Community groups urge Maui County to fund Roots Reborn's immigrant and recovery services

Several community leaders urged the Maui County WASA Committee on March 17 to consider sustainable funding for Maui Roots Reborn, a grassroots nonprofit providing immigration legal help, community-care navigation and disaster-recovery outreach.

Why it matters: Testifiers said Roots Reborn fills gaps in services for immigrant, migrant and mixed-status families that they said county grants and federal recovery dollars have not consistently covered. The group described immigration legal representation, know-your-rights trainings at sensitive locations and community outreach in native languages.

Stephanie Villalobos, introduced as a community care navigator with Roots Reborn, said the group has "served over a thousand survivors, helping them secure housing, food assistance, medical care, health insurance, and financial stability," and urged the council to support dedicated funding so the group can continue closing service gaps. Several other testifiers — including a Roots Reborn legal assistant and its immigration attorney — outlined the organization's legal and educational work.

Immigration attorney Aparna Patriot told council members the legal program has two pillars: direct representation and education. Patriot said the program conducts "hundreds of consultations a year" and handles a range of cases including asylum and removal defense, and that Roots Reborn had to stand up a know-your-rights program rapidly to meet changing federal enforcement and policy conditions. Patriot said volunteers and a small core staff provide services in multiple languages and that some program components rely on private grants and partnerships while the organization seeks longer-term sustainability.

Founding executive director Veronica Mendoza Jankowski and other witnesses described several immediate community services Roots Reborn provides: document assistance, passport acceptance support (Roots Reborn staff said the county immigrant services office is a Department of State passport acceptance facility and the nonprofit helps people navigate options), Know Your Rights trainings in native languages, community events such as Dia de los Muertos that also provide small-business supports, and pro bono or low-cost legal representation through DOJ-accredited staff or pending partnerships.

Several council members and Vice Chair Gabe Johnson said Roots Reborn could be a budget priority during the FY2026 process; Johnson said he expected the group to be among his priorities for the upcoming budget cycle. Testifiers and committee members clarified that Roots Reborn did not have an existing county line-item in FY2025 when asked; speakers said current operations are funded through private grants, partnerships (including with Hawaii Community Foundation and the American Red Cross) and volunteer efforts, with the organization requesting county support for sustainability.

Speakers emphasized trust-building as a core part of Roots Reborn's model. Legal assistant Tanya Dominguez described personal pathways to DOJ accreditation through the group and said the nonprofit hires from within the community to create longer-term capacity. Public commenters and council members asked whether the organization had applied for the county procurement for immigrant legal services; Roots Reborn legal staff said they had not applied for that specific RFP.

The committee did not vote on any funding request during the meeting. Members asked staff to confine testimony to the FY2025 operational review (the committee's agenda item) and noted the FY2026 budget would be available the following Tuesday; several council members indicated they were open to considering Roots Reborn in the FY2026 process.