California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation

CRLAF's Citizenship and Immigration Unit's collective work is organized across four different project areas: Citizenship and Immigration, Removal Defense, San Joaquin Immigrant Empowerment, and the Sacramento FUEL Network. The Citizenship and Immigration Project provides community education, legal training to qualified legal services providers, assistance to eligible immigrants applying for affirmative immigration benefits, and representation before USCIS and the Executive Office for Immigration Review. The Removal Defense Project provides direct representation in detained and non-detained court cases and coordinates the Sacramento Immigration Court's Sacramento Attorney of the Day (AOD) Program. The AOD program provides training, technical assistance, and scheduling support to pro bono attorneys to increase their capacity to represent individuals who otherwise would lack representation in Immigration Court. The San Joaquin Immigrant Empowerment Project's work centers around the complex intersection of public health, immigrants' rights, and immigration law. During this fiscal year, we focused especially on providing immigration legal services, advocacy, education and outreach, and legal training. The Project also provided technical assistance to other community partners addressing two major challenges facing immigrant communities: the administration's public charge rule and the COVID-19 pandemic. The City Council of Sacramento established the Sacramento Family Unity, Education, and Legal (FUEL) Network for Immigrants in 2017, a robust collaborative of over eighty Sacramento community-based organizations, legal services providers, volunteer attorney groups, labor unions, faith-based groups, and educational institutions that are all actively working to provide critical services to immigrant communities. CRLAF has served as fiscal lead for the Network since its initiation.We additionally provided regular immigration legal services to students, families and staff at Delta College and survivors of crime at a women's center. Most of CRLAF's immigration cases in this region are humanitarian cases, such as U visa, T visa, or VAWA applications. From San Joaquin to near Fresno county, CRLAF is one of the only organizations currently taking these types of cases at no cost to the client, as most of the individuals we serve do not have the means to hire a private attorney, and there is a huge unmet need for attorneys to take on humanitarian aid cases pro bono in this region. CRLAF plans to continue building community capacity to support such work moving forward.

Legal Services Support: (State Trust Funding): CRLAF's primary purpose is a statewide support center. CRLAF advocates to provide training, technical assistance, and advocacy support to qualified legal services projects to increase their capacity to represent low-wage workers and their families with labor and employment, health access, housing, public benefit, and disaster relief eligibility. CRLAF also engages in class action litigation, co-counseling, and direct representation of indigent clients who are ineligible for federally-funded legal services due to immigration status.

Pesticide and Work Health and Safety Project:This Project works to bring attention to and reduce agricultural work hazards and pesticide exposures faced by California's agricultural workers and other rural residents through public policy advocacy, training and technical assistance to legal services advocates. The project maintains an open dialogue with Cal-OSHA and local, state, and federal pesticide and regulatory labor officials to encourage more thorough investigations, stricter enforcement of, and improvements to existing laws and regulations, and increased use of safer and more sustainable pest control alternatives. We also provide technical assistance to legal services programs and community organizations to develop outreach materials, to ensure that current pesticide and work safety laws, regulations, and public records, and the pesticide incidents reporting process are fully understood. We collaborate with members of other non-profit organizations to educate policy makers, agency officials, and the public about pesticide exposure, heat stress, and other work and environmental health and safety hazards affecting California's rural poor. Labor and Employment Project:This Project monitors state and federal legislation of importance to farmworkers, acts as a watchdog over operation of the federal H-2A agricultural guest worker program in California, and takes positions in support of farmworker interest in state initiated regulatory actions offering greater opportunities and protection to this class, and opposition to legislation threatening such rights.Field Services:This Project provides legislative and administrative advocacy on labor and employment, education, rural housing, rural health, pesticides and worker safety, training, technical assistance to legal service advocates, and advocacy support to Qualified Legal Services Projects on issues affecting farmworker and other low-wage worker issues, as well as co-counseling on labor, employment, and civil rights matters.Rural Housing Project:This Project engages in legislative and administrative advocacy on low-income rural and farmworker housing issues, and conducts trainings on housing issues throughout the state through its participation on several coalitions and committees. Our team advocates at the local and statewide levels to establish adequate protections to support low-income renters facing habitability, overcrowding, and potential convictions. Labor and Civil Rights Litigation Project:This Project provides legal representation to low-income individuals and families in rural California. Litigation efforts focus on farmworkers and other low-wage workers ineligible for legal services from federally-funded legal aid programs, or whose interests are best represented in a class action. CRLAF targets employers and landlords responsible for deplorable working and housing conditions. Specific areas of focus include, but are not limited to, representing workers and tenants in cases involving: wage theft, violation of workplace safety standards, sexual assault and harassment, discrimination and retaliation, workplace housing habitability issues, unlawful detainers, and pesticide exposure. The team provides virtual and in-person Know Your Rights presentations on housing and employment topics, creates instructional materials on accessing critical safety-net supports, such as healthcare, food banks or benefits, and up-to-date information on workers and tenants' rights under California law.

