IRHTP, PLS, Sept. 2024 "Consistent complaints over the last twenty-five years reveal a disturbing pattern of systemic abuse and mistreatment of ICE detainees at Plymouth County Correctional Facility...
DHS, Sept. 24, 2024 "Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, in consultation with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, designated Qatar into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)....
ACLU, Sept. 23, 2024 "The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain records regarding the agency’s potential plans to...
IRAP, Sept. 19, 2024 "Today, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) released a new report detailing the U.S. government’s practice of interdicting refugee families at sea and...
Center for Constitutional Rights, Sept. 16, 2024 "Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and the Center for Constitutional Rights submitted a petition...
Rachel B. Tiven, The Nation, May 21, 2017 - "While the country has been fixated on President Trump’s firings, leaks, and outbursts involving the Department of Justice, that agency has itself been stealthily attacking our democracy by telling good lawyers to stop representing people. Four weeks ago, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP)—a respected nonprofit in Seattle that represents immigrants in deportation proceedings—received a “cease and desist” letter from the DOJ threatening disciplinary action. The letter demanded that NWIRP drop representation of its clients and close down its asylum-advisory program. The reason: a technicality, perversely applied. NWIRP is accused of breaking a rule that was put in place to protect people from lawyers or “notarios” who take their money and then drop their case.
Last week, NWIRP filed a lawsuit to defend itself against the DoJ’s order—and on Wednesday, a judge granted a restraining order. So for now, the organization can keep helping immigrants who need legal advice. But what’s at stake extends far beyond NWIRP and the 5,000 people it serves every year. The outcome of this legal battle will profoundly impact access to legal representation for the tens of thousands of immigrants who apply for asylum in the United States every year and the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants whose cases are currently in front of an immigration judge.