Legal Services
We work to protect and promote immigrants’ rights by providing comprehensive legal services all levels of practice.
Key Facts
- In 2022, NSC served over 600 clients.
- NSC has a special unit to assist Afghan evacuees.
- NSC staff has been involved in training pro bono attorneys to assist the rising numbers of Ukrainians seeking shelter in our region.
- In 2020, NSC attorney’s successfully litigated German Santos v Attorney General before the Third Circuit, clarifying and expanding the rights of non-citizens to challenge their prolonged detention by the immigration authorities.
Services Provided
- We currently represent hundreds of clients in removal proceedings and before the federal courts, in family-based immigration matters, asylum and other humanitarian relief, naturalization, DACA renewals, and relief for victims of domestic violence and other crimes.
- NSC offers programs to provide free legal services for detained immigrants, survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and torture, and for unaccompanied minors.
- The Fund for Immigrant Justice at NSC supports free legal services for low-income individuals that were not eligible for services through other programs, including clients who lack permanent housing, suffer from long-term disabilities, or are children. The program provides eligible immigrants with financial support to pay for government filing fees and related costs.
- NSC is a founding agency of the PA Immigrant Family Unity Project. Launched in 2019, PAIFUP is a collaborative of nonprofit organizations in Pennsylvania formed to achieve universal representation for detained immigrants in removal proceedings in the state. PAIFUP is Pennsylvania’s first publicly funded defense counsel project for detained immigrants.
- NSC has a decade-long partnership with the Philadelphia Defenders Association in which an NSC attorney provides the Defenders with advice regarding the immigration consequences of criminal convictions.
- Unusual for an agency of our size, NSC provides expert representation before the federal courts, and our attorneys have litigated habeas and mandamus petitions before federal district courts, and both appeals and petitions for review before the U.S. Court of Appeals.
