Our Projects

assistance to those in need

SERVICES WE PROVIDE

Aldea – The People’s Justice Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides low income individuals and families in immigration removal proceedings with access to quality pro bono or discounted fee legal representation. Although Aldea’s legal services are open to all low income individuals, Aldea assists several specific categories of individuals:
  • Unaccompanied minors and minor immigrant children. Aldea represents many children who have entered the United States alone (unaccompanied minor) or entered with a parent where only the child has been placed into immigration removal proceedings;
  • Immigrant children who are eligible for relief such as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals;
  • Immigrants detained in immigration detention centers, particularly parents and children detained at the Berks Family Residential (detention) Center;
  • Victims of crimes in the United States, including domestic violence.
In the near future, we also seek to incorporate legal staff that can represent our community members in other areas of legal action.

assistance to those in need

SERVICES WE PROVIDE

Aldea – The People’s Justice Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides low-income individuals and families in immigration removal proceedings with access to quality pro bono or discounted fee legal representation. Although Aldea’s legal services are open to all low income individuals, Aldea assists several specific categories of individuals:

  • Unaccompanied minors and minor immigrant children. Aldea represents many children who have entered the United States alone (unaccompanied minor) or entered with a parent where only the child has been placed into immigration removal proceedings;
  • Immigrant children who are eligible for relief such as Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals;
  • Immigrants detained in immigration detention centers, particularly parents and children detained at the Berks Family Residential (detention) Center;
  • Victims of crimes in the United States, including domestic violence.
In the near future, we also seek to incorporate legal staff that can represent our community members in other areas of legal action.

Legal Assistance

Aldea’s core attorneys have represented detained families at Berks for nearly four years, assisting parents and children in navigating the complex immigration process.

Social services

Aldea’s goal is to provide members of the immigrant community with educational services and medical services in the state of Pennsylvania.

Volunteer work

Aldea is always seeking volunteers who are fluent in languages other than English. We have an ever-increasing need for interpreters who speak rare and/or Indigenous languages.

Berks County

FAMILY DETENTION PROJECT

Aldea began when our founders, Bridget and Jackie, stepped into the Berks County Residential Center, one of three family detention facilities in the country, in 2014, and discovered a huge resource gap: the families there had no legal representation and no access to pro bono legal services.

At a time when few to no other attorneys were paying attention to the issue of family detention, Bridget and Jackie realized that these families were suffering under our government’s policies and desperately needed help. Over the next three years, they spoke with every family there, recruited volunteers from the community, and took on the government, successfully suing to allow families who had been detained for over a year to obtain their freedom and apply for legal status.

In 2016, Bridget and Jackie founded Aldea – The People’s Justice Center, with the mission to provide free and universal legal services and representation to any family detained at Berks. Since 2016, Aldea has assisted over 3,000 families in gaining release from detention and applying for legal status. Aldea continues to provide universal legal representation at Berks, in addition to advocating for improved conditions, immediate release for families, and the end of family detention in Pennsylvania and the country as a whole.

The York Adult

The york adult detention project

Immigrants are detained in ICE custody in county prisons and correctional facilities across Pennsylvania, but all of their cases are heard by the same Immigration Court, located within the York County Prison. Beginning in 2018, Aldea began providing pro bono legal services to adults detained at York, with a focus on assisting asylum-seekers and others applying for humanitarian protection and on assisting long-time residents in rejoining their communities through release on bond or parole.

Since 2018, and especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aldea has expanded its efforts to provide assistance to those detained at facilities across the state. Currently, Aldea provides free telephonic legal consultation with immigrants detained in Cambria, Clinton, Pike, and York Counties. We work to provide free additional legal services and immigration representation to as many detained adults as possible, and, in partnership with other organizations, advocate for the end of immigration detention in Pennsylvania and the country as a whole.

Pennsylvania and surrounding states

Community Project

In addition to our primary goals of supporting detained immigrants and ending immigration detention, we are also able to provide legal services and representation to certain cases of immigrants living freely in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. Our community representation focuses on individuals in removal proceedings before the Philadelphia Immigration Court, survivors of domestic and gender-based violence, LGBTQ+ identifying people, and children. For our clients in the community, we aim to provide holistic services and support, including making sure that our clients and their loved ones are safe, healthy, and well by partnering with community and other non-profit organizations to meet basic needs and provide ongoing support and resources.