Legal Orientation Program

The Legal Orientation Program (LOP) educates detained immigrants about their rights and the immigration court process so that they can make informed decisions about their legal cases. Vera works with 18 nonprofit legal service providers to offer orientations a...

Legal Orientation Program — Evaluation and performance and outcome measurement report, phase II

The Legal Orientation Program (LOP) seeks to educate detained persons in removal (deportation) proceedings so they can make more informed decisions, thus increasing efficiencies in the immigration court and detention processes. Vera’s analysis—a combination of...

Legal Orientation Program - LOP Facilities

Statement on Supporting Immigrant Communities and Denouncing ICE Raids

The threat of massive ICE raids is a promise to rip apart more families and is stoking fear throughout the nation’s immigrant communities. These egregious acts are justified to our nation as a way to deter people from unlawfully entering this country, however,...

Amanda Garcia — Senior Program Associate

As a senior program associate for the Legal Orientation Program (LOP), Amanda provides support and technical assistance to nonprofit legal service providers that educate detained immigrants about their removal proceedings so that they can make informed decisi...

Oren Root Named Director of Center on Immigration and Justice

NEW YORK—The Vera Institute of Justice has named Oren Root as director of its Center on Immigration and Justice (CIJ). The center develops evidence-based justice solutions for government systems affecting immigrants and their families. Root has served as inter...

Promoting safety, trust, and justice in a more diverse America

We are working to shift the culture of policing from arrest and enforcement to community engagement and collaborative problem-solving. In partnership with the National Police Foundation, we developed a new version of the popular CompStat police management tool...

Noelle Smart — Senior Research Associate

Noelle Smart is a quantitative social scientist in the Center on Immigration and Justice (CIJ). She manages research and data analysis for four immigration court programs—the Legal Orientation Program, Immigration Court Helpdesk, Legal Orientation Program for ...

Legal Services for Unaccompanied Children — Increasing legal representation for immigrant children facing deportation without a parent or legal guardian

Each year, thousands of unaccompanied children, many fleeing unspeakable violence in their own countries, enter the United States. Upon apprehension and after enduring a harrowing journey, they are detained in federal custody in facilities contracted by the Of...

No Amount of Time, Resources, or Lawyers Can Make MPP Work

This week, the Vera Institute of Justice learned that the Biden administration wants to expand certain legal orientation programs and legal services it administers via government contracts to assist people who will be expelled by the reinstated Migrant Protect...

Marina Caeiro — Former Program Director

Marina was the program director for the Legal Orientation Program (LOP) at the Center on Immigration and Justice. She joined Vera in November 2011 and provided technical assistance to a national network of legal service providers in the form of on-site trainin...

Ailin Buigues — Program Director, Unaccompanied Children Program

Ailin Buigues is program director for the Unaccompanied Children Program at Vera’s Center on Immigration and Justice, a national initiative to increase access to legal information and representation for unaccompanied children facing removal. Before joining Ver...