by Precious Odum
Through its long-standing pro bono program, Public Law Center (PLC) is able to place hundreds of cases with Orange County lawyers each year. One such pro bono client has given PLC permission to share her story to showcase the life-changing partnership that allowed her to fully escape a life of labor trafficking.
Martha (PLC is not using Martha’s last name to protect her privacy) grew up in a household where domestic violence was the norm. Her father regularly physically, verbally, and emotionally abused her mother in front of their children. This included threats of murder. Martha herself was a victim of verbal abuse and labor trafficking by her father; from childhood, she and her sister were forced to cook and clean for him daily. If they did not comply, their father threatened to retaliate with physical violence against their mother. So, Martha and her sister felt they had no choice but to obey him. If, in their father’s eyes, Martha or her siblings were not quick or competent enough in fulfilling his demands, he would become angry and violent. Martha was also forced to do unpaid labor at a scrap yard, an appliance store, and an appliance installation business. She was finally able to escape in 2019.
Martha was assisted by EPGR Lawyers’ Dina Randazzo, who also serves as the President of PLC’s Board of Directors. Dina has volunteered for many pro bono cases with PLC since taking her initial case as a first-year associate nearly two decades ago. She has worked on a variety of cases, ranging from domestic violence restraining orders to probate and elder abuse to asylum cases. Her very first case was a T-visa case, just like Martha’s.
T-visas are issued to victims of human trafficking. “T-visas . . . can change people’s lives by giving them legal status in the United States to help them build a life after being victimized,” Randazzo explained. There is an annual limit of 5,000 T-visas that can be approved, and this cap has never been met. See, USCIS Questions and Answers: Victims of Human Trafficking, T Nonimmigrant Status (May 2024), https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/victims-of-human-trafficking-and-other-crimes/victims-of-human-trafficking-t-nonimmigrant-status/questions-and-answers-victims-of-human-trafficking-t-nonimmigrant-status (last visited Aug. 21, 2024). Some myths about human trafficking include that human trafficking is only sex trafficking or that human trafficking is only a violent crime, which are inaccurate. Here, in Martha’s case, she was not only a victim of labor trafficking, but her trafficker used psychological and manipulative tactics to keep her there (such as threatening to harm her mother if she did not do as he demanded), not violent tactics. Martha was a young child, working for her father with no pay—it took work to understand that her circumstances went far beyond a child doing chores for their parent, and to see her as a human trafficking survivor.
Being able to work with the client and the pro bono attorney to challenge the perceived norms of human trafficking was a privilege.
Prior to Martha’s case, Dina had taken on multiple T-visa cases. All of her previous T-visa cases were for victims of labor trafficking from Thailand. The survivors had been trafficked from the same organization and ended up in debt bondage. Thanks to Dina’s hard work, all of these clients and their families were able to receive T-visas, allowing them to reunite and have a pathway to U.S. citizenship.
With the expertise gained from her successes in these T-visa cases, Dina found herself drawn to Martha’s case. However, Martha’s case presented more of a challenge than expected. “Though I had done multiple T-visa cases, [Martha’s case had] a very different fact pattern, so it took some time to research the issues and . . . make sure I put together the strongest application I could for Martha,” Randazzo explained. Additionally, during the time she worked on this case, Dina was a solo practitioner without access to templates she used for her previous T-visa cases. PLC provided assistance to help her build the best possible case for Martha. “PLC was there to support me and sent me samples [of T-visa application templates] that I could use as a starting place, so I didn’t have to start from scratch.” Randazzo noted that PLC’s support in this case was invaluable.
Martha’s willingness to share her story is also priceless. As someone who had been victimized and suffered emotional trauma for years, her strength and resilience are immeasurable. Understandably, when Dina first took on her case, it took Martha some time to open up. Dina recalls that she “had to meet with Martha multiple times in order to slowly pull out her story. Talking about your victimization is not easy, and so it [sometimes] takes time to get the full story from a client.”
The fact that Martha was trafficked by her own father and was persecuted by him throughout her childhood and adolescence also severely impacted her perception of normality. According to Dina, Martha “did not know anything [different from her home life,] and it was only after a short glimpse of the world outside her home that she was able to realize how terrible her situation was.” Through patience and compassion, Dina was able to discover the extent of Martha’s victimization.
When Dina learned the complexity of Martha’s story, she knew that it would require a delicate approach to accurately represent the nuances and facts of her situation. “I had to . . . make the government understand that this was not just a strict family environment or a complaining daughter; this was an abusive situation with a father who deliberately brought his child to the United States to use as a labor slave and used threats of violence to ensure she would comply with his requests to work long and dangerous hours with little to no pay.” Dina also highlighted that Martha needed to support many family members. She had been able to qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), but with the ever-changing political climate, Martha dealt with the constant fear of losing her status and ability to provide for her family. This pressure on Martha translated into pressure on Dina. As she put it, “A lot of people were relying on [Martha], and therefore relying on me to get her the legal status she needed and deserved.”
Through Martha’s determination and resilience, Dina’s impassioned efforts, and PLC’s technical support, Martha’s application for her T-visa was approved in a little over a year. For those of us born in the United States, it is easy to take for granted our U.S. citizenship. However, for someone like Martha, the dream of obtaining lawful immigration status can seem out of reach. Thanks to PLC and particularly to Dina, Martha is now safe and free from her trafficker. Her next step, with Dina’s assistance, will involve applying for lawful permanent residence, also commonly referred to as a “green card.” This will give her long-term stability, the ability to travel to visit her family outside the United States, to work lawfully, and eventually to apply for full U.S. citizenship.
For any attorneys who would like to be more involved in immigration cases or pro bono work in general, Dina would like to share the following advice:
We couldn’t say it any better. On behalf of my co-supervising attorney, Josie Roberto, the entire Immigration Unit, and all of my colleagues at PLC, we look forward to working with you on your next pro bono Case!
Precious Odum is a Co-Supervising Attorney in the Immigration Unit of Public Law Center (PLC). Precious and her team are proud to assist low-income immigrants of Orange County through consultations, filing for various forms of immigration relief with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), deportation defense in immigration court, and community education on immigration issues. She can be reached at podum@publiclawcenter.org.