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“Rooted in Movement” Series:
Building long-term community roots
through our Legal Services Program

 
Dear Supporters,

Our anniversary virtual gala is coming up! This year, we’re dedicating our gala theme to being “Rooted in Movement” (커뮤니티 운동 뿌리를 내린다), to pay homage to our organizational principle of “Know Your Roots” (뿌리를 알자) and a year of building with our communities despite a tough political climate for immigrants and low-income families. For the next 7 weeks leading up to our gala, we’re hoping to highlight our key program areas and projects, and share some of our major accomplishments, and explain why our work is “Rooted in Movement”.

Support our anniversary gala by becoming a sponsor or purchasing tickets!

AALDEF Attorney Stan Mark with clients at our Immigration Legal Clinic in 1992

Since the early 1990s, the MinKwon Center has provided free legal services to the Korean and Asian American community. We did this out of community need - the Korean immigrant population in the U.S. was rapidly growing, but we also did it to establish our roots within the community to build a progressive political movement.

For our founders, who were primarily young activists that became politicized through South Korea’s Democracy movement, meeting the material and social needs of the community was part of the ethos of building an organization that is in touch with the grassroots. Our ideals of building a progressive political movement were grounded in the stories and realities of recent immigrants in struggle and hardship.

Today, the MinKwon Center helps thousands of people every year through our Legal Services Program. In starting our legal services, we looked for partnerships with legal expertise that can offer pro-bono help. We found that in AALDEF, who had trained lawyers on staff and for over 20 years worked with MinKwon to help thousands of Korean American community members file for green card renewals and naturalization pro-bono, which was the first of its kind in NYC at the time. We now have three full-time in-house attorneys that work on immigration and housing cases, and several DOJ Accredited staff.
 To this day, MinKwon still continues to be one of the only grassroots API organizations in NYC with full-time attorneys that offers free legal services in immigration and housing.

"To this day, MinKwon still continues to be one of the only grassroots AAPI organizations in NYC with full-time attorneys that offers free legal services in immigration and housing."

Our current work stems from the simplest task of answering questions on benefits access through our hotline, translating a document for those that have limited English proficiency, helping file for applications, to more complex situations that require full legal representation in court. We’ve also expanded our capacity in recent years to provide assistance to more complex cases, including Removal Defense, TPS, Asylum, T-Visas, and U-Visas. 

Oftentimes, cases are not clear cut. It takes months, sometimes years for cases to close, and through this process, we are able to build long-term relationships. Here are some examples of the long-term wrap-around support that MinKwon has provided to community members:

Providing Case Advocacy Services

"Ms. C came to MinKwon as a DACA recipient in 2016 and had been renewing her DACA with MinKwon Center. In 2019, she married a US citizen and sought MinKwon’s immigration service again to adjust her status - MinKwon prepared her application and filed her case in December 2019. While her case was very straightforward and on average would take about a year to become a lawful permanent resident, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed her application.

Ms. C, after hearing so many horrendous stories of backlogs and delays caused by USCIS, was living a life filled with anxiety and stress. In this situation, MinKwon Center provided case advocacy services - contacting the USCIS ombudsman office, the local Congressional Representative, and the Brooklyn Field Office where she was designated for an interview to move her case forward. During her waiting period, MinKwon also renewed her DACA status despite having a pending application for permanent residence. On June 16, 2022, Ms. C finally secured an interview at the Brooklyn Field Office and became a permanent resident the week after.
 

In her own words, Ms. C believed MinKwon provided the level of care and follow-up that even pro-profit immigration lawyers wouldn’t be interested in. While all other attorneys and legal service providers she contacted advised her that she should just wait, MinKwon representatives actively sought a resolution."

