Legal Representation
People facing deportation can have a lot to lose. Many have lived here for years, some as legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens, and their families live here. More recent arrivals may fear returning to a country so dangerous they felt forced to flee. With all that’s at stake, the process of deciding their fate should be fair.
Our work with the federal government and with partner agencies across the country to reach immigrants in detention and educate them about the court process aims to make them better advocates for themselves and speed the process, sparing them prolonged confinement. Other programs provide pro bono legal representation to unaccompanied children and people with a mental illness.
Related Work
The Biden Administration Is Trying to Speed Up Deportations
This week, the Biden administration will officially launch accelerated deportation proceedings for asylum-seeking families in 11 cities across the country. This means that families who’ve claimed asylum after May 28 have less than a year to defend their right to remain in the United States—an arbitrarily accelerated timeline given that asylum cases ...
Blog Post
Noora Barakat
Implementing the Vision at the Local and State Level Summary
Advancing Universal Representation: A Toolkit for Advocates, Organizers, Legal Service Providers, and Policymakers
Universal representation—a public defender system for all immigrants facing deportation—is based on the fundamental belief that everyone deserves due process under the law. While a growing movement works toward a legally mandated and federally funded representation system, several counties, cities, and states have stepped up to fund deportation def ...
Even after I Won My Case, ICE Wouldn’t Let Me Go until My Lawyer Intervened
Immigrants Facing Deportation Do Not Have the Right to a Publicly Funded Attorney. Here's How to Change That.
Who would benefit from these legal defense services? Immigrants who are facing deportation but can’t afford an attorney would benefit from these legal defense services. Of the more than 1.25 million people with pending cases in the immigration court system, 500,000 lack representation. The lack of representation is particularly staggering for peopl ...
Blog Post
Erica Bryant
A Federal Defender Service for Immigrants
Why We Need a Universal, Zealous, and Person-Centered Model
The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) recommends that the Biden administration draw from time-tested models, data, and knowledge to build a federally funded, universal legal defense service that provides universal, zealous, and person-centered defense to all immigrants. This federal defender service should be modeled on the criminal federal defender ...
Criminal Justice Reform and the Biden-Harris Administration
It’s Time to Provide Government-Funded Lawyers to All Immigrants Facing Deportation
Blog Post
Lucila Figueroa
Nina Siulc
Building the Movement Summary
Advancing Universal Representation: A Toolkit for Advocates, Organizers, Legal Service Providers, and Policymakers
The movement for universal representation—the idea that every immigrant facing detention and deportation should have the right to a publicly funded lawyer if they cannot afford one—continues to gain significant momentum. As a result of local and state campaigns, more than 40 jurisdictions across the country now fund deportation defense programs. Wi ...
My Publicly Funded Immigration Lawyer Gave Me Hope When I Faced Fear and Despair
Rising to the Moment: Advancing the National Movement for Universal Representation
Years 1-3 of the SAFE Initiative
In 2017, the Vera Institute of Justice launched the Safety and Fairness for Everyone Network—now known as the SAFE Initiative or “SAFE”—to counter the fundamental and urgent injustices facing immigrants caught up in the nation’s immigration enforcement system. With roots in Vera's work for the past 15 years building the government-funded removal de ...
Government Leaders Must Meet Voters’ Demands for Justice with Meaningful Change
Black voters played a pivotal role in this election, which President-elect Biden acknowledged during his acceptance speech, promising to have their backs. There is no doubt that these voters see justice reform as a top priority. The Vera Institute of Justice—in partnership with Latino Decisions, the African American Research Collaborative, Asian ...
Blog Post
Nicholas Turner
Evidence Shows That Most Immigrants Appear for Immigration Court Hearings
The United States confines hundreds of thousands of immigrants in prison-like detention facilities at a cost to taxpayers of billions of dollars each year. Expanding use of civil detention is often justified by the government as being necessary to ensure that immigrants continue to attend court proceedings. This fact sheet reviews evidence from the ...