L4GG is proud to announce the hire of Estuardo Cifuentes as Client Services Manager of our Project Corazon initiative. Estuardo’s role includes coordinating services for our client population of asylum seekers at the Matamoros / Brownsville crossing and beyond. He first served in this role as a volunteer for many months, making himself essential to our work communicating with thousands of Spanish-speaking clients. We’re thrilled to have him join our team in a more permanent role.
Estuardo is himself an asylum seeker from Guatemala and a former client of Project Corazon. He spent more than 18 months waiting in Matamoros, MX as a result of the dangerous and draconian Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program that forced asylum seekers to wait for their immigration proceedings in Mexico. He fled his home country after police persecution for his sexual orientation, and quickly learned that LGBT asylum seekers living in Matamoros were not safe from persecution there either.
As a result, Estuardo set up Rainbow Bridge, an organization to help migrants in from the LGBT community waiting in Matamoros for entry to the US. Rainbow Bridge continues to be an important partner in Project Corazon’s work coordinating holistic services for LGBT asylum seekers.
You can read more about Estuardo here, as well as an Op-Ed he wrote about the dangers of MPP here.
L4GG Hires Asylum Seeker Activist Estuardo Cifuentes