Vera

Since 2005, Vera has worked with the Executive Office for Immigration Review—the U.S. Department of Justice agency that runs the nation’s immigration courts—and nonprofit legal service providers around the country to carry out the Legal Orientation Program (LOP), an innovative effort to inform immigrant detainees about their rights, immigration court, and the detention process. This publication provides a summary of the results of the phase II evaluation of the LOP. The full technical report, Legal Orientation Program: Evaluation and Performance and Outcome Measurement Report, Phase II, is also available.

Since 2005, Vera has worked with the Executive Office for Immigration Review—the U.S. Department of Justice agency that runs the nation’s immigration courts—and nonprofit legal service providers around the country to carry out the Legal Orientation Program (LOP), an innovative effort to inform immigrant detainees about their rights, immigration court, and the detention process. This report, a programmatic analysis of Vera’s work on the LOP based on immigration court data, tracking of LOP participants in the immigration courts, a comparison of LOP participants and other detained persons, and qualitative interviews with LOP stakeholders, documents several positive findings, including faster case times, fewer in absentia removal orders, and effective preparation for participants representing themselves. A summary of this report is also available.

Pro bono (volunteer) legal services for these “unaccompanied children” are in short supply, and very few of these children have the resources to hire their own legal counsel. In response, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency responsible for unaccompanied children, asked Vera to administer the Unaccompanied Children Pro Bono Project (UACPBP), which provides pro bono legal services to unaccompanied children in removal proceedings through local subcontractors, and to draft a series of recommendations as to how the ORR can provide qualified legal counsel to all such children in a timely manner. This paper hopes to inform Vera's work on the UACPBP, sketching an overview of the existing literature on unaccompanied children in the United States.

In recent years, New York City has experienced unprecedented growth in the size and diversity of its immigrant population. As a result, a significant proportion of city residents have limited English proficiency or do not speak English at all. Finding ways to overcome language barriers is an emerging field, and New York City criminal and juvenile justice agencies have made great strides in addressing the needs of people with limited English proficiency. To help these agencies continue to develop cost-effective strategies for tackling language barriers, staff from the Vera Institute of Justice spoke with agencies and organizations locally and across the nation to discuss ways in which they have improved access to services for people with limited English proficiency. The resulting report, Translating Justice, is a summary of diverse efforts to bridge the language gap. It is intended as a guide for New York City criminal and juvenile justice agencies, which includes language access planning; translation of written communications; using bilingual employees; using professional interpreters; pooling resources; and using technology to overcome language barriers.

Justice agencies, especially those with limited resources, may not always be able to overcome all language barriers through bilingual staff. Ideally, agencies would be able to draw upon several language assistance options when communicating with individuals who do not speak English well. One of these options could be language assistance technology.

This report chronicles key discussions that emerged during a roundtable event convened and hosted by the Vera Institute in March 2007. Criminal justice agency staff and other attendees at the roundtable learned about language assistance technologies in development and in use and discussed the potential applications for such technologies in New York City’s justice system.

This script of the Legal Orientation Program presentation serves as a basic introduction to the immigration court process. Using a question and answer format, it covers topics such as your rights in immigration court, what will happen during hearings, and the various forms of relief from removal. This script is available in English, Arabic, French, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Vietnamese.

The Vera Institute of Justice has developed glossaries in Spanish and traditional Chinese to serve as a resource for interpreters, translators, and bilingual staff at New York City’s justice and public safety agencies, courts, and nonprofit organizations. We hope the use of these glossaries will improve limited English proficient New Yorkers’ access to justice and will assist interpreters, translators, and bilingual staff in providing vital oral and written communication to the city’s residents. The glossary includes 640 legal and criminal justice words and phrases used in New York courts, justice agencies, and nonprofit organizations. For easy use, the terms are organized both alphabetically and in the following categories: agency names, court proceedings & sentencing, detention & corrections, drugs & weapons, juvenile justice, law enforcement & investigations, penal law & offenses, and probation & parole.

The Vera Institute of Justice has developed glossaries in Spanish and traditional Chinese to serve as a resource for interpreters, translators, and bilingual staff at New York City’s justice and public safety agencies, courts, and nonprofit organizations. We hope the use of these glossaries will improve limited English proficient New Yorkers’ access to justice and will assist interpreters, translators, and bilingual staff in providing vital oral and written communication to the city’s residents. The glossary includes 640 legal and criminal justice words and phrases used in New York courts, justice agencies, and nonprofit organizations. For easy use, the terms are organized both alphabetically and in the following categories: agency names, court proceedings & sentencing, detention & corrections, drugs & weapons, juvenile justice, law enforcement & investigations, penal law & offenses, and probation & parole.

With immigration in the U.S. growing and increasingly dispersed, many law enforcement practitioners are looking for ways to improve contact with people who cannot speak or understand English well. This report is the work of Translating Justice, a technical assistance project involving Vera’s Center on Immigration and Justice and three diverse law enforcement agencies—the Anaheim Police Department in California, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in Nevada. Drawing upon the experiences of these three departments, this report offers a range of practical steps and strategies that agencies can adopt, according to their specific needs and available resources.

