Day 7: Justice For Our Neighbors

UMCOR’s Justice for Our Neighbors (JFON) Program welcomes immigrants into our churches and communities by providing free, high-quality immigration legal services, education, and advocacy. Motivated by Christian values of love, justice, and compassion, JFON serves the vulnerable, low-income immigrants in our communities by helping them to navigate through a very confusing and labyrinthine system. By engaging volunteers from their congregations and communities to staff their JFON clinics, United Methodist churches are coming alongside their immigrant neighbors and helping them to feel accepted and welcomed.

This UMCOR program connects a national network of church-based, volunteer-led immigration clinics to asylum seekers and immigrants who need a helping hand to navigate the maze of rules and laws that affect their lives in the United States. Today there are JFON projects in 13 annual conferences operating in 28 church-based clinics. Annual conferences involved with JFON include: Arkansas, Baltimore-Washington DC, California-Nevada, Detroit, Florida, Iowa, West Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee, North Texas, Central Texas, and Southwest Texas.

Each year, thousands of families are served through the JFON Program. In 2009 alone, JFON served approximately 2,400 clients across the nation. But, JFON has changed lives more than numbers can express. The ministry reunites families after years of separation, and helps immigrant women abused by citizen spouses to self-petition for legal permanent residency. JFON also helps refugees bring their families to the US, and assists asylum seekers to file applications for protection from persecution or even death. In addition, JFON helps victims of trafficking apply for protection, and helps immigrant communities better understand their rights and respond quickly to emerging threats such as workplace raids.

“Justice for Our Neighbors has proven to be one of the unique ways in which the Church can show hospitality to strangers and provide services to our neighbors,” said Bishop Timothy Whitaker, Florida Annual Conference. “We, who are comfortable in our own country, should never forget the sense of vulnerability which is felt by newcomers with limited means, and who do not know their rights or where to turn for assistance.”

Justice for Our Neighbors Immigration Ministry, Advance #901285
Learn more at www.justiceforourneighbors.org

To make an additional donation to this project, click here

Quick Facts

• JFON was founded in 1999 in response to the immigration reform act of 1996, which is considered among the harshest immigration laws passed in the US.

• JFON currently consists of 28 clinics working in partnership with 13 annual conferences.
  
  
• JFON is staffed by 15 full-time immigration attorneys and hundreds of volunteers (over 9,000 volunteer hours).

• In 2009 JFON served 2,493 new clients.

• New clients originated from: Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Central America, Europe (including Russia), Mexico, the Middle East, and South America.

• New clients sought help with: Advise, Counsel, Research; Asylee-Refugee Adjustment; Asylum; Family Reunification; Immigration Court-Removal Defense; Naturalization; Religious Worker Petitions; Special Immigrant Juvenile Status; Temporary Protected Status; Violence Against Women Act; Waivers.

Volunteer Information: For more information on how to volunteer, please contact your regional jurisdictional coordinator.

North Central: Lorna Jost
928 4th Street, Office #2, Brookings, SD 57006
Tel: 605-692-3390;

Northeastern: Gregory Forrester
32 North Church Street, Cortland, NY 13045
Tel: 607-756-7799;

South Central: Debbie Vest
15120 Sunningdale Street, Austin TX, 78717
Tel: 913-568-8826;

Southeastern: Paulette West
315 W. Ponce de Leon Ave, Suite 750, Decatur, GA 30030
Tel: 404-377-7424;

Western: Heather Wilson
11707 Terra Bella, Lakeview Terrace, CA 91342
Tel: 818-333-6730; umvimwj@hotmail.com