Vera Institute of Justice | Immigration Technical Assistance Center

Vera is committed to securing equal justice for all people, regardless of race, nationality, or country of origin, and to ending mass incarceration and strengthening families and communities. With this vision in mind, Vera has launched ITAC, the Immigration Technical Assistance Center. ITAC is a publically-accessible, searchable, online resource that contains materials created or commissioned by the Vera Institute of Justice on substantive and procedural immigration issues. ITAC’s resources include practice advisories, webinar trainings, and other helpful practical guides to aid practitioners and program managers with building capacity, skills, and substantive legal expertise.*

Through ITAC, Vera will share a growing library of technical support resources with the immigrant advocacy community in support of our goal of increasing overall capacity for immigration representation. Access to counsel makes immigrants more likely to be released from immigration detention and continue to appear in immigration court as they pursue relief from removal. While fighting their cases from their own homes, immigrants can continue to provide financial and emotional support to the family members that depend on them, while contributing to their communities as leaders, volunteers, business-owners, and taxpayers. Through their relationships with attorneys, immigrants are also able to access necessary support, such as medical, mental health, and educational services for themselves and their families. Access to counsel, alone, will not solve all of the challenges immigrants face, but it will improve individual case outcomes while significantly impacting incarceration rates, family unity, and community well-being.

Vera also maintains a library of resources developed through the Legal Orientation Program (LOP) to provide know your rights (KYR) materials for detained adults.

*The resources on ITAC are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Content is only up-to-date as of the date of each individual resource. The immigration field is extremely dynamic, and independent research should always be done to confirm the validity of information.

Mapping out Legal Services for Separated Families

  • Referral Resources
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This resource was created by Vera in partnership with the American Bar Association (ABA) and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) to provide a critical link between the social services organizations working with separated families and the immigration legal service providers throughout the country that have affirmatively expressed capacity to provide free legal service to those families right now. In order to search this information by certain parameters (e.g. state, type of organization, etc.), you can use Filter Views (Data>Filter views).

Website
August 10, 2018
Website

SAFE Cities Webinar on Advanced Crim-Imm by Brooklyn Defenders Services

  • Criminal and Immigration Law Intersections

This webinar, produced by the Brooklyn Defenders for the SAFE Cities Network, covers the basics of categorical analysis of criminal convictions, and related topics like divisibility, “realistic probability,” and modified categorical analysis. This webinar covers how to use the categorical approach to challenge criminal grounds of removability and bars to relief, and strategic tips for briefing, research, and preserving creative arguments for appeal.

Webinar
July 30, 2018
Webinar

Asylum Litigation Update: April- mid-July 2018

  • Forms of Legal Relief
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This update, produced by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) for Vera's Unaccompanied Children Progam, includes information on select current litigation and policy issues from the period of April through mid-July 2018

Newsletters & Legal Updates
July 16, 2018
Newsletters & Legal Updates

Memo- Ethical Obligations in Representing Children Without Capacity in Immigration Proceedings

  • Capacity, Mental Competency, and Informed Consent
  • Ethics
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This memo, prepared by Catherine Weiss and Sarah Scott of Lowenstein Sandler LLP, discusses ethical concerns stemming from the representation of separated children who lack legal decision-making capacity because of age, cognitive impairment, or other circumstances. The memo also offers possible solutions.

Skills Development and Practice Guidance
June 11, 2018
Skills Development and Practice Guidance

Memo- Ethical Concerns When Interests of Immigrant Children Diverge from Their Parents

  • Ethics
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This memo, prepared by Catherine Weiss and Sarah Scott of Lowenstein Sandler LLP, presents an overview of ethical concerns that may arise when representing underage children in immigration proceedings whose interests diverge from their parents.

Skills Development and Practice Guidance
June 11, 2018
Skills Development and Practice Guidance

PSGs and Bars in UC Asylum Claims: Strategies and Best Practices

  • Criminal and Immigration Law Intersections
  • Forms of Legal Relief
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This presentation, produced by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) for Vera's Unaccompanied Children Program, provides an overview of asylum, including particular social groups (PSGs), tips on how to build and defend a winning PSG, and the mandatory bars to asylum.

Presentation Slides
March 01, 2018
Presentation Slides

Asylum Litigation Update: October-December 2017

  • Forms of Legal Relief
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This update, produced by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) for Vera's Unaccompanied Children Program, includes information on select current litigation and policy issues from the period of October through December 2017.

Newsletters & Legal Updates
January 01, 2018
Newsletters & Legal Updates

Asylum Litigation Update: July-September 2017

  • Forms of Legal Relief
  • Working with Children
  • Unaccompanied Children

This update, produced by the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) for Vera's Unaccompanied Children Program, includes information on select current litigation and policy issues from the period of July through September 2017.

Newsletters & Legal Updates
October 01, 2017
Newsletters & Legal Updates