“Pope Francis recently called on Catholic universities worldwide to contribute to research and teaching about refugees and migrants. As a Catholic and Augustinian institution with a deep an longstanding commitment to community service and founded to educate immigrants, Villanova is answering Pope Franci’s call”. So begins the website of this impressive endeavor to address creatively and effectively the lives of the new arrivals to this county. The website further states:
” Founded by Michele Pistone, an immigration law professor and practitioner, VIISTA responds to the access to justice crisis within the immigration field. It addresses two essential problems: the lack of sufficient legal advocates working within the immigration system and the high barriers to entry into the legal workforce for those directly impacted by immigration.
With an innovation grant from Villanova and funding from the MacArthur Foundation, Professor Pistone created VIISTA . VIISTA is a three-module online certificate program which trains people to become Department of Justice accredited representatives. Accredited representatives can provide legal advice and support for people with cases in the immigration system.
VIISTA is set up in 3 modules. Completing the first 2 modules fulfills the requirements for partial accreditation from the Department of Justice and finishing all 3 modules prepares students for full accreditation. By establishing the program as separate modules, students have greater flexibility to learn only the information that they need for their desire accreditation level.
The curriculum is holistic. It teaches immigration from various perspectives and includes a full spectrum of topics needed to become effective immigrant advocates, including interviewing, how to work with an interpreter, how to work with migrant children factors that push people to migrate, providing trauma-informed care, trial advocacy, and immigration law. Both the needs and agency of migrants and refugees are central to every part of the course.”