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Spokane’s Manzanita House educates immigrants on rights amid changing federal policies

By Alexandra Coenjaerts

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    SPOKANE, Wash. (KXLY) — A Spokane organization has amplified its efforts to make sure immigrant populations know their rights in the United States.

In a given year, 700 people from 70 different countries come to the Manzanita House to get legal aid or general support whilst going through the immigrating process in the United States. In recent weeks, and especially the past few days, staff have experienced an influx of people reaching out trying to learn more about their rights.

“We’ve been receiving communication through personal channels and through our phone emails of individuals, even those who have very firm immigration status, who are terrified,” said Samuel Smith, the legal aid and immigration attorney at Manzanita House.

Dyver Acevado immigrated to the United States from Venezuela two years ago. The journey here took more than six months. For him Manzanita House has been the place for him to learn more about the immigration process and his rights.

“I really like this city, it feels like home,” Acevado said.

Smith has been actively holding workshops within the Spokane community to help support and educate immigrants about their rights in the United States.

“We’re not trying to make sure anyone’s lying or obscuring information, it’s just what are the rights guaranteed to every person, the responsibilities that the government has in order to be able to carry out immigration enforcement,” Smith said.

These workshops have reached a newfound importance with recent changes to immigration policy, which Smith says caused confusion in the landscape of immigration law, especially for the immigrant population themselves.

“Even for immigration practitioners just needing to spend so much time keeping up,” said Smith. “That trickles down to the immigrant population generally”

Assistant Professor of Law, Michael Cecil, said the possibility for change is immense. “It remains to be seen with the new administration whether he can take a whack at federal law, new comprehensive immigration reform that would require your classic House and Senate,” said Cecil.

Cecil emphasized that immigrants, including lawful permanent resident, have rights they should know and protect.

“Even though the executive has immense power under the immigration law, there are many things that American citizen former immigrants can do to protect their constitutionally protected rights,” he said.

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