Mission

For a noncitizen facing criminal charges today, the right to defense counsel who understands the immigration consequences of criminal dispositions may be all that stands between continued permanent, temporary or potential residence as a member of our community and the other side of the border. The Defending Immigrants Partnership, a joint initiative comprised of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA), the New York State Defenders Association's Immigrant Defense Project, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), and the National Immigration Project, 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.

Partners

Learn more about Partnership organizations by utilizing the links below:
New York State Defender Association's Immigrant Defense Project
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
National Legal Aid and Defender Association

Funders

The Partnership is funded by the Gideon Project of the Open Society Instituteand received start-up support from the Ford Foundation and the JEHT Foundation. Our work is guided and carried out by principal partners Katherine Brady, Angie Junck, Dan Kesselbrenner, Joanne Macri, Manuel D. Vargas, Benita Jain, and Richard Goemann.