Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network - GAIN

05/05/2026

This Friday is GAIN’s annual event, Taste of the World, and our exclusive silent auction is now live! You don’t have to attend the event to bid or win, anyone can participate and bid on 50+ incredible packages and experiences.

To get started, register and start bidding here: https://bit.ly/TasteSilentAuction26

All auction proceeds directly support GAIN and our mission to protect and empower immigrant survivors of crime and persecution.

Swipe for just a preview of some of the amazing experiences available—happy bidding, everyone!

05/04/2026

Our work at GAIN is only made possible through the generous support of our Defender sponsors for this year’s Taste of the World—Fragomen, Garvish Immigration Law Group, Georgia Power, HL Strategy, McGuire Woods, and Seyfarth Shaw. We are so grateful to each of our Defender sponsors for their commitment to protecting and empowering immigrant survivors of crime and persecution. Thank you, Fragomen, Garvish Immigration, Georgia Power, HL Strategy, McGuire Woods, and Seyfarth Shaw!

Limited tickets are still available for Taste of the World, and GAIN staff and Board Members are excited to once again enjoy a powerful night out with our donors, friends, partners, and supporters.

Hurry! To purchase tickets and Tastemaker packages, visit: https://bit.ly/TasteTickets26

We’ll see you on May 8!

05/01/2026

Our work at GAIN is only made possible through the generous support of our Protector sponsors for this year’s Taste of the World—Alston & Bird, Delta, and Eversheds Sutherland. We are so grateful to each of our Protector sponsors for their commitment to protecting and empowering immigrant survivors of crime and persecution. Thank you, Alston & Bird, Delta, and Eversheds Sutherland!

Limited tickets are still available for Taste of the World, and GAIN staff and Board Members are excited to once again enjoy a powerful night out with our donors, friends, partners, and supporters.

Hurry! To purchase tickets and Tastemaker packages, visit: https://bit.ly/TasteTickets26

We’ll see you on May 8!

05/01/2026

ICYMI: CNN’s Rafael Romo recently sat down with GAIN’s Director of Legal Services, Adriana Heffley, and dedicated Court Watch Volunteer, Lauren Waits, to discuss how the right to request bond from immigrant detention is being systematically eroded, leading to mass, indefinite detention under increasingly inhumane conditions.

Starting early 2026, GAIN’s Court Watch program began to document bond hearing denials at never before seen rates, giving weight to advocates' concerns that outcomes may be predetermined.

Watch the full story at:

4 likes, 1 comment. "Why are immigrants with no criminal background being denied bond?"

04/29/2026

Our work at GAIN is only made possible through the generous support of our Champion sponsor for this year’s Taste of the World—Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP. We are so grateful to our Champion sponsor for their commitment to protecting and empowering immigrant survivors of crime and persecution. Thank you, Kilpatrick!

Tickets are still available for Taste of the World, and GAIN staff and Board Members are excited to once again enjoy a powerful night out with our donors, friends, partners, and supporters.

To purchase tickets and Tastemaker packages, visit: https://bit.ly/TasteTickets26

We’ll see you on May 8!

04/27/2026

Our work at GAIN is only made possible through the generous support of our Presenting sponsors for this year’s Taste of the World—ARCO Design/Build, King & Spalding, and Troutman Pepper Locke. We are so grateful to each of our Presenting sponsors for their commitment to protecting and empowering immigrant survivors of crime and persecution. Thank you, ARCO Design/Build, King & Spalding, and Troutman Pepper Locke!

Tickets are still available for Taste of the World, and GAIN staff and Board Members are excited to once again enjoy a powerful night out with our donors, friends, partners, and supporters.

To purchase tickets and Tastemaker packages, visit: https://bit.ly/TasteTickets26

We’ll see you on May 8!

04/26/2026

As we close out National Volunteer Week, we’d like to give a huge shout out to our friends at HOK Atlanta who recently collected an incredible 244 items for GAIN’s Care Closet! Volunteer, Lila Dalton, heard about GAIN through Highland Yoga and initiated the drive at her office.

Through our Care Closet, GAIN clients have access to culturally familiar foods, hygiene items, and cleaning supplies and, with the recent launch of our Client Care Volunteer Program, we are now collaborating with community members to expand access to these resources and further community support.

Volunteers can host supply drives—like our friends at HOK Atlanta—organize our Care Closet, deliver items to clients facing transportation barriers, and provide rides and accompaniment to vital appointments. Express your interest in our Non-Legal Volunteer Opportunities at: https://bit.ly/GAINVolunteer

Thank you Lila and everyone at HOK Atlanta for providing this generous and much-needed support for GAIN clients!

04/15/2026

Over the past few months, many small businesses have come up with creative and generous ways to support GAIN, speaking out proudly about their belief in dignity, safety, and fairness for our immigrant neighbors.

To everyone who has uplifted GAIN in some way shape or form recently—thank you. You are helping us hold the line, and reminding our team that we are not doing this work alone.

Read the full story at:

Georgia small business community shows up for immigrants Atlanta, GA—March 30, 2026 We’ve been feeling something deeply at GAIN lately: the steady presence of people who refuse to look away. And we just want to say: it matters. We are seeing community members, longtime supporters, and even anony...

04/12/2026

Vanessa Orduna Zarazua, GAIN Programs Manager, and Katherine Watkins, 3L Extern from Emory University School of Law, recently attended the FIFA Human Trafficking Training hosted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Countering Human Trafficking. The training included several workshop sessions educating participants on human trafficking and its impact on our communities ahead of the FIFA World Cup. Vanessa and Katherine shared with attendees about GAIN’s services supporting survivors of violence and human trafficking and highlighted how our programs provide critical, tailored assistance to immigrant communities across Georgia.

Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about GAIN’s outreach and training efforts.

04/09/2026

We can now confidently corroborate reports that multiple immigration judges began arbitrarily denying bond to virtually all detained immigrants in early 2026. Because our Court Watch volunteers have collected this data consistently since 2024, we are uniquely positioned to identify these patterns in a way that is not otherwise publicly available.

A recent policy update encourages immigration judges to remove observers from virtual hearings and require in-person attendance. However, by law, these hearings are supposed to be public. The public cannot meaningfully access a hearing taking place in Lumpkin, Georgia—over two hours from Atlanta—if we are blocked from attending virtual hearings. We are working behind the scenes to ensure continued access to these public proceedings and will share more updates in due course.

In this current landscape, every hearing observed matters, even documenting denial of access to proceedings is important. Together, we send a message to those who hold the lives of our immigrant neighbors in their hands: the people are watching.

We are grateful, as always, to Emily Wu Pearson and WABE News for shedding light on what’s going on in Georgia’s immigration courts—check out the full story at:

The Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network said its volunteers have been barred from virtual immigration bond hearings ever since the organization shared information with a federal court about a sudden increase in negative outcomes for immigrants at a Georgia immigration court.