The Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence has long provided legal help to immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.
Effective June 30, however, the nonprofit’s immigrant legal clinic permanently closed after the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs, which decides how to allocate federal crime victim dollars, ended immigrant legal aid grants.
Jennifer Escue, the coalition’s CEO, said the elimination of grants will leave already vulnerable victims with few legal alternatives.
“The major concern is that this just drives these communities deeper underground,” Escue said. “They’re not going to get help, they’re not going to report and it’s one more thing their abusers can hold over them.”
The organization’s legal clinic provided victims without legal immigration status help in applying for special visas set aside for domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking victims who are cooperating with police.