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...
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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...
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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
Embracing Human Dignity
Annual Report 2018
The Vera Institute of Justice is working to radically transform incarceration in America by replacing punishing practices with an approach that prioritizes compassion, true accountability, healing, restoration, opportunity, and hope. Learn more about our commitment to human dignity in our annual report 2018.
Local Government on the Right Side of History
The SAFE Network is a diverse group of local jurisdictions dedicated to providing publicly funded representation for people facing deportation. This short video describes the need for and impact of SAFE from the perspective of network members and those directly impacted—local government leaders, attorneys, and clients.
SAFE Network Profiles
Compiled from publicly-available data, these infographics present a “Profile of the foreign-born population” for each of the jurisdictions in the Safety and Fairness for Everyone (SAFE) Network—a diverse group of localities dedicated to providing publicly-funded representation for people facing deportation. The data presented here reveals the criti...
Advancing Universal Representation
A Toolkit for Advocates, Organizers, Legal Service Providers, and Policymakers
SAFE Network
Successes at One Year and Expanding the Movement for Universal Representation
A Year of Being SAFE
Insights from the SAFE Network’s First Year
The SAFE (Safety and Fairness for Everyone) Network is a group of 12 diverse local jurisdictions, convened by the Vera Institute of Justice, that have committed public taxpayer dollars toward legal representation for immigrants in their communities facing deportation. During its first year, the SAFE Network represented hundreds of clients with deep...
Why Does Representation Matter?
The Impact of Legal Representation in Immigration Court
Representation before any court of law is a matter of fundamental fairness. However, immigrants facing deportation are entitled to representation paid for by the government only in extremely limited circumstances, despite the high stakes involved in these proceedings. A growing body of research demonstrates the need for representation and its signi...
SAFE in Less than 60 Seconds
Annie Chen, program director of the SAFE Network, explains the need for representation in immigration court. Additional photography by: Elvert Barnes, Jonathan Mcintosh, Christopher Sessums and Jim McDougall via Creative Commons.
Walls and Bridges
Legal Recourse for Immigrants in the Age of Zero Tolerance
Immigration Technical Assistance Center
Evaluation of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project
Assessing the Impact of Legal Representation on Family and Community Unity
This study evaluates the impact of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP). NYIFUP is the nation’s first public defender system for immigrants facing deportation—defined as those in removal proceedings before an immigration judge. Funded by the New York City Council since July 2014, the program provides a free attorney to almost all de...
Immigration Court Helpdesk
The Immigration Court Helpdesk (ICH) program educates non-detained immigrants in removal (deportation) proceedings about the court process. The goal of ICH is to help individuals make informed decisions about their legal cases and, in doing so, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of immigration court proceedings. Vera works with five nonprofit...
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Marina Caeiro