Pueblo Unido pursues high impact interventions that fill gaps in order to prevent detention and deportation, advance Indigenous language justice, and give our communities the tools they need to access various services in order to feel secure, achieve their goals, and to thrive. We approach our work through a trauma-informed lens, and therefore prioritize interventions that we can sustain. Presently, these interventions are delivered through the following programs:
Legal and Social Service Navigation: Our navigators help orient community members to immigration processes and guide them to legal resources to help defend against deportation, seek release from detention as necessary, and ultimately try to obtain, maintain, or adjust lawful immigration status. Navigators also help community members access wraparound resources to ensure household stability, which is essential to supporting a strong legal defense.
Community Engagement: The Community Engagement Department facilitates community education workshops on a variety of topics including legal rights, remedies, and resources; court proceedings and immigration documents; advocacy for detained loved ones; family preparedness; and, trauma healing.
The Collective of Indigenous Interpreters of Oregon (CIIO): The Collective serves as a reliable source of interpretation to address the language access barriers to legal and social services faced by Indigenous Oregonians, as well as to ensure just compensation, treatment, and opportunities for Indigenous language interpreters.
Our programs and services prioritize people with the highest risk of detention or deportation. We intentionally design our programs and services for people who speak Indigenous languages or Spanish, but we don’t turn anyone away, regardless of the language they speak or where they’re from.
At a time when immigrant communities are facing escalating enforcement and uncertainty, this work is needed now more than ever. Since the second Trump administration took office, Oregonians have experienced an unprecedented level of surveillance, intimidation, and arrest by immigration officers, which has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of Oregonians detained for removal, and subsequently an increase in fear, anxiety, and demand for our services.
With specialized legal representation in acute demand, and with community members desperate to hire defense for their loved ones, scammers and other bad actors have jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of people in crisis. With constant changes to immigration policies and enforcement priorities, our communities are left struggling to understand their legal rights, relief options, available resources, and how to minimize risk and be prepared in the event that a loved one is detained. Language access gaps further compound these issues for Oregonians hailing from Indigenous communities in Mexico and Central America.
Our core programs are essential to meeting the needs of the moment: navigating community members to quality and trustworthy attorneys; sharing knowledge that empowers individuals to assert their rights, advocate for their families, and process their trauma; and, providing interpretation to ensure that Indigenous Oregonians are able to understand and be understood.
