just a couple of weeks. I’ll be taking just one course, which is not affiliated with any particular college, but I certainly have a challenging educational endeavor lined up.
In mid-September I will begin a two-month course on immigration law, offered by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. The course will cover lots of details on the naturalization process, family-based visas, admissibility and deportability issues, legal ethics, and running a legal practice. If I pass the test at the end, I will then move into a practicum phase, getting hands-on experience with immigration legal services under the supervision of an attorney or accredited representatives, probably in the Denver area.
This training will hopefully lead to accreditation by the Department of Justice, allowing me to provide immigration legal services. No, not a lawyer. Yes, getting more hands-on with legal paperwork and processes for immigrants in Northeast Colorado (e.g., helping people complete forms, preparing them for and accompanying them to USCIS interviews).
This opportunity has been made possible because of a group which has already started the process of getting a proper organization established to facilitate these activities in the Greeley area, which is about an hour from Fort Morgan. A couple of us from Fort Morgan are joining in with their efforts and expect to eventually function as a satellite office.
If you are curious to learn more about the details, some information can be found on the Immigrant Hope website. Immigrant Hope is the organization the group in Greeley is working with to get up and running.
I expect this to lead to all sorts of new, tangible ways to help people locally. Currently, there are a lot of limits to how we can help people work through immigration processes, and they are often forced to travel more than an hour to a lawyer’s office in Denver. It will be nice to save some of those trips for more complicated matters.
This is all kinna exciting as I read it. I hope you take to it well. Today I learned the importance of taking small steps in case a process fails. It did fail, but solutions were found, lessons learned, and the cost was minimal. It's so nice when you say You yourself and superiors, "I'll bet we're forgetting something(s). We better try a test run first." For some reason I feel like telling you that, who knows why.