IRIS: Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services

An estimated 1,000 to 1,100 lawfully present #immigrants in Connecticut could lose Medicare coverage under federal eligibility changes. State lawmakers are considering whether to use a state reserve fund to help affected residents, while #healthcare organizations warn that increased numbers of uninsured patients could add pressure to hospitals. Full story in the comments. Connecticut Hospital Association Saud Anwar, MD, MPH, FCCP Maggie Mitchell Salem IRIS: Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services Cristin McCarthy Vahey Ryan Fazio Cathy Osten Shawn F. Community Health Center Association of Connecticut Keith Phaneuf Connecticut Mirror #CTHealthNews #Medicare #HealthcareCoverage #ConnecticutHealth #PublicHealth #HealthcarePolicy

It’s exciting to see this one come to life! For the past several months, No Margin, No Mission has had the privilege of working alongside IRIS: Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services to turn an earned-income idea into a mission-aligned venture — from exploring and vetting possibilities, to building the business plan, raising startup capital, and bringing IRIS Language Services to market. Now comes the best part: watching it grow, tracking the results, and seeing how margin can fuel even more mission. Congratulations to the IRIS team — and special thanks to the Greater Hartford Gives Foundation for supporting this entrepreneurial capacity-building initiative.

Happy Wednesday! 😅 Any day is a good day to invite your company, nonprofit, or agency to use our Language Services when you have translation and interpretation needs. When you book time with us you are helping support the programs and services we offer to refugees and other immigrants. Check us out (see attached flyer)! 💜 These are challenging times for all #nonprofits. Our community has really shown up for us as we launched this #socialenterprise. We are grateful for the support of Greater Hartford Gives, No Margin, No Mission and Michael Oxman, our exceptional Board Chair Jeffrey Kinney, our start-up investor-donors, and...the colleague who has led this initiative and team for 2 1/2 years: our determined, dedicated, entrepreneur-in-residence Andrea Streets. 👏

Our STATEMENT. A HUGE thank you to Senators Coons, Murkowski, Cassidy, and Klobuchar for always standing with our allies. The Afghanistan TPS Act of 2026 is the single most impactful piece of legislation out there to help allies here in the U.S. still going through their immigration process. You can take action to support this today at https://afghanevac.org/tps

Before 1980, the United States had no permanent system for people fleeing persecution. It responded case by case, through temporary measures. The Refugee Act of 1980 replaced that with a permanent system. It defined who qualifies for protection: people fleeing persecution based on one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. That definition still governs eligibility today. The same law authorized the president to set annual refugee admissions, which is why that number varies so widely from one administration to the next. The framework is 45 years old. The debates around it are still ongoing, and they're far easier to follow once you know where the system came from. The full history is at forumtogether.org/250. How closely do you follow refugee news?

After being arrested in her driveway in front of her children and later deported, New Haven mother Nancy Martinez is suing the US government over the trauma she says her family has endured. Following her arrest, Nancy's 9-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter, Monse (pictured), were left confused, fearful and depressed, making it difficult to focus on school and daily life. Now 15, Monse has taken on adult responsibilities, including caring for her younger brother. Nancy says she has suffered stress-induced headaches, anxiety, hair loss and other health problems. She has also missed major milestones in her children's lives, including her daughter's quinceañera. Nancy and her children are represented by Yale Law School's Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. Law student intern Brenda Cachay Gutiérrez said ICE's actions were "meant to terrorize the Martinez family, retaliate against Connecticut and New Haven's pro-immigrant policies, and intimidate entire communities of immigrants." The lawsuit also notes that Nancy was arrested on June 9, 2025; the same day Gov. Ned Lamont signed legislation further limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. The complaint argues the timing was part of a broader effort to intimidate immigrant-friendly jurisdictions. https://lnkd.in/g83EdiBD

Cruel. Irresponsible. Illegal. There’s no other way to describe today’s decision by the White House—cynically issued on the 75th anniversary of the global Refugee Convention—to abandon our legal and moral obligations to those seeking asylum in the United States. Both the Refugee Convention and U.S. law establish that no individual can be returned to places where their lives or freedom would be at risk. The United States is at its best when we welcome the stranger, not punish them for striving to live in safety and with dignity. ➡ Learn More: https://bit.ly/4vO5fER ➡ Take Action: https://bit.ly/4wnNtJD

Me, explaining this change today to someone who isn't an immigration lawyer: "There are two pathways to winning asylum--protection from harm motivated by your race, religion, political opinions, etc--in the United States. In one of them, you get the chance to tell your story to an officer trained in trauma. In the other, you're in a courtroom, there's a judge who's being pressured by the Executive Branch to deny your case (or risk being fired like over 100 judges over the last year) and a prosecutor who may be trying to confuse you. You're almost guaranteed to lose in this system in 2026. This change means that suddenly, countless asylum seekers who've been waiting years, following lawful pathways, complying with dizzying waves of new fees and requirements because they trusted the promise of the chance to eventually make their case in front of a neutral factfinder will be kicked into a system where they will lose their cases. This is due process in 2026." https://lnkd.in/eu9zkJPz