Immigrant Rights Resources

 I. Immigration Facts & Mythbusters

II. Know Your Rights Resources

Immigrant Protests – What Every Worker Should Know:
Manifestaciones de los Inmigrantes – Lo Que Todo Trabajador Debe Saber
ICE Raids: Legal Responses and Strategies
– Know Your Rights Materials from Immigrant Legal Resource Center
– From Raids to Deportation-A Community Resource Kit
– Know Your Rights in the Community (English, Spanish)
– Know Your Rights in Detention
– Pre-Raid Community Safety Plan
– Raids to Deportation Map
– Raids to Deportation Policy Map
III. Collaboration between Local Law Enfocement agencies and ICE
1. Appleseed. Forcing Our Blues into Gray Areas: Local Police and Federal Immigration Enforcement. Revised and updated in January 2008. This report reviews historic and current immigration laws and court rulings in an effort to back local law enforcement in their efforts to remain within the law. It also documents problems with the NCIC database: “42% of all NCIC immigration hits in response to policy inquiry were ‘false positives’” (Appleseed page 29).    
2. International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). A Police Chief’s Guide to Immigration Issues. An overview of immigration issues by a law enforcement association. This report makes this important statement: “The IACP is well aware of the controversy surrounding the question of whether state, tribal and local law enforcement should be involved in the enforcement of federal immigration law. This document is not intended to rule on this fundamental philosophical question. It is the IACP’s belief that the question of state, tribal or local law enforcements participation in immigration enforcement is an inherently local decision that must be made by a police chief, working with his or her elected officials, community leaders and citizens” (IACP Report preface page 3).
3. On illegal ICE holds (detainers): Lasch, Christopher, Yale University Law School. “Enforcing the limits of the Executive’s Authority to Issue Immigration Detainers.”  This article concludes:    “DHS, not content to limit its use of detainers to cases involving controlled substance arrests, has used detainers to implement an enforcement strategy broader than that shared by Congress, and is acting illegally in an attempt to achieve its own enforcement goals.”
The Lasch article also discusses the 48 hour rule: “once the 48 hour period granted to ICE, by 8 CFR 287.7(d) (2007), for assumption of custody had lapsed without ICE taking any action on its detainers, the State no longer had authority to continue to hold Petitioners.” (page 180) “The regulations allow for a period of 48 hours, not including weekends and holidays, before ICE must assume custody of an alien held by state or local officials (footnote page 186)
4. Tool Kit on State/Local Police enforcing Immigration Laws (from National Council of La Raza)
Addresses various proposals to deputize state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws and contains sample materials that you can use and adapt to fight these proposals, including sample letters, press releases, talking points, and intake forms.  It also includes many useful tips for lobbying, working with the media and coordinating with coalitions.
5.  Secure Communities Webinars – In March 2010, a coalition of immigrant rights organizations from across the US sponsored two webinars addressing the impact of ICE ACCESS programs on local communities.
  • Part I: ICE ACCESS programs and ICE detainers, provided an overview of ICE enforcement through state and local law enforcement agencies, local jails and the criminal justice system, focusing on 287(g) agreements, Secure Communities, and the Criminal Alien Program. Presenters will explain how these programs work and the serious human rights and civil liberties concerns and violations raised by these and similar programs.
  • Part II: Local strategies for addressing local law enforcement and ICE collaboration discusses what local communities are doing to combat the involvement of state and local police in federal immigration enforcement efforts. Through interactive case studies from different regions, presenters will share problems encountered by communities whose local law enforcement are partnering with ICE, strategies employed to fight these partnerships, challenges they have faced and successes they have had in employing such strategies.
These webinars are provided by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, National Immigration Law Center, Detention Watch Network, Rights Working Group, Washington Defender Association’s Immigration Project, Immigrant Justice Network, Immigrant Legal Resources Center and the Immigrant Defense Project.

7.  Immigration Policy Center Report on The Secure Communities Program


IV. Immigration Detention
Seattle University School of Law. Voices from Detention: A report on human rights violations at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. July 2008. Available online at: . There have been serious human rights violations at the Tacoma Detention Center.
General Information
Tracking ICE’s Enforcement Agenda
Real Deal fact sheet on detention
Real Deal fact sheet on border

Placing Detention within an International Human Rights Framework
– The Internation al Detention Coalition

Detention Oversight: A Roundtable Strategy Session on Enforcing the Standards
– Confronting Confinement: Oversight Accountability Report
– How to Complain in NJ on Detention Standards Violations
– “Expectations:” Criteria for Assessing Prison Conditions in the UK
Communicating our Values to Win: Messaging on Detention and Deportation
– Restoring Due Process to the Immigration System: A Messaging Guide for Members and Allies
– Sentenced Home: The Issues and How to Talk About Them
Materials from the National Immigrant Justice Center on Documenting Violations of Detention Standards on Conditions
– Detention Conditions Documentation: Database Tools and Usage Manual
– Detention Conditions Questionnaire
– One Page Handout on Detention Conditions Documentation Project

V. Useful Immigration-Related Websites
National Immigration Law Center (also has a good list of additional links)
Reform Immigration For America

Defending Immigrant Rights, a 150 page Activist Resource Kit from Political Research Associates outlines how to:
Understand the anti-immigrant movement
Organize against right-wing campaigns
Respond to anti-immigrant arguments
Identify important opponents and allies.

 

English