Resources
Publication Date
10/27/2023
In Texas, Black and Latinx migrants are being harmed by Operation Lone Star- an unconstitutional and racist law enforcement operation that is criminalizing migrants who are seeking safety in the U.S. border. Operation Lone Star is a complex scheme involving multiple law enforcement agencies in the state. This comprehensive resource explains how Operation Lonestar is being implemented and funded, explains why this operation is illegal and unconstitutional, highlights how this scheme expands the carceral and enforcement systems, and how it’s harming entire border communities.
Resources
Publication Date
06/23/2022
This advisory provides an overview of ICE’s new “victim-centered” approach to immigration enforcement based on an August 2021 directive, including who qualifies as a victim and which ICE actions are covered. As part of this new approach, ICE officers and agents are instructed to look out for and in various circumstances exercise prosecutorial discretion in favor of noncitizen survivors of crime as part of their decisions to arrest, detain, release, and refer noncitizens.
Resources
Publication Date
09/29/2022
ICE has built and expanded a massive infrastructure of immigration jails, surveillance programs, and enforcement agents. The current enforcement-centered response to migration, supported by ever-increasing Congressional appropriations, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deportations each year. Over the last two decades, the budget for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which includes its account for immigration detention, has quadrupled. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, detention levels hit historic peaks of more than 50,000 people per day.
Resources
Publication Date
10/06/2022
Sample questions about the sheriff’s policy positions on working with ICE that advocates or community members can use at candidate forums or other meetings. For more background information about sheriffs and their role in the deportation pipeline, see: https://www.ilrc.org/role-sheriffs-and-arrest-deportation-pipeline
Video
This recording provides a review of San Francisco’s rapid response program, including a discussion of lessons learned and best practices. Topics include: Considerations when assessing whether a rapid response network is needed, and if so, what components to consider when establishing a local network, and lessons learned by guest presenters.
Seminar
Location: San Francisco State University – College of Extended Learning, 835 Market Street, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103
Seminar
Location: University of San Francisco School of Law, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA 94117
Seminar
Location: Southwestern Law School, 3050 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010
Video
This webinar digs into how ICE operates and how local law enforcement agencies are really involved, so that we can demand strategic reforms. SComm is not the only way ICE gets information from localities, the Criminal Alien Program and 287(g) are also big players, as well as ICE’s broad access to various law enforcement databases and the growing surveillance state. In order to fight deportations, we need to get a hands-on, granular pictures of how ICE is operating, how they are using detainers and warrants, what access they have to the jail, and how local police and sheriffs respond to various ICE requests for information and access. How does this change when you have an ICE detention contract or a 287(g) agreement? What are the important legal hooks, and what are the policy arguments and community strategies for getting local governments to stop doing ICE’s bidding?
Video
Immigration detention has been expanding at record rates under the Trump Administration, but many of us are fighting detention in all kinds of new and innovative ways. This webinar will provide new advocates and organizers with important background information for understanding ICE detention contracts and the different laws and policies that shape the detention map. Then we will discuss strategies and considerations for fighting detention contracts and facilities, and how to challenge detention as it exists now while holding our goal of a truly prison-free future in mind.
Video
All seventy-eight 287(g) agreements in the country will expire on June 30, 2019. This is a crucial opportunity to prevent your community from continuing its participation in this terrible program, which incentivizes racial profiling and has led to thousands of deportations. Watch this webinar to learn more about the 287(g) program and how to end these agreements in your community.
Publication
FOIA Requests and Other Background Checks: A Practical Guide to Filing Records Requests in Immigration Cases provides practitioners with a one-stop guide for information about why, when, where, and how to file background checks in immigration cases. This guide describes the various federal agencies and components that generally hold immigration records, explains how to request records and appeal denials or incomplete responses, and provides tips for certain circumstances, such as representing minors or immigrants in removal proceedings.
Video
In this recording, we discuss how ICE operates and goes about detaining and deporting hundreds of thousands of people a year. Designed for those new to the fight against ICE, we provide an overview of how ICE operates as well as an overview of local efforts to push back against ICE’s increasingly aggressive tactics. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of the various mechanisms ICE employs to identify, arrest, and deport people along with clear strategies and tools that can be used by advocates to protect our communities.
Video
This webinar provides key communications tools to uplift a values-based narrative and push back against anti-immigrant scapegoating, in support of the VISION Act (pending state bill which strengthens the CA Values Act) and other similar policy asks. The webinar provides a brief overview of the VISION Act, and then focuses largely on messaging and communications. Specifically, the webinar covers talking points and communications tactics needed to push back when our opposition uses fear-mongering and scapegoating to exclude people with crimes from protection. This webinar is aimed at ensuring that we all have the communications tools to turn our policy asks into a reality.To access this recording, please email gruiz@ilrc.org.
Video
Identifying the right local targets is a crucial step in an organizing campaign. Before advocates and community members start to push for a policy, it is important we understand the structure of our local government, the authority and jurisdiction of various local officials, and how all of these layers and actors interact with one another. Different officials and agencies hold various powers to create local laws and policies, as well as influence budgets. Join us on this webinar to learn how to identify the real decision-makers in your community, whether they are elected or appointed, and learn more about their powers and roles within the criminal and immigration landscape.
