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Jessica Saucedo was only 3 years old when she and her mother arrived in the United States from their home of Guerrero, Mexico. Fleeing an abusive father, they feared for their safety and survival.
“We were undocumented and struggled to adapt, to make ends meet,” she said. “My father had followed us to the United States, and the violence continued and escalated until we couldn’t take it anymore.”
Without documents or a source of income, Saucedo never expected to lead a stable life—let alone to raise a healthy daughter of her own and to one day, see her off the college. But all of these unimagined dreams became a reality, in large part, she said, thanks to the Immigration Institute of the Bay Area (IIBA).
“Over 10 years ago, IIBA helped my mother and I secure U visas, which are reserved for survivors of certain crimes like domestic violence,” she said. The visas, she said, “gave us legal status that continues to open doors for us. Fast forward a decade later, now here.”
Now, the century-old organization offering free or reduced price immigration legal services, has opened the doors to its new home at 600 Allerton St., right in downtown Redwood City.
IIBA, which manages seven sites throughout the region, has operated one at the Fair Oaks Community Center for nearly 50 years. The nonprofit hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday to welcome the community to its new space.
Several dozen people gathered for the event, sipping beverages and exploring the new office, which was decorated with balloons, streamers and twinkling lights.
“It feels great,” said Legal Director Catherine Seitz, who joined IIBA roughly four years ago. Seitz said the organization was already outgrowing its prior home and, during the pandemic, began looking for a bigger space to accommodate more in-person and hybrid work.
“We wanted to be able to bring everybody together,” she said. “We’re looking forward to opening up more and more.”
The organization, which launched in San Francisco in 1918, helps immigrants with everything from applying to citizenship to renewing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status to helping reunite families. Legal services are offered on a sliding scale, often completely free of charge, according to Deputy Director Sheryl Muñoz-Bergman, who said they rely on funding from the government, local foundations and individual donors.
“The first thing we do when someone comes is provide a comprehensive eligibility assessment…and if they are [eligible] then we are generally able to help them,” she said. “We have a 95% success rate when we take someone on.”
Since opening its Redwood City office in 1974, IIBA has reached over 100,000 San Mateo County residents, Muñoz-Bergman said. In the past year alone, the Redwood City team has provided over 700 legal consultations and filed 610 immigration applications.
The new location gives the nonprofit its own space to operate, with room to expand its team and clientele. The office is within walking distance of the Caltrain station and will also enable their local Redwood City clients, who represent a large portion of those seeking help, to go no further than their own backyard for services.
Redwood City Council member Alicia Aguirre, who was the city’s first Latinx mayor, joined IIBA Board member Jennifer Beckett to perform the official ribbon-cutting.
The Redwood City office has 14 full-time employees as well as hundreds of volunteers who have dedicated thousands of hours to helping with the organization’s citizenship class and other legal services. But no amount of case workers or attorneys is ever enough, according to Seitz, who said the demand for immigration services is especially high in the Bay Area.
“We keep growing but we can never meet the need,” she said, adding that there was a particular demand for legal aid among immigrants fighting removal—or deportation—offense cases.
Executive Director Ellen Dumesnil said it was clients like Saucedo who motivate her and her colleagues to continue their work.
“I spoke to Jessica on a day I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic,” Dumesnil said. “She reminded me that our work has intrinsic value.”
Dumesnil compared affordable immigration legal services to “having a good doctor” and said that “when you’re helping them gain legal status you’re helping them gain their full potential.”
Muñoz-Bergman agreed, adding that the complexity of immigration law makes it difficult for people to navigate, especially newcomers who may not speak the language.
“Just a little bit of assistance is needed to navigate this process,” she said. “It can be the key for folks to find their pathway.”
For Saucedo, one of her greatest victories was being able to give her daughter a future she never thought was possible.
“My daughter is in her first year in San Francisco State…she's in college and living college life and doing what an 18-year-old child should be doing,” she said.
“This little girl from Mexico never thought that she would get where I am today,” she added, choking back tears. “If I did it, anybody can.”
