Welcome to NIWAP’s Interactive Public Benefits Map (October 24, 2022)
This Interactive Public Benefits Map is designed to support professionals who encounter immigrant survivors in their work including judges, court staff, lawyers, victim advocates, law enforcement and prosecutor agency staff, and other professionals. The map will help you quickly identify for which publically funded benefits immigrant survivors qualify. The map specifically focuses on the benefits and services available to immigrant survivors of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other crimes and to immigrant children, refugees, asylees, or newly arrived Afghans and Ukrainians with humanitarian parole. Some publicly funded supports are open to all persons without regard to immigration status. Other state and federal public benefits are only open to specific categories of immigrants. When immigrant survivors of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, and other crimes begin the process of filing for protections under U.S. immigration laws, their ability to access public benefits and services expands and can vary depending on the following factors:
- The state in which a survivor lives;
- The form of immigration relief the survivor has been granted or has filed for;
- When the survivor first entered the United States; and
- Which publicly funded benefits program or service does the survivor or their children need
- The Maps by state/jurisdiction report on
- 15 different forms of immigration status or immigrant case type
- 30+ types of publically funded benefits or services
- Separate maps for 56 jurisdictions including all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
- The Maps with their accompanying tables may be sorted to see all of the benefits an immigrant survivor qualifies for by the survivor’s particular immigration status in any individual state
- To see how the form of immigration status impacts benefits access select only the immigration options a victim qualified for. For example, you can compare a VAWA self-petition, T visa, and U visa in the same state to see how benefits access differs by status.
- Full Public Benefits Chart: Using the Map once you determine that the survivor you are working with is “eligible” or “eligible with conditions” for a particular benefit or set of benefits, you can return to the cover page for your state and click on your state’s full public benefits map. This will connect you with a chart that lists all of the immigration-related eligibility factors by immigration status with footnotes that links you to the sources of law that establish the immigrant survivor’s or their child’s eligibility.
- Screening Chart: NIWAP’s tools include a chart that may be printed out and used as a desk reference or screening chart. This version reports on immigration status by category. Once you determine that a survivor may qualify you can use the online benefits map tool to obtain more detail about the types of benefits a victim may qualify for and each specific form of immigration relief.
- Demographics Charts: To assist with facilitating language access planning for your work with immigrant survivors we have included state-by-state demographics on the state’s foreign-born population, the top languages other than English spoken at home, and the top languages spoken by Limited English Proficient persons in the state.
- Every state and territory’s full detailed public benefits chart with citations to state and federal law and every jurisdiction’s and screening chart. https://niwaplibrary.wcl.american.edu/all-state-public-benefits-charts
- All State Demographics Charts (Updated May 2022) https://niwaplibrary.wcl.american.edu/demographics