Policing and Immigrants
In the majority of U.S. states over last decade the number of foreign-born residents increased by 30 percent or more, with many of these new arrivals settling in suburban areas once virtually untouched by immigration. Local police agencies are challenged to serve sometimes-vulnerable residents whose culture and language don’t match that of their line officers. Meeting obligations related to homeland security adds yet another layer of complexity.
To address these challenges, we pioneered the growing field of language access and led the way in building bridges between police and Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian communities. We’ve also trained police in using the U-visa, a safety net for immigrant crime victims that cooperate with police, and published guidebooks written by police for police in how to build trusting relationships with diverse communities.
Related Work
Arrest Trends
Interactive data tool on policing trends at the national and local levels
SAFE Network
Successes at One Year and Expanding the Movement for Universal Representation
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 ...
Trauma-Informed Policing
Interview with Captain Altovise Love-Craighead
Philadelphia Police Department Captain Altovise Love-Craighead discusses the fundamentals of trauma-informed policing, including how de-escalation can interrupt cycles of violence. The central tenets of trauma-informed policing are introduced and examples are given as to how these principles can be applied in real-world policing situations.
CompStat360
At a time when communities are seeking ways to play an active role in the co-production of public safety—and police departments are eager to engage the communities they serve—it is essential that our management of policing resources, priorities, and responses evolves to incorporate a wider set of metrics beyond serious crime incidents. By leveragin...
Project
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Rebecca Neusteter
The role of police in suburban immigrant integration
In 2012, the majority of the country’s metropolitan regions saw faster growth in suburbs than in cities. By 2014, it was estimated that more than half the U.S. population lives in suburbs. This incredible growth of suburban America has led to tectonic demographic shifts in these communities, which are struggling to keep up with the influx of immigr...
Blog Post
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Caitlin Gokey
New York Immigrant Family Unity Project lays groundwork for constitutional victory
A recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit established that an immigrant is constitutionally entitled to a bond hearing within six months of being detained and must be released on bond unless the government provides compelling evidence that he or she is a flight risk or danger to the community. This important dec...
Blog Post
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Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel
Community policing post-9/11
Rebuilding trust with AMEMSA communities
The events of September 11th, 2001 were a game changer for law enforcement, as homeland security became a shared mission for local and federal agencies. Since then, an extensive array of laws and policies have been enacted at the national and state levels to support that mission, including but not limited to the PATRIOT Act, Foreign Intelligence Su...
Blog Post
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Susan Shah
Police Connecting with Communities of Color
Law enforcement agencies understand that positive relationships with all community members are vital to ensuring safe communities—yet, despite their best efforts, many agencies struggle to build trust and partnerships across communities with different languages, cultures, and customs. The Police Perspectives Guidebook Series was developed to help p...
Project
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Caitlin Gokey
A historic step in access to justice for immigrants facing deportation
In New York City, where more than one-third of residents are foreign-born, approximately 1,800 people per year are detained and sent to county jails without the ability to pay for an attorney as they face deportation in immigration courts in New York and New Jersey. This includes asylum-seekers, lawful permanent residents, and those with American c...
Blog Post
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Amy Connors
Engaging police in immigrant communities not just a big city issue
Storm Lake is a town of 13,000 people in northwestern Iowa. I became the police chief in October 1989 just as our town was reaching a demographic tipping point. At first, change came slowly in the late 1970’s with the arrival of small groups of immigrants from Laos and various Latin American countries. But by the early 1990’s, it just exploded, tra...
Engaging Police in Immigrant Communities
Promising Practices from the Field
Today, approximately 40 million foreign-born people live in the United States, seven million of whom arrived within the past eight years. Because very little is known about how most police agencies nationwide work with immigrant communities, in 2010, Vera’s Center on Immigration and Justice partnered with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of ...