The Department of Homeland Security detains hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year throughout the United States. This entirely unnecessary, inhumane practice is wrought with extreme human rights abuses, and severely erodes the few due process protections provided to immigrants in removal proceedings.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center works in partnership with a broad array of organizations including impacted immigrants themselves, to advocate for policies that create a path toward abolishing this abusive system. Our team works at the forefront of statewide campaigns to dismantle immigrant detention, as well as engaging in federal advocacy in Washington, DC. In California, the ILRC has been leading on these issues for several years -- co-sponsoring California’s historic Dignity Not Detention Act (SB 29), which was first introduced in 2016. We have continued this work by pushing for stronger legislative protections around immigration detention, for example by advocating for AB 103 in 2017 and AB 32 in 2019. The ILRC is available to provide support on similar laws or policies in other states. Locally, the ILRC provides resources and support to communities and organizations working to fight immigration detention and other enforcement issues, including background explanations, strategy tools for campaigns, and legal and policy analyses.
Latest Resources
Toolkit & Reports
Resources
Publication Date
04/30/2025
Tracking all the tactics this administration is deploying to target immigrants is overwhelming. In this document, we attempt to summarize some of the key ways the Trump administration is shifting policies and practices to surveil, arrest, detain, deport, and silence immigrants and the people who support them. We do not name every shift; rather, we focus on the weaponization of the criminal legal system, the increasingly authoritarian approach, and the role of the federal budget, which are key tools of the Trump administration’s brutality and also vital sites of advocacy needed to stem the tide.
Practice Advisory
Resources
Publication Date
03/20/2025
The Laken Riley Act (LRA) was signed into law by President Trump on January 29, 2025. It amends the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by expanding mandatory detention of certain inadmissible noncitizens who are merely arrested or charged with certain offenses. This practice advisory addresses the question of whether the provisions of the LRA that seek to vastly increase the number of people subject to mandatory immigration detention would be triggered by children engaging in acts of juvenile delinquency. In the advisory, we argue that the answer is no, in alignment with longstanding precedent in immigration law that treats acts of juvenile delinquency as distinct from adult criminal acts. However, given that this is a new law with unclear drafting, we also provide tips for juvenile defense attorneys to help clients avoid charges that could implicate the mandatory detention provision of the LRA.
Toolkit & Reports
Resources
Publication Date
01/27/2025
Since Donald Trump was re-elected, headlines on immigration have sounded the alarm about his administration’s plans to effectuate mass deportations, increased detentions, and indiscriminate raids. For the past three years, Governor Greg Abbott has used Texas as a laboratory for these types of policies through Operation Lone Star (OLS). This resource aims to parallel the national moves on enforcement to what has already taken place in Texas, in hopes to better equip community members and advocates with the framework to fight back.
FAQs & Explainers
Resources
Publication Date
11/14/2024
While U.S. immigration laws provide certain special protections to children migrating without a parent or legal guardian on account of their vulnerabilities, these laws and policies fall short of both domestic and international child welfare principles. Those impacted by and involved with U.S. systems for responding to child migrants have known for years that they do not meet the needs of most children. This resource aims to demonstrate that a different approach to how the United States welcomes migrant children, particularly as relates to their time in government custody/detention, is not just possible but necessary.
FAQs & Explainers
Resources
Publication Date
09/07/2023
In June 2023, the California Dignity Not Detention Coalition passed a budget initiative in California called HEAL (Healthy Economies Adapting to Last). HEAL dedicates 5 million dollars to incentivize California localities to divest from immigration detention by providing them funding to invest in new industries and jobs. HEAL presents a new tool in our advocacy toolbox to close detention centers once and for all. This community FAQ breaks down Dignity not Detention’s newest initiative.
Toolkit & Reports
Resources
Publication Date
05/23/2023
The prison industrial complex is a highly adaptive mechanism that is constantly shifting to sustain itself. In recent years, the movement against mass incarceration has gained traction in reducing penal incarceration in the United States. In this report in collaboration with the Detention Watch Network, we detail select case examples of jails and prisons that closed for one purpose, only to cage a different group of people. The case studies demonstrate the importance of looking ahead to strategies which ensure that cages remain closed for all carceral uses, once and for all.
FAQs & Explainers
Resources
Publication Date
05/03/2023
An immigrant legal defense fund pays legal service providers to represent community members facing deportation in immigration court. This resource provides a general overview of immigrant legal defense funds (ILDFs) at the municipal level in Texas, including why they are needed, the goals and components of a strong ILDF, and examples of these funds from across the state.
Resources
Resources
Publication Date
09/27/2022
On September 26, 2022, the Ninth Circuit en banc panel held that GEO group was likely to succeed in their lawsuit to find California's private prison and dertention ba (Bonta-AB 32) unconstitutional, and could continue seeking a preliminary injunction to block the law pending further proceedings at the lower court level. This summary provides a review of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ en banc decision. This legal breakdown was composed by the California Dignity Not Detention Coalition, with special thanks to NIPNLG and Pangea Legal Services.
FAQs & Explainers
Resources
Publication Date
09/07/2022
This resource summarizes the ICE Parental Interests Directive – a critical tool to help child welfare agencies address challenges for detained or deported parents – and explains how to use the Directive to advocate with ICE. It also discusses the heightened need for advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Practice Advisory
Resources
Publication Date
06/28/2022
Clients with mental illness have needs and vulnerabilities that present unique challenges in immigration proceedings. This practice advisory provides an overview on advocating for clients with mental health issues, specifically focusing on representation in the detained setting. The advisory discusses legal authority that an immigration practitioner can utilize to protect a client’s due process rights and ensure their client’s agency is respected and they have a meaningful opportunity to present their case.
Practice Advisory
Resources
Practice Advisory for Immigration Advocates: The Biden Administration’s Final Enforcement Priorities
Publication Date
05/04/2022
DHS issued new enforcement and prosecutorial discretion guidance on September 30, 2021. This practice advisory from the ILRC, NIPNLG, and IDP provides immigration practitioners with an overview of the enforcement priorities and other key policy changes described in recent DHS and ICE memos, and discusses strategies to use these priorities to advocate for prosecutorial discretion.
Related Products
Webinar
Webinar
In this webinar, we will discuss how asylum seekers, including recent entrants, can seek release from immigration custody via bond and parole. We will review eligibility for bond and parole for arriving aliens, and the implications of Matter of M-S-, 27 I&N 509 (AG 2019) on asylum seekers. We will also discuss who may seek bond before the immigration judge and strategies for the bond hearing. This webinar will leave advocates armed with tips and best practices when representing asylum seekers requesting release from detention.
Webinar
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.
Publication
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
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
Video
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
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.