In this episode, NIWAP Director Leslye Orloff, NIWAP Assistant Director Rafaela Rodrigues, American University Washington College of Law, and Elliott Casey from the Virginia Commonwealth's Attorneys' Services Council talk about how to navigate and understand what public benefits and services are available to immigrant survivors through NIWAP’s created tool, the Public Benefits Map. They discuss the reasons behind creating the map to facilitate quick access to legally correct information identifying which programs and services immigrant victims and their children are legally eligible to receive. The map provides easy access to state-by-state laws on benefits and services, with exact legal citations, and includes details on which benefits and services victims and children with different immigration statuses can receive. They explain how the map makes it easy to identify the types of benefits immigrant survivors qualify for or do not qualify for. The map not only details types of benefits such as health, housing, education, TANF, SNAP, and food stamps, but also matches different legal immigration statuses — such as VAWA, T and U visa recipients, refugees, asylees, etc. — to the types of benefits available to them.

More information:

Public Benefits

Public Benefits Map

NIWAP Web Library

NIWAP YouTube Channel