September 28, 2023
Sara Horatius Awarded Racial Justice Fellowship to Work at CWJC
BY kwilliams@cwjustice.org
The Central West Justice Center (CWJC), a subsidiary of Community Legal Aid, is pleased to announce that Sara Horatius has been awarded a two-year Racial Justice Fellowship by the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC). The Fellowship will support Attorney Horatius’s work throughout Western Massachusetts, where she will expand CWJC’s immigration legal work with the Haitian community. In recent years, CWJC has seen a significant increase in the number of Haitian immigrants seeking refuge in the area. As a Haitian-American attorney fluent in Haitian Creole, Attorney Horatius will provide critically needed outreach, education, and legal advocacy to members of the Haitian community to help them understand their immigration-related rights and access free legal advocacy in immigration cases. Horatius is based in CWJC’s Springfield office.
Attorney Horatius grew up in Boston and attended Boston Latin Academy high school. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Temple University in Pennsylvania and law degree from Widener University School of Law in Delaware. After completing law school in 2013, she returned to Massachusetts and served for one year as an AmeriCorps Legal Advocate at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute in Boston, where she advocated to secure legal status and work authorization for Haitian immigrants. In 2015, Attorney Horatius opened her own law practice in Randolph, where she represented clients with immigration cases seeking the American dream through naturalization. Attorney Horatius has also taught legal courses as an Adjunct Professor at Roxbury Community College, Bunker Hill Community College, and Quincy College. An avid writer, Attorney Horatius earned her M.F.A. in Screenwriting from Boston University in 2021.
As CWJC’s Racial Justice Fellow, Attorney Horatius will assist Haitian clients with their immigration legal issues. This may include assistance in filing applications for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), asylum, or other forms of relief available for victims of crime or trafficking, or abused, abandoned, or neglected children. She will also conduct outreach and education by designing and delivering presentations to the Haitian community and agencies assisting them in the western part of the state.
Attorney Horatius joins Central West Justice Center’s team of 15 immigration attorneys and 3 paralegals working across its five-county service area. Last year, the unit assisted over 1,400 people with humanitarian-based immigration cases, including victims of crime, human trafficking, and domestic violence, or abused, abandoned, or neglected children.
“Haitian migrants have come to the United States fleeing political instability, natural disasters, corruption, and violence, and face disparities in the immigration legal system and many other areas of their lives. Through this Fellowship project, we aim to address representation and immigration relief disparities and increase awareness within the Haitian community about legal rights and legal aid services,” said Kristen Williams, Director of the Central West Justice Center. “Sara’s education, work experience, language skills, and passion to serve Massachusetts’ growing Haitian population make her the ideal candidate for this work. I am thrilled that MLAC can fund this essential work through the Racial Justice Fellowship.”
MLAC created the Racial Justice Fellowship in 2005 to expand the reach of legal aid to communities of color who face difficulties attaining access to legal representation due to language and cultural barriers. MLAC is the largest funding source for civil legal aid in Massachusetts. It was established by the state legislature in 1983 to ensure that people with critical, non-criminal legal problems have access to legal representation, advice, and information.