Video
In conservative and anti-immigrant areas, it may not be possible to pass sweeping sanctuary laws that prohibit collaboration between local law enforcement agencies and ICE. This is especially true if anti-sanctuary statutes like Texas’ SB 4 and Florida’s SB 168 prevent such measures by state law. However, many of us are fighting back against ICE enforcement in all kinds of new and creative ways that connect criminal justice reforms and immigrant rights. This webinar will provide organizers and advocates with information about how to effectively strategize in “red” regions to build successful campaigns, create policy platforms and limit ICE’s reach in our communities.
Video
At this critical time when hundreds of thousands of people are taking to the streets to affirm that Black Lives Matter, the right to join in any type of protest is critical to a functioning democracy. Whether you are calling out institutional racism, police brutality, or ICE, this webinar will provide special considerations for noncitizens thinking about participating in protests. In particular, we will provide information on best practices for noncitizen protesters, potential immigration consequences stemming from a criminal arrest or charges, and how immigrant rights work intersects with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Webinar
In this webinar, we will take a look at current policies impacting referrals to immigration court and enforcement trends, with an eye towards any changes in the first months of the Biden administration.
Webinar
Join our webinar about the new immigration enforcement priorities, to learn messaging and framing to approach these priorities in an individual case, and learn some organizing and advocacy tips to elevate individual cases to members of congress and DHS Headquarters. Advocacy and public pressure to stop someone’s deportation is not a new strategy in the immigrant rights movement. During the Obama administration advocates and organizers experienced success when promoting an individual case publicly, and received many favorable decisions from DHS. The enforcement priorities and discretion memo from the Biden administration presents a new avenue to fight deportations and build our movement.
Video
Join our webinar about the new immigration enforcement priorities, to learn messaging and framing to approach these priorities in an individual case, and learn some organizing and advocacy tips to elevate individual cases to members of congress and DHS Headquarters. Advocacy and public pressure to stop someone’s deportation is not a new strategy in the immigrant rights movement. During the Obama administration advocates and organizers experienced success when promoting an individual case publicly, and received many favorable decisions from DHS. The enforcement priorities and discretion memo from the Biden administration presents a new avenue to fight deportations and build our movement.
Webinar
Level: BeginnerThis webinar will help advocates understand expedited removal and reinstatement of removal, including how to help clients who have been subjected to such summary removal procedures. We will cover how advocates may be able to move to reopen orders of expedited removal and reinstatement of removal, including practice tips.PresentersErin Quinn, Senior Staff Attorney - ILRCErin Quinn is an attorney based in San Francisco. Her work focuses on building capacity of organizations and practitioners to assist immigrants. She conducts trainings on immigration law throughout the United States and provides legal expertise through the ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program. Erin has contributed to numerous ILRC publications as author or editor, including Removal Defense: Defending Immigrants in Immigration Court; Essentials of Asylum and many others. In addition, Erin works on issues related to immigration status and healthcare as well as consumer protection. She has published articles with LexisNexis Emerging Issues and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
Webinar
Level: IntermediateThis webinar will discuss FOIA requests in immigration cases and provide tips for filing FOIA requests with DHS, including USCIS, OBIM, ICE and CBP. Researching clients’ case histories may become particularly important if any of the proposed legalization bills are enacted.
Video
DHS has just announced new immigration enforcement priorities. Join our webinar to learn about the recent policy developments and what is on the horizon. We’ll dig into the details of the new policy and discuss messaging and framing for using this guidance in an individual case, including organizing and advocacy tips to elevate individual cases to members of congress and DHS Headquarters.
Video
DHS acaba de anunciar nuevas prioridades de aplicación de la ley de inmigración. Únase a nuestro seminario web para conocer los desarrollos recientes de políticas y lo que se avecina. Profundizaremos en los detalles de la nueva política y discutiremos los mensajes y el marco para usar esta guía en un caso individual, incluidos consejos de organización y promoción para elevar los casos individuales a miembros del congreso y la oficina central del DHS.
Publication
Detention & Bond: Defending Noncitizens in Immigration Custody will guide advocates through practical and technical considerations when representing detained noncitizen clients. This comprehensive guide provides a top to bottom overview of strategies when advocating for release throughout the various stages of the immigration custody process. This manual includes a discussion of how adults and youth end up in immigration detention, including the rights and recourse detained individuals have notwithstanding their confinement. This resource also provides detailed information on best practices, procedures, and strategies for securing the release of clients in custody determinations before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and custody redetermination hearings (bond hearings) before the immigration judge, as well as appellate strategy thereafter.
Webinar
Level: IntermediateThis webinar is geared toward those who have some bond experience and would like to take a deeper dive into the law. In this webinar, we will focus on emerging topics following developments in prolonged detention caselaw. We will cover strategies for securing a bond hearing when eligibility is not apparent at first glance, including when individuals have been detained for a prolonged period and a habeas corpus petition in federal court may be necessary. We will provide a nuts-and-bolts overview of filing a habeas petition and discuss strategy considerations. This webinar will focus on caselaw specific to the Ninth Circuit.PresentersJehan Laner, Staff Attorney - ILRC