Vera's two-year study of relations between Arab Americans and law enforcement in the United States following September 11, 2001 found, among other things, that Arab Americans fear the intrusion of federal policies and practices even more than individual acts of hate or violence, and that many local police are reluctant to enforce immigration law. The report identifies examples of partnerships and innovations that have successfully bridged gaps identified in the study. It cites recommendations and opportunities for restoring trust and creating alliances to reduce crime and address terrorism and other public safety concerns. The study was funded by the National Institute of Justice.

This technical report accompanies the summary report of Vera's two-year study of relations between Arab Americans and law enforcement in the United States following September 11, 2001. The study found, among other things, that Arab Americans fear the intrusion of federal policies and practices even more than individual acts of hate or violence, and that many local police are reluctant to enforce immigration law. The report identifies examples of partnerships and innovations that have successfully bridged gaps identified in the study. It cites recommendations and opportunities for restoring trust and creating alliances to reduce crime and address terrorism and other public safety concerns. The study was funded by the National Institute of Justice.

In 2004, the New York City Police Department and the Vera Institute of Justice collaborated on a series of forums to strengthen relations between police and new immigrant communities. The organizers recognized that because immigrants interact with law enforcement in a variety of ways, regular channels of communication and mutual understanding are essential to building trust and conflict resolution. During the forums, representatives of Arab-American, African, and emerging Latin-American immigrant communities met with police officials to discuss issues affecting their communities. This report describes the lessons learned from the resulting discussions and is intended as a guide for other police departments, local-level government officials, and community groups interested in building better relations between police and immigrant communities.

In recent years, New York City has experienced unprecedented growth in the size and diversity of its immigrant population. As a result, a significant proportion of city residents have limited English proficiency or do not speak English at all. Finding ways to overcome language barriers is an emerging field, and New York City criminal and juvenile justice agencies have made great strides in addressing the needs of people with limited English proficiency. To help these agencies continue to develop cost-effective strategies for tackling language barriers, staff from the Vera Institute of Justice spoke with agencies and organizations locally and across the nation to discuss ways in which they have improved access to services for people with limited English proficiency. The resulting report, Translating Justice, is a summary of diverse efforts to bridge the language gap. It is intended as a guide for New York City criminal and juvenile justice agencies, which includes language access planning; translation of written communications; using bilingual employees; using professional interpreters; pooling resources; and using technology to overcome language barriers.

Para prevenir la violencia entre los adolescentes, debemos entender sus causas. Este informe se basa en un trabajo de campo realizado durante cinco años en una comunidad inmigrante de la ciudad de Nueva York con la intención de describir cómo el salto generacional que separa a los adolescente de sus padres, ampliado por la inmigración, lleva a estos adolescentes a confiar en grupos violentos de compañeros para su protección. Investigaciones anteriores han explicado la violencia adolescente entre los inmigrantes como resultado de la alienación cultural, pero esta investigación sugiere que gran parte de la violencia entre los inmigrantes es una respuesta pragmática a las condiciones del vecindario. Una vez que estos adolescentes dejan sus vecindarios o las amenazas a su seguridad desaparecen, generalmente ponen fin a su relación con amigos violentos.

Esta publicación está también disponible en inglés.
( This publication is also available in English.)

This paper from the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) discusses the disparate impact of our criminal justice system on racial and ethnic minorities and suggests some new ways to analyze the troublesome issue.

To prevent violence among adolescents, we must understand its causes. This report draws on five years of field work in an immigrant community in New York City to describe how the generation gap separating immigrant adolescents from their parents, made wider by immigration, leads these children to rely on violent peer groups for protection. Previous research has tried to explain adolescent violence among immigrants in terms of cultural alienation, but this research suggests that much violence among immigrant adolescents is a pragmatic response to neighborhood conditions. Once these adolescents leave their neighborhoods or the threats to their safety disappear, they generally end their involvement with violent peers.

This publication is also available in Spanish.
(Esta publicación está también disponible en español.)

In 1996, the Immigration and Naturalization Service asked Vera to establish a supervised release project for people in removal proceedings in New York City. The INS goal was the explore supervision and evaluate its effect on people's rates of appearance in court and compliance with court ruling compared to other alternatives to detention already used by the agency, such as bond, parole, and release on recognizance. The Appearance Assistance Program (AAP), a three year test of community supervision for people in immigration removal proceedings, began operating in February 1997, and closed in March 2000. The AAP demonstrated that the INS does not have to detain all noncitizens in removal proceedings to ensure high rates of appearance at immigration court hearings. Ninety-one percent of participants in the intensive program attended all required hearings in comparison to 71% of noncitizens released on bond or parole. Among this report's other findings: supervision is more cost effective than detention and AAP supervision almost doubled the rate of compliance with final orders.

In this speech, Appearance Assistance Program (AAP) director Oren Root places the AAP in the context of U.S. immigration enforcement policy and discusses the AAP's success as an alternative to detention for noncitizens in removal proceedings.

This booklet describes the Appearance Assistance Program, highlighting innovative strategies designed to increase compliance.