HRI is excited to announce Veronica Gonzalez as Director of Social Services. Learn more about her passion for the department, how they support our clients, and how you can get involved below. What excites you about your new role as Director of Social Services? VG: I am absolutely thrilled about my recent promotion to Director of […]
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Anchor in Safety
These two! Sweet, loving, hardworking parents of polite, studious children – finally safe from persecution – finally able to breathe easy…Founded by social worker Serena Simmons Connelly and lawyer Elizabeth Healy, the Dallas-based Human Rights Initiative of North Texas has grown into an award-winning agency helping immigrant survivors of human rights abuses from all over […]
Read More“…don’t give way to hating…”
“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal […]
Read MoreTWO MAGICAL SISTERS
We want to tell you a Story. . About a pair of magical twin-sisters, who faced horrors beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. . We want to tell you a Story. . Of heartbreak and hopelessness, of defeat. . We want to tell you a Story. . Of tears, of violence, of what we wish never happens […]
Read MoreAN OLD STORY
TITLE: An Old Story CHARACTER: someone’s Daughter/someone’s Sister/someone’s Grand-daughter/some Girl we may all know. It’s an Old Story and it gets old real soon –in a faraway chaotic land, Girl is arranged into a marriage – Boy promises to protect her forever – convinces her to move to a foreign land called America. […]
Read MoreAn Old Story
TITLE: An Old Story CHARACTER: someone’s Daughter/someone’s Sister/someone’s Grand-daughter/some Girl we may all know. It’s an Old Story and it gets old real soon –in a faraway chaotic land, Girl is arranged into marriage – Boy promises to protect her forever – convinces her to move to a foreign land called America. It’s an Old […]
Read MoreInternational Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation
As today is the UN’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, HRI staff members think of the clients we have served over the years who have been victims of Female Genital Mutilation. Female Genital Mutilation “comprises all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons and is recognized […]
Read MoreCarolina Wins Asylum!
HRI recently won the cases of a 23-year-old Salvadoran woman and her 4-year-old daughter who sought asylum from severe domestic violence. Carolina began living with her partner when she was only 15, and the abuse started shortly thereafter. He abused her physically, emotionally, financially, and sexually, including when she was pregnant. She attempted to leave […]
Read MoreAsylum Backlogs Wreak Havoc with Our Clients’ Lives, Parts 1 & 2
Check out Christine Mansour’s featured AILA piece discussing the impact of the asylum backlog on HRI clients. http://www.ailaleadershipblog.org/2016/12/13/asylum-backlogs-wreak-havoc-with-our-clients-lives-part-1/ http://www.ailaleadershipblog.org/2016/12/14/asylum-backlogs-wreak-havoc-with-our-clients-lives-part-2/
Read MoreIt’s a Process
Jackie + Frank VAWA is a federal law meant to protect undocumented immigrant survivors of domestic abuse by allowing them to apply for immigration relief without the assistance of their abusive spouse. Jackie’s ex-husband, Frank, abused her physically, sexually, verbally, and psychologically for nearly 20 years. Jackie was born in Mexico, but moved to […]
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