Immigrant Legal Defense

ILD continued our CSU Immigration Services Project, our free legal services and education delivery project in collaboration with the CA Department of Social Services (CDSS) and nine campuses of the CA State University (CSU) system: San Francisco, San Jose, East Bay, Maritime, Stanislaus, Fresno, Bakersfield, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo. In 2023, ILD attorneys provided 1450 individual consultations to students, faculty/staff, and family members; served clients from 91 countries, who reside in 46 California counties. Through our CSU project, ILD accepted for full-scope representation 1196 new cases for full scope representation in relief that includes DACA, asylum, U visa, T visa, SIJS, VAWA, removal defense, family petitions, adjustment of status petitions based on various grounds, and naturalization; conducted 84 virtual presentations attended by over 8000 individuals throughout the CSUs, including large presentations, small campus student group events, faculty/staff, or student government meetings, all held virtually by Zoom, Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, and CSU system-wide webinars; participated in dozens of meetings with campus student-leaders and faculty/staff for in-depth discussions on requested immigration law and policy topics. In 2023, ILD also continued our higher education legal services project to include 34 California Community Colleges (CCC) that are located in the most remote regions of CA. ILD attorneys provided 858 consultations to students, staff and faculty members at our community college campuses Through our CCC project in 2023 we have accepted 388 cases for full scope representation in relief that includes DACA, asylum, U visa, T visa, SIJS, VAWA, removal defense, family petitions, adjustment of status petitions based on various grounds, and naturalization. In addition, we conducted 36 education and outreach events that have reached 2, 780 individuals. In 2023, ILD also continued our partnership with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) working closely with their Newcomer and Refugee team. ILD attorneys represent 408 families, young adults and children in their court proceedings in seeking asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and U or T visa relief as victims of violent crime or human trafficking. In the last quarter of 2023, ILD also expanded our K-12 school based partnerships to the West Contra Costa Unified School district. In 2023 we accepted 30 cases for representation to initiate the project. We are partnering with Richmond High Schools Internationals Academy and conducting intake clinics every other month moving forward to represent Contra Costa unaccompanied minors and migrant families. In 2023, ILD attorneys represented 42 detained individuals in their full proceedings, which have in several cases also included habeas petitions relating to prolonged detention and conditions violations and also has included representation before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We also represent 53 Franco class members as National Qualified Representative Program appointed counsel. In 2023, ILD partnered with nearly 100 pro bono attorneys from national law firms and corporate counsels to provide pro bono mentorship and client representation in dozens of cases for DACA recipients and asylum seekers. Mentorship has included training pro-bono lawyers in the DACA forms, in asylum case representation, organizing and supervising tele-clinics with the pro-bono lawyers and clients, and creating replicable training materials. ILD was chosen by the State of California to serve as one of two mentoring attorney agencies for the new two year California Immigrant Justice Fellowship that started in January 2021 and has expanded the number of immigration attorneys at Central Valley and Central Coast nonprofits serving immigrants in removal proceedings. For the past three years, ILD directly supervised all of the legal work of 6 of the 10 fellows at 4 Central Valley organizations. A new cohort for 9 fellows started in September 2023 and ILD is supervising 5 fellows in the Central Valley and Central Coast at non profit agencies who have never had removal defense services until now. We also assist with fellowship program administration and training for all of the fellows. In 2023, ILD was also selected to serve as the lead attorney for Northern California, the Central and Central Coast organizations who receive removal defense funding through CDSS. In this role, two ILD attorneys serve as the Jurisdictional Capacity Building Organization for all of the CDSS removal defense grantees - we provide intensive mentoring for all attorneys at any organizations that received removal defense funding for the 2022-2024 CDSS grant cycle. In addition to daily one on one office hours, we provide case management assistance, brief and other legal filing review and also conduct training on all immigration court procedural and removal defense substantive topics. ILD also authors a monthly blog on current relevant immigration law and policy topics and continued our podcast in collaboration with the Fresno State Dream Resource Center focused on immigration law or policy topics raised by students on the campuses we are serving as well as feature guest speakers from the national immigration law and policy field.