ABOUT US

Founded in 1998, Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami, Inc. (CLS) provides professional immigration services to the South Florida's refugee and immigrant community, particularly to low-income clients.  Services include filing documents as well as providing attorney representation before immigration authorities including the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO), and Florida Dependency Court.

Throughout the years we have served thousands and thousands of clients helping them with a variety of immigration issues including obtaining employment authorization, adjusting their legal status, procuring asylum, becoming a U.S. citizen, petitioning family members, etc. Most of these services are provided free of charge for qualifying clients or for a nominal fee to those who do not quality. Oftentimes, we are able to help clients in their native language including Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, Chinese, Portuguese, and Italian.  Our clients include newcomers, detained individuals, victims of domestic violence, human trafficking survivors, individuals without legal status, people with criminal histories, juveniles, individual with physical/mental disabilities, torture survivors, and others. We serve clients without reference to their race, religion, gender, ethnic group, or other distinguishing characteristics.

CATHOLIC IDENTITY

"I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35).

This representative biblical passage reminds us of the Gospel commandment of welcoming our brothers and sisters. In Matthew's gospel, welcoming the stranger is presented as a salvation criterion in the context of the Last Judgment. In other words, it depicts responding to the needs of others as the fundamental action that characterizes Christian love. We meet the Lord in the stranger, in the person in need.  "When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you? And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' (Matthew 25: 38-40). Indeed, love of God is inseparable from love of neighbor (1 John 4:20).

Exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia) is a fundamental responsibility of the Church. "For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could be equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, and indispensable expression of her very being" (Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 25).  Hence, our work here at CCLS is deeply connected to the mission of the Church. In fact, it is a concrete expression of it.  It is from our Catholic identity that we serve everyone, regardless of what they think, believe, look like, have done or failed to do, for we believe in the dignity of every human being created in the image and likeness of God.
 

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