New American Welcome Center (NAWC)

Lincoln Square Mall, Urbana | Francisco Baires, Director | [email protected]

The New American Welcome Center works to co-create a community where all immigrants can thrive and flourish. We do this by engaging local institutions and mobilizing community resources to ensure equitable access to services, economic opportunity, and meaningful belonging.

Immigrant Family Services

• Welcomes immigrants into the community and connects them to necessary information and services to reduce barriers and promote health, well-being, and self-sufficiency for clients.
  
• Provides La Linea help line at 217-417-5897.

Legal Services and Assistance

• Provides legal assistance on family-based immigration matters and humanitarian immigration relief. Accredited to provide legal advice on immigration issues and prepare immigration forms.
  
• Offers additional programs including a Pathway to Citizenship and free legal advice clinics on non-immigration matters.

Community Navigators

• Trains local immigrants from local immigrant communities as community educators and trusted connectors.

Urbana School District

Lucia Maldonado, Latino Family Liaison | 217-384-3505 | [email protected]

 The Latino Family Liaison’s role at Urbana High School is to help meet the needs of newcomers, specifically unaccompanied minors, who live in our communities and attend our schools. Every day is different because each student’s needs are different.

For example, the high school liaison manages two facilities in the school—the closet and the food pantry—that provide clothes, shoes, food, and school supplies to any student or family in need. The liaison coordinates the volunteers who distribute food during lunch hours once a week and deliver food to unaccompanied minors’ homes or to any family that needs food and doesn't have transportation to visit the pantry in person. School district Latino liaisons also work at Yankee Ridge elementary and middle schools.

SUPPORT FOR STUDENTS​

• Provide or arrange for support for students who may have large gaps in their education.
• Provide a space where any student can go for trusted support, information, and connections to community resources.

Information For All

• Connects students and their families with community resources and individuals who want to help.
• Provides Know your Rights information to students and their families as needed.
• Maintains an active social media presence to share current information about school life and community resources, including the Familias Latinas de USD116 Facebook page designed for Spanish-speaking parents in the district.
• Shares information with community organizations and individuals about the experience of newcomer students in our schools.

Immigration Services of Champaign-Urbana (ISC-U)

201 W Kenyon Rd, Champaign, IL | Maria Jimenez, Executive Director | [email protected] | [email protected]

Immigration Services of Champaign-Urbana provides comprehensive support to immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers, helping them access essential resources, navigate complex systems, and build stability in the community.

Mental Health Programs

• Provides trauma-informed, bilingual mental health services through partnerships with local therapists, fully covering therapy costs as part of holistic care.

Case Management

• Delivers holistic, client-centered case management by meeting clients where they are and allowing individual needs to guide flexible service delivery.

advocacy

• Advocates for clients navigating local systems and immigration courts by ensuring interpretation and translation, providing court support when needed, and coordinating with social workers and service providers.

Emergency Assistance & Crisis Intervention

• Responds to immigration-related emergencies by stabilizing individuals and families facing crisis, violence, trafficking, or other urgent situations.

Community Support

• Builds community-based support networks by collaborating with schools, healthcare providers, therapists, childcare centers, landlords, and partner organizations.

The Refugee Center

201 West Kenyon Road, Suite 4D, Champaign, IL | Lisa Wilson, Executive Director | [email protected] | 217-344-8455

The Refugee Center was founded in 1980 by Vietnamese refugees to provide commonly needed services to other newly arrived refugees, and to help them acclimatize to American culture. In its 45 years of service to our community, The Refugee Center has expanded its scope to assist all immigrants, political asylees, and refugees, regardless of country of origin.

Social Services

• Provides wrap-around case management and social support services.
• Refers clients to healthcare, legal services, and other social services.
  
• Offers public benefits, Know Your Rights, and other educational workshops.
  
• Assists with applying for public benefits like SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid.
  

 Language Support

• Provides interpretation and accompaniment for job interviews, doctor visits, court hearings, school appointments, meeting with landlords, and more.
• ​Assists with completing paperwork for permanent residency, citizenship, family reunification, and other immigration issues.
• Offers 10 languages spoken in-house, 300+ available on demand.
• Provides certified document translation.

Refugee Support

• Actively serves over 200 refugees resettled from Afghanistan and other countries. 
  
• ​Provides rental and utility assistance to refugees and other Office of Refugee Resettlement recognized populations.
  
• Offers intensive employment and case management services for Office of Refugee Resettlement groups.

Resources for Immigrants, Refugees, Allies, and Volunteers

Illinois’ Trust Act and Associated Resources

• Illinois Attorney General Issues Guidance on Law Enforcement’s Role in Immigration Enforcement
  
• Law Enforcement and Immigration
  
• Illinois Laws Governing Law Enforcement Interactions with Immigrant Communities
  

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR)

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) builds power with over 100 member and partner organizations representing diverse immigrant and refugee communities. Together the coalition works to win policies to ensure a more equitable society rooted in dignity and respect for all.

Illinois ACLU

Know Your Rights: The Illinois ACLU provides a set of Know Your Rights documents, including If Stopped by ICE, Protesting, Stopped by the Police, Voting, and many others.

The ACLU of Illinois (ACLU), and its affiliated Roger Baldwin Foundation (RBF), are non-partisan, non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting the liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution, the state Constitution, and state/federal human rights laws. The ACLU accomplishes its goals through litigating, lobbying, and educating the public on a broad array of civil liberties issues.

The Immigration Project

The Immigration Project has physical offices in Bloomington-Normal, Champaign-Urbana, and Springfield, Illinois to provide affordable, accessible, and high-quality immigration legal services to the immigrants living in our 86-county service area. Legal services include naturalization for legal permanent residents, family-based immigration petitions, removal defense, and support for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The organization also provides additional services including accurate, current information about eligibility for public benefits and about the impacts of receipt of benefits on a client’s immigration case; informative presentations about US Immigration Law, higher education for noncitizens, civil rights, and Individual Tax ID numbers; and serves as a Housing Stability Services Provider (5263) with the Illinois Housing Development Authority.

[email protected] | (309) 829-8703
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1503, Bloomington, IL 61702-1503
Champaign-Urbana office: 409 Devonshire Drive, Champaign, IL 61820
Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm