Supporting Immigrants
The image of America as a nation of immigrants has never been more true to life. Forty-two million foreign-born people live in the United States; a new immigrant arrives every 28 seconds. Unlike previous generations, they’re moving beyond traditional gateway cities to make homes in large and small communities throughout the country, some of which were virtually untouched by immigration until recently.
With our partners in government, we’re working to ensure that justice, in the form of fundamental legal protections and services, is available to them. That involves building trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement agencies and overcoming language barriers, so that the motto “protect and serve” genuinely applies to everyone. We’re also working to understand and meet the needs of the growing number of vulnerable children who enter the United States alone, and giving people facing deportation—many who have lived here for years—a fair shot in immigration court.
Issue
Spotlights
Featured
The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project
Universal Representation for Detained Immigrants Facing Deportation in Upstate New York
In recent years, threats of arrest and detention of immigrants have soared, families have been systematically separated, and noncitizens are more vulnerable than ever to deportation. Yet immigrants facing deportation do not have the right to a public defender if they cannot afford a lawyer. The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) is ...
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
Related Work
I Was Sure I Would Be Deported Until an Attorney Informed Me of My Rights
I had never heard of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, the law that allowed me to stay in the United States. When Shaleen of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network showed up and offered to be my attorney, I was sitting in detention, scared and with no hope. I had never been to any place like that, where I could only ...
Support Universal Representation: SAFE Initiative 101
The SAFE Initiative is a unique collaboration among governments, immigration legal service providers, and advocates building a movement for universal representation for people facing detention and deportation. Universal representation advances a public defender system for people facing deportation, one in which every person facing deportation is re ...
Universal Representation Advances Racial Equity for Immigrants Facing Deportation
Adom’s story is a case in point. A Black man from West Africa, Adom found himself subject to a traffic stop, in which the officer reportedly stopped him for a burned-out taillight and subsequently cited him for driving with a suspended license. As Adom was never notified his license had been suspended, he went to traffic court to challenge the tick ...
Blog Post
Annie Chen
Los Angeles Justice Fund
Year 2 Evaluation
Although people accused of crimes in the United States are entitled to government-funded counsel for their defense, immigrants facing deportation are not. It is nearly impossible to prevail in immigration court without the assistance of counsel. Representation for everyone facing deportation is, therefore, a last line of defense to keep families an ...
Community Supervision Proves Detention is Unnecessary to Ensure Appearance at Immigration Hearings
The United States detained 486,190 immigrants in prison-like conditions in 2019, inflicting unnecessary physical and emotional harm on vulnerable people at a $3.1 billion cost to American taxpayers. The government justifies this mass detention by assuming that immigrants will fail to show up to deportation proceedings unless they are confined. The ...
Centering Black Voices in the Struggle for Immigrant Rights
On Juneteenth, Black Cameroonian asylum seekers made a video from a holding cell at the Pine Prairie Detention Center in Louisiana. The men had fled persecution in their homelands and sought refuge in America, only to be detained indefinitely in a facility in the deep South run by a for-profit corporation that has long been accused of human rights ...
Blog Post
Kica Matos
Nana Gyamfi
Avoiding Deportation with the Help of Publicly Funded Counsel
Zolcik introduced herself and offered to help Ramon fight his deportation at no cost. He was surprised that someone would offer free representation to people who were detained and in removal proceedings, given the dehumanizing treatment he had experienced. “Once you’re detained, you’re no longer a person,” he said. He was happy to accept legal assi ...
Blog Post
Erica Bryant
Election 2020
Justice Is on the Ballot
DACA Was Never the End Goal: Liberation Is
Jacqueline Fernandez: DACA, simply put, allowed me to do some of the basic things like work and live without fear of deportation, that select “citizens” and others with documentation get to do freely. The difference is we have to fight for these basic rights, and there are still limitations. Black communities in the United States have long suffered ...
Blog Post
DACAmented Verans
Federal Immigration Enforcement Agencies Are a Threat to Our Civil Liberties
As outrage over police violence and extrajudicial killings of Black Americans have led to widespread protests across the nation in recent weeks, our country has borne witness to the consequences of police militarization and what a lack of police accountability means for whole swaths of American communities. But there also exists a vast army of fede ...
Blog Post
Kica Matos
Shaina Aber
Express Injustice
Expedited Immigration Hearings Pose Danger to Detained Children’s Right to a Fair Process
Series: Covid-19
Without an attorney, I might still be confined in a detention facility with COVID-19
It could have been very bad for me when people started to get sick with coronavirus, but I had good lawyers to fight for me. When they told me I would get out, I was very nervous. I was shaking because I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was excited, but my body was shaking. Sometimes I can’t even believe that I am out, after 21 months. It fee ...