The Why?

As the South Asian population in the US grows, it continues to diversify and encounter unique legal needs, particularly for low-income communities that have the least access to justice. Amongst other issues, these communities lack language skills and comfort engaging with existing legal providers, and also are not organized in a way that they can advocate for the political, legal, and social change necessary to address the critical civil rights violations they face. 

Enter: the South Asian Legal Impact Initiative, a multi-year project to promote access to justice for South Asian communities in North America.

In the first phase of the Initiative, a dedicated South Asian Legal Impact Fellow will work closely with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), community partners, and directly impacted community members to help tackle unmet legal needs. For example, in just the past decades, South Asian communities have encountered:

• terrifying hate violence

• economic injustices, including wage theft for low-income workers, often intertwined with their immigration status through retaliation and threats of deportation for speaking out or reporting these violations 

• immigration issues, including lack of access to counsel for asylum seekers and abuses in ICE detention facilities 

• voter suppression and anti-democracy efforts, including language access issues and intentional efforts to dilute desi votes and limit access to the polls

• unconstitutional police targeting and government surveillance of Muslim and other South Asian communities following 9/11

Long term, with your support we hope to establish a South Asian Legal Defense and Education Fund, following in the footsteps of leading civil rights advocacy organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), and AALDEF. 

We welcome you to join us in funding this Initiative.