Legal Services for Human Trafficking Victims

Friends of Farmworkers, doing business as Justice at Work (JAW), will deepen legal supports to immigrant survivors of trafficking throughout Pennsylvania, with a focus on survivors of labor trafficking, to promote the long-term success and self-sufficiency of trafficking survivors and their families. JAW will utilize a two-pronged model that will provide employment and immigration legal services to immigrant survivors in the years after escaping their trafficking experience and receiving their T visa. The goals of this project are to increase the quantity and quality of legal services available to trafficking survivors to support their continued recovery and resilience by identifying and anticipating the complex needs of survivors, identifying resources to better support their recovery, and creating a sustainable model for survivors with complex needs who require enhanced services on an ongoing basis. Through this proposed project, immigrant survivors will receive culturally specific, trauma-informed services, in the survivors’ preferred language. This project’s civil legal services will focus on wage theft, workplace discrimination on the basis of sex, race, or national origin, legal remedies in response to unsafe working conditions, and wrongful termination. Immigration legal services will focus on applications for Legal Permanent Residency, and Citizenship, for trafficking survivors and their derivative family members. JAW’s subrecipient partner, La Puerta Abierta (LPA), will provide therapeutic case management services to support survivors’ ability to fully engage in their legal cases. Additionally, JAW will improve survivor’s access to other services by collaborating with law enforcement agencies, social service providers and other community organizations through referrals, trainings, technical assistance, and community outreach events.