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
SAFE Initiative
Driving the Movement for Universal Representation
The SAFE (Safety & Fairness for Everyone) Initiative or “SAFE” is a unique collaboration among government, immigration legal service providers, and advocates working together to build a movement for universal representation—a public defender system for all immigrants facing deportation. Since its launch in 2017, SAFE has catalyzed momentum for ...
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
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Erica Bryant
Related Work
My Publicly Funded Immigration Lawyer Gave Me Hope When I Faced Fear and Despair
In detention, we had to sleep on concrete benches or the floor because there were so many of us. I was cold and so sad to be there. Sometimes they gave us a little mattress, but there were never enough of them. They give you aluminum to wrap yourself in, but it doesn’t warm you. Sometimes, you don’t sleep. I brought my son from Guatemala so that he ...
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
Tracking COVID-19 in Immigration Detention
A Dashboard of ICE Data
Series: Target 2020
The Tipping Point for Universal Representation for Immigrants
In early October, ICE reported that, within a six-day span, it arrested 172 immigrants across six “sanctuary cities”: Baltimore, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, DC. These cities all have policies in place that are intended to foster trust between local law enforcement and immigrants in their jurisdictions, and yet parents, ...
Blog Post
Melissa Garlick
Annie Chen
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 ...
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