A Q & A with immigrant rights advocate Tania Mattos - The New York Community Trust

February 1, 2024 | By The New York Community Trust

A Q & A with immigrant rights advocate Tania Mattos

Photograph of Tania Mattos, immigrants rights advocate.

Immigrants facing deportation do not have a right to an attorney in the U.S. They must either represent themselves, pay for an attorney, or find free legal help.

The demand for immigration legal aid attorneys is far greater than the supply. To address this gap, a coalition of nonprofits, with funding from The Trust and the Robin Hood Foundation, created the Pro Se Plus Project to train people to represent themselves in immigration court. The coalition includes African Communities Together, Catholic Migration Services, Central American Legal Assistance, Masa, New York Legal Assistance Group, UnLocal, and Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid.

Tania Mattos is the interim executive director of UnLocal. She spoke with The Trust about the collaborative and her experience as an advocate.

How does the Pro Se Plus Project work?
The coalition wanted to help as many people as possible and also knew they couldn’t represent thousands of people in court. So they decided to develop systems to help immigrants represent themselves—“pro se” means to represent oneself.

Immigration law is very complicated, and even more so for someone who just arrived to a new system and a new country. So, we found a way to help people help themselves—to become citizens of the United States, win their asylum claims, apply for Temporary Protected Status, or gain the right to work. We built out a model that’s been very successful: in the first year, we provided pro se application assistance to close to 3,000 people.

Can you share a success story from the program?
A Catholic Migration Services client faced the possibility of deportation and there wasn’t an attorney available to take his case. Instead, they helped him gather materials for an evidence packet in advance of the hearing and explained what to expect in court. They also shared training videos we made to prepare asylum applicants to represent themselves. He watched the videos, and he did everything perfectly. At his hearing, he won protection from deportation. The judge congratulated him on how well he prepared and presented his case. Now he’s working with the nonprofit to help others do the same.

How did you get involved in immigrant rights work?
I was born in Bolivia and grew up undocumented in Jackson Heights, Queens. I got tired of waiting for action to happen and joined the New York State Youth Leadership Council. I’ve worked on the federal and state DREAM Acts (legislation to permanently protect certain immigrants who came to the U.S. as children but are vulnerable to deportation), and I was a founding member of the Abolish ICE NY NJ coalition, which ended detention in New Jersey, for the most part, and we’re trying to do the same in New York. (ICE refers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.)

Do you have advice for young people who are interested in becoming advocates?
If you’re passionate about something, or something impacts your life in a big way, find people who also care about the situation and plan what you can do together. There’s no rule book for activism. If you’re fighting for your freedom and for your life, you do what you have to do.