Donate to help Liliana and her family's legal defense

Our community is raising legal funds for a local migrant family - we'll call mom Liliana, and her four children - who have filed for asylum in the United States. Liliana's husband was killed by gang violence in the town of Tijuana, and then they came for her oldest son (12). Liliana fled Mexico to keep her family safe, as she has four children - Mateo (12), Isabella (10), Alejandro (6), and Benjamin (9 months) (all names changed to protect the family). The Border Patrol told her she was the last family they let in on January 19, 2025, at 9 pm.

Liliana is a hard worker and has been diligently establishing her family in school, language classes, church, and community organizations while she waits for her work permit. She has no savings, and the benefits she receives go to feeding her four children, so we are asking for help to raise the $5,000 legal retainer fee for her upcoming August 2025 court date.

Once she has her work permit in hand in October 2025 (set by federal time limits), Liliana plans to find a job and work on a payment plan with her lawyer to pay the rest of the estimated $12,000 in legal fees. With an estimated 80-90% denial rate for asylum seekers without a lawyer, you can see why Liliana needs the help to get her established with a law firm before her August court date. On top of all this dramatic story, Liliana and her family were robbed by an NGO group who stole a couple of months of her benefits before she figured out a way to stop them. Undaunted, intrepid Liliana filed a police report, and working with a local family support center, was able to get her benefits accounts access changed.

Back to her need for the legal fees down payment - why do these court cases cost so much? The immigration lawyers spend a lot of time collecting and filing evidence to support immigration cases and often file 300-500 pages of facts and documents to support asylum cases. Immigrants with a lawyer have about a 40-60% success rate of approval nationwide to be granted asylum (https://tracreports.org/immigration/).

Please, please if you can help out Liliana and her family in any amount, it would be greatly appreciated. As a friend of the family, I can guarantee that all of the funds will go to supporting Liliana's lawyers, as our church will send the money directly to them.