Which groups to support.
• The ACLU is
litigating this policy in California.
• If you're an immigration lawyer,
the American Immigration Lawyers Association will be sending around a volunteer list for you to help represent the women and men with their asylum screening, bond hearings, ongoing asylum representation, etc. Please sign up.
•
Al Otro Lado is a binational organization that works to offer legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S.
•
CARA—a consortium of the
Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the
American Immigration Council, the
Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the
American Immigration Lawyers Association—provides legal services at family detention centers.
•
The Florence Project is an Arizona project offering free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody.
•
Human Rights First is a national organization with roots in Houston that needs help from lawyers too.
•
Kids in Need of Defense works to ensure that kids do not appear in immigration court without representation, and to lobby for policies that advocate for children's legal interests. Donate
here.
•
The Legal Aid Justice Center is a Virginia-based center providing unaccompanied minors legal services and representation.
•
Pueblo Sin Fronteras is an organization that provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S.
•
RAICES is the largest immigration nonprofit in Texas offering free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families.
Donate here and
sign up as a volunteer here.
• The
Texas Civil Rights Project is seeking "volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q'eqchi' or K'iche' and have paralegal or legal assistant experience."
•
Together Rising is another Virginia-based organization that's helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona.
• The Urban Justice Center's
Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project is working to keep families together.
•
Women's Refugee Commission advocates for the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution.
• Finally, ActBlue has aggregated many of
these groups under a single button.
This list isn't comprehensive, so let us know what else is happening. And
please call your elected officials, stay tuned for demonstrations, hug your children, and be grateful if you are not currently dependent on the basic humanity of U.S. policy.
Update, June 17, 2018: Thanks to readers who updated us with more organizations fighting this policy. Other good work is being done by the following:
• CLINIC's Defending Vulnerable Populations project offers case assistance to hundreds of smaller organizations all over the country that do direct services for migrant families and children.
• American Immigrant Representation Project (AIRP), which works to secure legal representation for immigrants.
• CASA in Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They litigate, advocate, and help with representation of minors needing legal services.
•
Freedom for Immigrants (Formerly CIVIC), which has been a leading voice opposing immigrant detention.
• The
Michigan Immigrant Rights Center represents all of the immigrant kids placed by the government in foster care in Michigan (one of the biggest foster care placement states). About two-thirds are their current clients are separation cases, and they work to find parents and figure out next steps.
• The
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is doing work defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services, systemic advocacy, and community education.
• Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights works for the rights of children in immigration proceedings.
• The
Women's Refugee Commission has aggregated five actions everyone can take that go beyond donating funds.
• And finally, the
International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)—which organizes law students and lawyers to develop and enforce a set of legal and human rights for refugees and displaced persons—just filed
suit challenging the cancellation of the Central American Minors program.
