Stacy Preston: Changing the Narrative Script for Immigrants in Our City

Written and Photography by Maddie McMurry

Imagine entering a space and time that is unfamiliar to you. The culture you are surrounded with is nothing like the one you grew up in. You don’t know what roads lead into the next, what people to connect with to get a job, or any information for daily living. On top of the culture shock, you are surrounded by a language you do not know. You can’t communicate. You can’t even speak to the person to your right or to your left at the grocery store, a basic task we take for granted. 

Now, imagine you are stuck in a domestic abuse situation with children to care for, but your abuser uses their legal status as a way to continually trap you in the life you want to escape. 

But then you meet a woman named Stacy, who tells you that you don’t have to be stuck in this situation any longer. There is a way to self-petition due to being a victim of abuse, but you didn’t know this was an option until someone told you about the resources available. 

This was a real person that Stacy Preston, director of All Saints Immigration Services, cared for recently. She was able to get this woman and her children out of an abusive situation simply because of her legal knowledge and intentionality to inform someone who didn’t know what steps to take. Now, a year later, this woman has a work permit, has moved her children into an apartment, and is able to live an independent life. 

The work Stacy does is transformational — it provides people with a shift in identity, and it provides them with confidence. 

While most of us carry on with our normal lives unaware of the challenges or circumstances of our local immigrant community, Stacy Preston has a different story. All Saints Immigration Services (ASIS) in Jackson is a local nonprofit providing low-cost legal services to immigrants in our community. ASIS is the only immigration service between Memphis and Nashville, making the needs greater than the current staff can provide. 

Stacy moved to Jackson in 2001 to attend Union University, where she met her husband, and after graduation, they decided to make Jackson their home. While at Union, she majored in Spanish, with a minor in intercultural studies. During her college years, she began serving at a Spanish church and stayed there for seven years. The congregation quickly became like family to her, and soon she began attending their birthday parties, weddings, and quinceañeras. This was the beginning of her passion to help immigrants find resources and attain legal status so that they could live their lives to the fullest capacity and fulfill the dreams they had in moving to the US. 

In 2016, after a very long period where she didn't really know what to do with her degree and felt limited in Jackson, Stacy and her family began attending All Saints Anglican Church. At this time, her children were older, and she was questioning how she could be involved in the immigrant community. She came across a way to practice immigration law without going to law school, a program through the Department of Justice, where you can practice immigration law through a nonprofit. One of the barriers to daily life for immigrants is their access to attorneys, so instantly, she knew this was what she needed to do. After Stacy went through the training, the church began to function as the nonprofit that housed her ability to practice this immigration law.

In 2020, ASIS officially opened its doors, and in 2023, it became its own nonprofit, separate from the church. The work that Stacy and her small team accomplish is life-changing for people in our community. Most immigrants can’t afford to hire an attorney, and they don’t know what resources are available or what steps to take to get the help they need. Stacy’s priorities for caring for this community are very practical. Her work ranges from giving immigrants legal status, a driver’s license, work permits, escaping domestic violence, and overall, independence.

“There is a lack of resources for people who have so many needs and so many barriers to get what they need. Being able to use my own experience, just the fact of having an education and being born a US citizen and having the ability to understand immigration law,” Stacy said. “It allows you to be an advocate for people who are not in the same situation and who could not navigate the system on their own. And I think providing it at low or zero cost takes down so many barriers.”

Stacy and her team face a long list of barriers while trying to care for immigrants. From raising awareness of ASIS resources, to trying to communicate through different languages, to getting people out of abusive situations, to overcoming political biases, the list could go on for a while. Yet, Stacy is filled with joy. She continues to pursue care for this community despite what others may think or say because this mission is far greater than herself. 

“Our geographic location and the immigration narrative is a challenge. We are not working in politics, but immigration is tied so closely to that. We work within the humanity of immigration; we’re not trying to solve all the political problems within the immigration system. But that’s a challenge because there are people who would never be interested in what we’re doing simply because we are working with immigrants,” Stacy said.

These immigrants are already here, right in our neighborhoods and communities, so why not help them? The amount of help that our community needs is greater than the All Saints' staff's capacity.  The immigration population in Jackson is incredibly diverse, as Stacy and her team have seen clients from over 30 countries. The largest number of phone calls come from Spanish speakers, which is easy for communication because both Stacy and her assistant speak fluent Spanish. However, if a client speaks another language besides Spanish, they try to connect people to another person — a human being. Connecting them to people is vital. 

“Caring for our neighbors is helping them figure out what needs they have and then meeting them there,” Stacy explained. “It’s hard to feel very cared for through a phone translator.”

Although the challenges are great, the rewards for Stacy and her team are even greater. Each legal case can take a long time to see any kind of results. Since ASIS is in its fourth year of operation, the team is finally seeing cases that are closed and lives that are changed simply from one piece of paper. 

One story Stacy recalls as impactful has been a twenty-year journey. In college, she served at a Spanish church where she became close with one certain family (who she has a photo of hanging in her office). After she left that church, she didn’t see this family again until just a few years ago. Now, that little girl who Stacy used to hold in her lap has become the newest team member at ASIS and is going to law school as she works with Stacy part-time. Stacy also got to be the family’s legal representative in their case to become US citizens. This is the full-circle transformative care Stacy gets to provide our community, families, and individuals who feel scared and helpless. 

Whether an immigrant is four years old or 80 years old, Stacy wants to change the narrative of their life by providing them with legal help, but ultimately, seeing and meeting each human right where they’re at. That might look like connecting them with someone farther along in this journey, creating a relationship with another neighbor who speaks their language, or helping them find a job. No matter what the day holds, Stacy faces it head on, overflowing with joy, and caring deeply for those most would overlook.

“I feel passionate about highlighting immigrants in a positive way and changing the narrative so that they are not seen as a lot of myths, but that they bring incredible gifts to our community. Diversity is such a gift,” Stacy told me. “It doesn’t make us a more dangerous city. It really is a gift. Being able to help change that narrative is something I feel passionate about. I want people to understand the entire immigrant experience and all the challenges these people face.”