Defending Immigrants Partnership ... Helping Defenders Effectively Represent Noncitizens

The Defending Immigrants Partnership represents an unprecedented collaboration among the foremost immigration advocacy and defense organizations with expertise in the immigration consequences of crime and the one national legal organization devoted exclusively to ensuring high-quality legal representation for indigent clients in criminal and civil matters.

Since its inception in October 2002, the Partnership has coordinated on a national level the necessary collaboration between public defense counsel and immigration law experts to ensure that indigent noncitizen defendants are provided effective criminal defense counsel to avoid or minimize the immigration consequences of their criminal dispositions. To that end, the Partnership offers defender programs and individual defense counsel critical resources and training about the immigration consequences of crimes, actively encourages and supports development of in-house immigration specialists in defender programs, forges connections between local criminal defenders and immigration advocates, and provides defenders technical assistance in criminal cases.

Click here to apply to become a member of the DIP website.

2008 UPDATE: Click here to download the Defending Immigrants Partnership National Manual on Representing Noncitizens.

Website Highlights:

A library of resources on the immigration consequences of crime. (Membership required)
A news page with recent news and events related to immigration and crimes.

Learn more about DIP partner organizations:

Immigrant Defense Project

Immigrant Legal Resource Center

National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild

National Legal Aid and Defender Association

Immigrant Defense
Project