Legal Services Support:CRLAF is unique in that we primarily operate as a statewide legal support center, where we provide training, technical assistance, advocacy support, and resources to QLSPs and other partners across California. Key subjects include labor and employment, health advocacy, pesticide and worker safety, rural housing, and education advocacy. We provide education, consultations, and co-counseling, including advancing referrals from partners who are unable to represent undocumented individuals and mixed-status families. We are additionally involved in a couple of statewide projects working to prevent homelessness.

Central Valley Partnership:The Central Valley Partnership is a project of CRLA Foundation that provides training, technical assistance, and advocacy support on immigration, health, and education equity. CRLAF received funds from the Paycheck Protection Program to support the organization's work due to the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Field Services:The Field Services Project provides legislative and administrative advocacy on labor and education, rural housing, rural health, pesticides and worker safety; training, technical assistance, and advocacy support to qualified legal services advocates on issues affecting farm worker and other low-wage worker issues; and co-counseling on labor, employment, and civil rights matters.Field Sanitation:Now called The Pesticide and Work Health and Safety Project works to shed light on and reduce agricultural work hazards and pesticide exposures faced by California's agricultural workers and other rural residents. The Project maintains an ongoing dialog with Cal-OSHA and local, state and federal pesticide regulatory officials to encourage more thorough investigations and stricter enforcement of existing laws and regulations, improvements in regulations, and increased use of safer and more sustainable pest control alternatives. We also provide technical assistance to legal services programs and community organizations on developing outreach materials, accessing and understanding pesticide and work safety laws and regulations and public records and responding to pesticide poisoning incidents. We collaborate with members of other non-profit organizations to educate policy makers, agency officials and the public about heat stress, pesticide exposure and other work and environmental health and safety hazards affecting California's farmworkers and other rural poor.CA Advocacy for Farm Workers:Project monitors state and federal legislation of importance to farm workers, acts as a watchdog over operation of the federal H-2A agricultural guest worker program in California, and takes positions in support of farm worker interests in important regulatory actions undertaken by state agencies that affect agriculture.

Rural Housing Project:This project engages in legislative and administrative advocacy on low-income rural and farmworker housing issues, publishes a quarterly newsletter on state housing issues, and conducts training on housing issues throughout the state. In response to COVID-19, our housing policy team worked in the State Capitol and with the Judicial Council of California to halt evictions to keep families safe from homelessness. From the Governor's orders calling for an eviction moratorium to the Judicial Council's adoption of an emergency protection rule preventing summonses from being issued in nearly all "unlawful detainer" eviction cases, our housing policy efforts helped to halt a potential massive wave of evictions across California.Our team continues to advocate at local and statewide levels to establish adequate protections for renters facing potential pandemic-related evictions. We are also working to develop a legislative response that would provide longer-term protections from eviction for non-payment of rent due to COVID-related loss of income.