Goal: $5,000.00

Specific Need

Just Neighbors is in need of your support in order to continue providing critical immigration legal services to low income immigrants and refugees in Loudoun and Fauquier.

Mission

Profile

From Hope to Reality: A Professional Career

Yalda was born in Pakistan. Her father had been a teacher and later the principal of a school in Afghanistan. After the civil war was started during 1989, there was a campaign to kill professionals in Afghanistan, so her family fled to Pakistan.

Even though they were refugees, Yalda and her brothers were allowed to study in Pakistani schools. Yet, while her parents made education a top priority, they believed girls only needed enough education to raise and teach their own children.  

After the Taliban fell in 2008, Yalda and her family returned to Afghanistan. She strongly felt that she had to set a positive example for her younger female cousins to show that girls could study and even work.   Yalda aspired to be a professional, and she did.

She achieved a Bachelor of Law and Political Science in 2016 and a master's degree in International Relations in 2020. With excellent English language skills, she secured a series of positions with American contractors and NGOs. She was then hired by the U.S. embassy in Kabul, but on the first day that she was supposed to start work, the Taliban took over again. The U.S. embassy evacuated her and she arrived here in August, 2021.

As a parolee, Yalda had a work permit but she knew her status was just temporary. She really wanted to be a professional but was having a hard time finding work. Her impermanent status was a deterrent.

Then Yalda found Just Neighbors. Afghan evacuees were prioritized for asylum. Her Just Neighbors attorney, Tori Andrea Babington, submitted her application in July 2022 and supported her in the interview in August 2022.  The approval was granted in November 2023. She is now eligible to apply for a green card and has a permanent path to citizenship!

Yalda is so thankful for the assistance she received from Just Neighbors and is grateful for the opportunities that America offers, “I am thankful for the security that I feel here and that there are equal rights for girls and boys.”  She is also thankful for the new hope to start her professional career; Yaldo is currently working for a federal contractor with one of the USAID funded projects.

While there are many people in our communities trying to help immigrants with their legal status, stories like this show how important it is to have trained and expert immigration attorneys. Just Neighbors is lucky to have immigration attorneys with years of experience and expert knowledge like Tori.

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More about Just Neighbors

For 27 years, Just Neighbors has served more than 17,000 clients from 150 countries by helping low-income immigrants obtain the documentation to which they are legally entitled. We believe that investing in immigration legal services positively impacts a family’s overall stability in the United States. Requiring individuals to pay expensive fees for these services forces families to choose between paying for legal services or for basic needs like food and housing. Research shows that granting legal status and citizenship to immigrants increases their income level, chances of home ownership, education level and access to health care.

Focusing on humanitarian cases, Just Neighbors staff attorneys and many volunteers serve the most vulnerable immigrants in our community, many who are:

• Refugees and asylees

• Immigrant victims of domestic violence and other violent crimes

• Dreamers (immigrants brought to U.S. as children)

• Those issued Temporary Protected Status (TPS) because of armed

 conflict or natural disasters in their homelands

• Families seeking general advice about their immigration status

• Trafficking victims

• Asylum seekers

$915.70 received
in 8 gifts 18.31%  of  $5,000.00 Goal