Immigration and Justice
Vera's Center on Immigration and Justice (CIJ) works with government, nonprofit partners, and communities to improve government systems that affect immigrants’ lives. CIJ focuses on two objectives: increasing immigrants’ access to legal services, and improving relationships between immigrant communities and law enforcement. The center administers legal services programs, develops and implements pilot programs, provides technical assistance, and conducts evaluation and empirical research.
Featured
Immigrant Connection Project (ICON)
Are you an immigrant parent who has been separated from your child(ren) and is trying to reconnect? Are you a legal services provider who knows a parent looking for their child? The Immigrant Connection Project (ICON) can help. Attorneys or parents seeking children should: Email familyconnect@vera.org or familiasunidas@vera.org.Call 800-845-8372 ...
Project
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Anne Marie Mulcahy
Safety and Fairness for Everyone (SAFE) Network
Local Leaders Keeping Immigrant Families Together and Communities Safe
In the face of stepped-up immigration enforcement, millions of non-citizens—many of them taxpaying lawful permanent residents—are at risk of extended detention and permanent separation from their families and communities. Expanding legal representation for immigrants facing detention and deportation has thus become a crucial last line of defense fo ...
Project
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Annie Chen
Operation Streamline
No Evidence that Criminal Prosecution Deters Migration
The mass criminal prosecution and incarceration of people entering the country without authorization along the Southwest border has been acclaimed as a success in deterring others from making the same journey. Analysis by the Vera Institute of Justice and Dr. Jonathan Kringen of the University of New Haven, however, shows that there is no evidence ...
Related Work
COVID-19
Criminal Justice Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic
America has become a global epicenter in the COVID-19 pandemic, and some of the country’s most vulnerable people are in jails, prisons, and detention centers—places where they are at extreme risk of infection and have no ability to protect themselves. This moment highlights the vital need to shift away from punitive practices that funnel people int ...
Project
Kevin Keenan
Series: Covid-19
Detention May Become Death Sentence for Vulnerable Detainees
Immediate action is needed to prevent the spread of this disease among other people in detention who cannot protect themselves. Even under normal circumstances, imprisoning immigrants who are in deportation proceedings is cruel. People—including those who may have legal standing to remain in the United States—languish for weeks, months, or years. ...
Blog Post
Erica Bryant
Vera President and Director, Nicholas Turner, Covid-19 Statement
The COVID-19 crisis is bringing our world to a standstill. However, our nation's jails, prisons, and detention centers are continuing to operate without proper health precautions, leaving incarcerated people and corrections staff extremely vulnerable to the virus. Vera President and Director, Nicholas Turner, responds to the lack of immediate actio ...
Series: Target 2020
Responding to COVID-19: Focusing on People in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Systems
People who are incarcerated at the following facilities have already tested positive: the Rikers Island jail complex and the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City; the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, New York; the Larimer County Community Corrections program in Fort Collins, Colorado; the Massachusetts Treatment Center in ...
Blog Post
Logan Schmidt
Coronavirus Guidance for the Criminal and Immigration Legal Systems
The coronavirus, or COVID-19, has been declared by the World Health Organization to be a global pandemic. As the number of people infected in the United States grows exponentially, we must focus on prevention and containment in the criminal and immigration legal systems. Vera and Community Oriented Correctional Health Services have created a series ...
Facing Deportation: My Story About the Promise of Having a Lawyer in Immigration Court
My story is proof that programs like the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) matter, because people like me need legal representation when fighting deportation. Though I was born in Jamaica, the United States has been my home for most of my life. I arrived in the United States 30 years ago as a teenager with a green card. I came to thi ...
Announcing New Grants for Community Groups Working Toward Universal Representation for Immigrants
Vera’s Safety and Fairness for Everyone (SAFE) Network last week announced an inaugural request for proposals for community-based organizations in SAFE jurisdictions to further elevate and increase capacity for such grassroots organizing and advocacy for universal representation programs. Immigrants remain under unprecedented attacks by our federal ...
Blog Post
Melissa Garlick
Taking the Pulse
Public Support for Government-Funded Attorneys in Immigration Court
Although general attitudes towards immigration are commonly researched, less is known about public opinion toward government-funded attorneys in immigration court. To explore public opinion on this issue, Vera is partnering with the survey firm Lucid to conduct public opinion polls about government-funded counsel in several communities across the U ...
Annual Report 2019
A Vision for Change
Due Process for All
Evidence from Year 2 of the SAFE Network
The SAFE (Safety and Fairness for Everyone) Network has grown to a total of 18 jurisdictions in 11 states. Network members have committed public taxpayer dollars toward legal representation for immigrants in their communities facing deportation. During its first two years, the SAFE Network has represented 744 clients with deep roots in the United S ...
Everyone Means Everyone
Supporting universal representation for immigrants facing deportation
(Para Español: Haga clic aquí.) In immigration court, there is no legal right to a public defender for an immigrant who can’t afford a lawyer, even though deportation often threatens one’s life and freedom. That’s why now more than ever, communities across America support universal representation—a public defender system for immigrants facing depor ...
Todos quiere decir todos
Apoyando la representación universal para inmigrantes que enfrentan la deportación.
(For English, click here.) En la corte de inmigración, no existe el derecho legal a un defensor público para un inmigrante quien no tenga dinero suficiente para contratar un abogado, aunque en muchos casos la deportación pone la libertad y la vida de une en riesgo. Por eso, ahora más que nunca, comunidades a través de los Estados Unidos apoyan lo q ...