Requests for Assistance

• Federal Student Aid: Provides grants, work-study awards, and loans to help students and their families pay for college or career school.
• Job Corps: Offers career training for youth ages 16 to 24 with employment authorization.
• Refugee Support Services: Provides English language training, vocational training, and job placement and retention services. 
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Provides income support, job training, job search assistance, childcare support, and other services to help families with children who have low income achieve economic self-sufficiency. 

• Supplemental Security Income (SSI): Provides monthly payments to people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources. 
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Provides income support, job training, job search assistance, childcare support, and other services to help families with children who have low income achieve economic self-sufficiency. 

• Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC):  Provides free healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education, and referrals to other services for pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, infants, and children up to age five who have low-income.
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/Food Stamps (SNAP): Provides food assistance to families with low-income to supplement their grocery budget.

• Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program: Provides foster care for unaccompanied refugee minors and other special populations, including survivors of trafficking.

• Housing Choice Voucher Program: Helps families with low income, the elderly, and people with disabilities pay for housing in the private market by providing rental assistance through vouchers.      
• Public Housing Program: Provides affordable housing to individuals and families with low income, the elderly, and people with disabilities by offering rental units owned and operated by local public housing authorities.

• Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP): Provide free or low-cost health coverage to some people with low income, families, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Some states have also expanded Medicaid programs to cover all people below certain income levels.
• Refugee Health Promotion: Provides health education classes, medical and mental health navigation and support, adjustment groups, and peer support meetings.
• Refugee Medical Assistance: Provides short-term medical coverage to refugees ineligible for Medicaid or CHIP and enables refugees to receive a medical screening upon arrival in the United States.
• Support for Trauma Affected Refugees: Offers holistic health and psychological support services for trauma-affected refugees and other Office of Refugee Resettlement-eligible populations.

• Victim Compensation Program: Provides direct reimbursement to crime victims or their families for a wide variety of crime-related expenses, including medical costs, mental health counseling, lost wages, and funeral and burial costs.

Foreign national adults who have experienced human trafficking and are granted Continued Presence,  (PDF) a T visa, or a bona fide T visa application  that has not been denied by the U. S. Department of Homeland Security can request a Certification Letter from OTIP to be eligible to apply for certain assistance programs. 

To request a Certification Letter or case management services for survivors of human trafficking, submit a Request for Certification (RFC) through OTIP’s online case management system, Shepherd.

Need help with an RFC? Call OTIP’s Protection Division at 866-401-5510 or email trafficking@acf.hhs.gov. Staff are available Monday — Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time, and will respond to phone calls and emails received outside these hours as soon as possible. For urgent concerns contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline. For emergencies, contact 911.

Need help accessing assistance after receiving a Certification Letter? Call OTIP’s Trafficking Victim Assistance Program at 1-800-307-4712 or email tvap@acf.hhs.gov.

Foreign national children in the United States who have or may have experienced human trafficking are eligible to apply for certain assistance programs. They must first receive an Eligibility Letter or Interim Assistance Letter from OTIP. Unlike foreign national adults, children do not need Continued Presence, T visa, or bona fide T visa to request an Eligibility Letter. 

• Eligibility Letter: A letter issued by OTIP after determining that a child has experienced human trafficking, making them eligible to apply for assistance. This letter does not expire.
• Interim Assistance Letter: A letter issued by OTIP after determining that a child may have experienced human trafficking, granting eligibility to apply for assistance for up to 120 days. During this Interim Assistance period, OTIP will review additional information and make a final determination of eligibility or denial in consultation with the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and non-governmental organizations as required by federal law. 

To request an Eligibility Letter or case management services for survivors of trafficking, submit a Request for Assistance (RFA) through OTIP’s online case management system, Shepherd.  

Assisting a child? In accordance with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, information about foreign national children who may have experienced human trafficking must be referred to OTIP for assessment within 24 hours. OTIP will accept RFAs even after the initial 24-hour period, but the RFA must be submitted before the child’s 18^th birthday for the request to be eligible for review.

Access the Child Eligibility Toolkit to learn more about how to report human trafficking concerns and request assistance on behalf of a foreign national child. The toolkit also explains how child eligibility is determined and provides additional resources on human trafficking prevention and protection.

Need help with an RFA? Call OTIP's protection division at 202-205-4582 or email ChildTrafficking@acf.hhs.gov. Specialists can discuss a potential case, offer technical assistance, and answer questions related to the child eligibility process. Specialists are available Monday — Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time, and will respond to phone calls and emails received outside these hours as soon as possible. For urgent concerns contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline. For emergencies, contact 911.

Need help accessing assistance after receiving an Eligibility or Interim Assistance Letter? Call OTIP’s Aspire Program at 1-800-307-4712 or email aspire@acf.hhs.gov.