Refugee and immigrant support organization changes name to reflect its mission

A statewide immigrant and refugee support organization has a new name to more accurately reflect what it offers the community.

The Immigrant Legal Center merged with the Refugee Empowerment Center in October of 2022, and it just went by both names. After two years of deliberation and research, it’s now called the Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement (CIRA).

“We worked on the new name for a long time, and things just didn't feel right until we came up with the word ‘advancement’ and wanting it in our name at some level or capacity,” said Executive Director Erik Omar. “As soon as we added that to the name, it just spoke it to us, because it really describes everything that we do.”

The services remain the same under the new name and CIRA will still focus on immigrant legal representation, refugee resettlement and social work, just as before.

“We'll continue to do that work as well as communicating and liaising with the refugee and immigrant communities to make sure that they know that we're here and that we know that they're there, and other folks in the community have the educational resources that they need to help advance this work,” Omar added.

CIRA is currently finishing up a capital project at its Omaha headquarters which will allow for all 90 of the Omaha staff to be under the same roof for the first time in the organization's history.

CIRA has 10 offices and 115 full-time employees spread out across the state and in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The decision behind the name came from dedicated outreach to employees, board members, community stakeholders and clients..

"It's been a long process, but it was worth it," Omar said. "There's more need for it now than ever. Refugees continue to come into the community, and the immigrant community needs our legal services more now than ever. And so we're excited about the name change. We're excited that people are paying attention because we care deeply about our mission, and hopefully other people will get a chance to learn a bit more about us now."

The first public event under the new name is their annual World Tour food truck fundraiser on Sept. 29 starting at 3 p.m. at Metro Community College North Campus.