Celebrating Latine Heritage Month with LPA: Fighting for Legal Equity (Part 2 of 2)
Aissa Olivera, managing attorney for the Community Immigration Law Center, was raised on the Texas-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas.
by Jonathan Gramling
Aissa Olivarez, managing attorney for the Community Immigration Law Center, was raised in the U.S.-Mexico border town of McAllen, Texas, which was 98 percent Latino. And then Olivarez came to Madison in which she was now in the minority. After graduating from UW-Madison law school, Olivarez headed back to Texas to work representing child immigrants in legal proceedings. It was emotionally and physically draining. And then opportunity came a knocking.
“I got a call from the Community Immigration Law Center here in Madison,” Olivarez said. “And they were like, ‘Hey, we’re looking for a lawyer to do more detention work, but for adults, not that it is any better.’ It felt like the right move at the time to be able to come back to Madison where I started to learn and started my legal career in law school to really grow this non-profit entity in a place where it was especially needed in Wisconsin.”
Olivarez could hit the road running.
“There is a great demand for our services,” Olivarez observed. “The landscape here in Wisconsin has changed significantly. And we’ve also seen enforcement of immigration laws increase since the Obama era. Seeing these numbers go up and seeing that there was little capacity in the state for the work, particularly in detention work for people who are at risk of deportation and who are adults. It was compelling. In my work with the Immigrant Justice Clinic in law school, we visited the detention center monthly. And so I had a very good familiarity with the landscape and what was happening with the disparities.”
Not only does Olivarez manage the Community Immigration Law Center, but she also practices direct representation through the Eastbridge Law Group LLP. And in representing immigrants who are new to the society, they also have little understanding of the American legal system. Olivarez works hard to make her clients understand that she is no one’s lawyer except theirs.
“For me, it has always been about making sure that people feel that I build trust with them and they understand that I will always be a zealous advocate for them,” Olivarez said. “And I will make sure that the process carries as much dignity as possible and holding these systems accountable to not follow the narrative that is common where we feel that immigrants are disposable, but follow one where there is value in their lives because they are valuable to our community and integral to our community. I want to make sure that these systems reflect that, see that and make decisions that are aligned with that understanding.”
And while many Americans believe that immigration is an issue that impacts people from Latin America, strife and displacement are world-wide issues.
“Just at the Community Immigration Law Center, in our walk-in clinics that we have on Fridays, we’ve seen people from 163 different countries, people from all over the world are here in Madison and Wisconsin and need the support,” Olivarez said. “Overwhelmingly recently, we are seeing people from Latin America. But worldwide right now, record numbers in history are displaced. When we see those numbers of displacement, it reflects what we see here in the U.S. What is happening on the other side of the world certainly has its impact. We often see people coming here to seek assistance to exercise their legal right to seek asylum here in the United States.”
The Community Immigration Law Center is driven with a mission to make sure that everyone who needs it has legal representation at the time they need it most regardless of their circumstances.
“One motto we believe in particularly at the Community Immigration Law Center is Universal Representation,” Olivarez emphasized. “What a lot of people don’t know about immigration, particularly those who are at risk of deportation — which includes asylum seekers and people who are newcomers to our community much of the time — people have the right to a lawyer in these removal proceedings, but not the right to a government-funded lawyer if they are unable to afford one. This has a profound impact on the outcome of their deportation case. And so, what we do is we look at not the merits of the case, but at the individual. And if we have capacity to serve that individual who is at risk of deportation, we take the case regardless of whether this is a really strong case or a weak case because what we believe in is being able to go in there and be a zealous advocate for those who are facing removal from the country.”
Former President Donald Trump continuously claims that he will deport 11 million immigrants or more immediately if he were elected president. It is a play for votes devoid of reality.
“Mass deportations would crash our economy,” Olivarez said. “We rely upon people in the shadows doing work in our restaurants, hotels and our dairy farms. This work is often thankless. But it is something that we are so thankful for. They hold up the economy and the ability for these industries to have staff and thrive. They are also business owners. They have amazing businesses and the ability to keep family together. The immigrant community, especially the one here in Madison, is one that I am so proud to see grow and thrive in part because of so many amazing resources that they have here in Wisconsin and be able to reunify with family.”
With so little, the CILC faces a demand that overwhelms its capacity to represent.
“We have a variety of types of funding,” Olivarez said. “Right now, we are mainly relying on private funding as well as a partnership with the Immigrant Justice Core, which is a national organization that is going to provide us with two new attorneys in October to increase the capacity that we have here in the state to do the work. And so we are always welcoming monetary support and donations and volunteers. Our volunteers really help us to increase our impact because they come in and they are able to connect with people and help them with their legal needs under our supervision. But really they expand and stretch the value of a dollar at this small non-profit because of them being able to give their time.”
Aissa Olivarez has devoted her life to ensuring that immigrants get equal justice under the law in her new home of Madison. The future of many immigrants hangs in the balance and receiving the representation that Olivarez and the CILC provide.