"Oftentimes, cases are not clear cut. It takes months, sometimes years for cases to close, and through this process, we are able to build long-term relationships."
Providing Wrap-Around Support during Difficult Times

"Ms. L first visited MinKwon in 2018 to ask for assistance in obtaining an identification card and access to public benefits. She mentioned that she had been married to a U.S. citizen and first came to the US around 1983. She only had a very old expired driver’s license and was homeless at the time of visiting.

Ms. L could not remember many details about her past as she was in a deeply difficult situation. In order to help, MinKwon prepared a FOIA application to obtain documentary evidence to prove her LPR status as the first step in helping her obtain benefits. Luckily, the FOIA result provided a one-page document containing her immigrant visa information with the A-number. However, we were not able to reconnect with Ms. L as the phone number she had given us was out of service.

In the summer of 2019, Ms. L visited MinKwon again as she was accompanying a friend who was applying for SNAP benefits. Fortunately, MinKwon's immigration attorney who had worked on her case saw her waiting and was able to reconnect with her. With the help of the documentary evidence obtained from the FOIA results, MinKwon was able to help Ms. L successfully apply for SNAP benefits along with her friend. After that, the immigration attorney made an appointment with Ms. L for her I-90 application. However, Ms. L missed her appointment and again fell out of contact. After about another year, Ms. L randomly visited MinKwon again in the summer of 2020, seeking assistance for other benefits. Once again, MinKwon’s immigration attorney who was there still remembered Ms. L, and he reminded her that she could apply for a green card replacement. As MinKwon had proof that she was a SNAP recipient, we were able to file an I-90 application and I-912 fee waiver application with her SNAP benefit award letter. Currently, her I-90 application is pending, with the fee waiver accepted. MinKwon is still working to press Ms. L’s case forward."

Securing the Rights of Tenants through Legal services and Advocacy

During the 2007-08 subprime mortgage crisis, the MinKwon Center initially started its housing services to assist the thousands of Korean and Asian Americans facing foreclosure. Today, most of our housing legal services are focused on renters - over 40% of Flushing residents spend more than half of their income on rent, which is the highest among all NYC neighborhoods. We primarily help limited English proficient Korean and Chinese tenants with problems associated with rent overcharge, insufficient housing standards, landlord harassment, and other housing violations. MinKwon has also grown to provide free legal representation in court, assist in applying for Senior Citizen and Disability Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE), and continued to teach about tenant rights, housing discrimination, and gentrification. Mrs. Q’s case is on of the many people in our community who due to being limited English proficient and not aware of their rights, do not receive the benefits they deserve:

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mrs. Q lost her partner and struggled to afford rent using her social security benefits. Previously she was relying on her partner’s SCRIE and his income to afford their cost of living but after his passing, she had issues with transferring the SCRIE benefits to herself. Mrs. Q came to MinKwon to see what kind of assistance she could receive and while she could not get a positive resolution to her SCRIE, she was able to get short-term assistance. One year later, MinKwon was alerted of a change of policy on SCRIE benefits and reached out to Mrs. Q to inform her that she would not only be eligible for SCRIE but that due to her partner's passing, her rent would be lowered. Since then Q has been able to comfortably afford her rent and although her landlord has refused to properly credit her SCRIE benefits, MinKwon has continued to represent Q and fight so that she would not be taken advantage of."
These stories are some of the many examples of how the MinKwon Center has sustained relationships with people in our community. We are now approaching our 38th year of existence as an organization, and to date have worked with tens of thousands of community members to receive free legal services, including processing over 7% of all Korean American DACA applications in the country since the program’s inception in 2012. Every person we have helped and touched each year has contributed to our status and reputation as a trusted organization in the community.

For MinKwon, without trust and being rooted in community, you can not build a movement. We hope that you can support our commitment to this principle and being amongst the grassroots.

Help us remain “Rooted in Movement” by supporting our anniversary gala by becoming a sponsor or purchasing tickets!

133-29 41st Avenue, Suite 202, Flushing, NY 11355
Tel. 718-460-5600 | Fax 718-223-5837
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