Partnership Resource Network
Project Name: National Immigrant Justice Center’s Counter-Trafficking Project
Applicant: Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center
Applicant Type: NonProfit
Application Number: 2012-40239-IL-VT
Funding Request: $300,000
Focus: Victims and Victimization, Crime Victimization
Location: IL
Areas Covered: 200 mile radius of Chicago, IL
Summary: Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) seeks a grant of $300,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Victims of Crime for its project Specialized Legal & Immigration Services for All Victims of Trafficking to provide legal services, including civil and immigration services, to foreign and domestic victims of human trafficking. NIJC will provide these specialized services in a 200-mile radius of Chicago, encompassing parts of the states of Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. NIJC’s outreach and training will focus on remote and/or underserved geographic areas in the Midwest where victims are frequently not identified and need is greatest.
Goal: Ensure the protection of victims of human trafficking as defined by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) through expanded partnerships that provide timely and high-quality specialized legal services.
Objective I: Ensure the delivery of timely, high-quality, and specialized legal services to adult and minor, domestic and foreign national victims of trafficking within a 200-mile radius of Chicago.
Key deliverables: 1) Identify, screen, and assess 200 potential victims of human trafficking; 2) Provide timely and high-quality immigration, civil and other legal services to 75 foreign national victims of trafficking and their derivative family members; 3) Advocate and coordinate with law enforcement to secure 20 Continued Presence approvals and 20 Certifications from ORR; 4) Provide 50 domestic victims of human trafficking with legal assessment and high-quality civil legal services; 5) Assist victims to assert their rights as crime victims and participate in the investigation and prosecution of the traffickers; 6) Assess and assist human trafficking minor victims in their legal matters, including access to immigration benefits and other civil remedies, and ensure their ability to access governmental protective services, including but, not limited to, shelter and emergency services.
Objective II: Build the long-term capacity and sustainability of first responders, including law enforcement agents, social service providers, faith-based organizations, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other professionals to identify and serve victims of human trafficking.
Key deliverables: 1) Conduct outreach and provide information and/or training to 150 federal and state criminal justice officials, including judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and attorney generals to expand trafficking victim identification and legal aid/social service referrals for victims in underserved areas; 2) Train 100 non-legal service providers, including members of the task forces, as appropriate, to identify and serve victims of human trafficking.
Objective III: Expand current coalition of partners collaborating to meet the needs of human trafficking victims.
Key deliverables: 1) Develop the capacity of four legal aid providers outside the Chicago area to identify and provide legal services to victims of human trafficking; 2) Train 80 pro bono attorneys on the legal issues facing victims of human trafficking so they can effectively represent these victims; 3) Strengthen multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplinary focus.
For Further Information:
Mary McCarthy
Executive Director
208 S LaSalle Street
Suite 1818
Chicago, IL 60604
mmccarthy@heartlandalliance.org
(312) 660-1351
Application Submitted in Response to Solicitation: Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Program
Grants.gov Assigned Number: OVC-2012-3192