Our Story
South Brooklyn Sanctuary grew out of the grassroots, volunteer-run immigration clinic at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, led by Pastor Juan Carlos Ruiz.
In Spring 2022, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott first bused migrants from the southern border to New York City, volunteers at Juan Carlos' church launched a weekly walk-in immigration clinic. Volunteers do not offer legal advice but support people to better understand the legal process, navigate the city’s network of legal service providers and complete their own legal forms. Volunteers meet with approximately 50 people at the church each week and follow up by phone and email. We have supported over 5000 people to date. To accommodate our growth, we launched a weekly “by appointment” clinic in downtown Brooklyn, where a storefront lends us their space after business hours. Our most recent clinic is a monthly asylum clinic in partnership with the legal nonprofit, Co-Counsel, and located at Mixteca Organization in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
We imagine an inclusive immigration system that offers protection, not punishment. Ideally, each person in immigration proceedings would have access to quality representation. In reality, immigrants are facing an adversarial system without the right to a lawyer, and nearly 60% of immigrants in New York State are battling their cases alone. Data reflects that these case outcomes are overwhelmingly negative. Pro se program’s like South Brooklyn Sanctuary—which empower people to represent themselves—are essential to filling the justice gap.