CAPITAL AREA IMMIGRANTS RIGHTS COALITION
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Mission Statement
CAIR Coalition ensures equal justice for all immigrant adults and children at risk of detention and deportation in the Capital region area and beyond through direct legal representation, know your rights presentations, impact litigation, advocacy, and the enlistment and training of attorneys to defend immigrants.
About This Cause
Immigrants are not provided counsel in immigration proceedings and those without lawyers face enormous odds. They struggle to afford attorneys, and those who are detained are held in jails far from most attorneys’ offices. This means that most detained immigrants are forced to represent themselves, in a language they may not speak, and navigate a complex legal system, all while held in jails, with no access to relevant documents, evidence, witnesses, or other things needed to prepare a case. Due to serious due process issues in immigration courts, unrepresented individuals have less than a one in ten chance of winning their case, even if their case has merit. Often the detained individual is the family’s primary wage earner, and their detention and subsequent deportation can plunge the family into economic instability, in some cases even leading to the family becoming homeless. The detention of a loved one also takes a tremendous psychological toll on the family. Children whose parents have been detained often suffer significant emotional hardship, impacting their ability to do well in school and reach their full potential. Having an attorney drastically improves an immigrant’s ability to successfully fight their detention case. People who are detained and have an attorney by their side are twice as likely to obtain relief. This in turn leads to greater family stability and reduces the number of people who face the permanent fracturing of their families. This is where CAIR Coalition comes in – we continue to be the only non-profit organization in the Capital area with legal and social services programs dedicated primarily to assisting immigrants who are detained. Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition has been providing legal services to immigrants detained in the Capital region for nearly 25 years. We continue to be the only nonprofit organization in this region with a legal and social services program dedicated primarily to assisting immigrants who are detained. CAIR Coalition’s programs include: the Detained Adult Program, which provides legal services to adult immigrant residents of the DMV who are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia,; the Detained Children's Program, which assists unaccompanied immigrant children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement; and the Immigration Impact Lab, which utilizes novel, proactive impact litigation to improve the law for broad groups of immigrants, potentially helping thousands of immigrants remain with their families. In addition to providing direct legal services to some of the most vulnerable immigrants in our community – those in detention with no right to counsel in their immigration hearings – we train dozens of attorneys each year who are interested in providing pro bono assistance to immigrant adults or unaccompanied immigrant children. We also work with local and national partners to advocate for improved treatment of immigrants who are detained including greater access to counsel, increased opportunities for release and improved treatment of detained immigrants with special vulnerabilities, including mental illness. In the last 12 months, as Capital region residents are being transferred to detention centers across the East Coast, in particular Georgia and Pennsylvania, CAIR Coalition has continued to collaborate with various stakeholders. CAIR Coalition led a stakeholder trip to Georgia to engage with immigration legal services providers and other partners. In Georgia, CAIR Coalition met with the Georgia Immigration Consortium to discuss trends in immigration services in the state. CAIR Coalition also conducted a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania stakeholder trip to meet with providers who support our legal services, including Casa San Jose and Abuelas Responden who provide critical case support to our clients, as well as Penn State University to discuss a Moshannon Detention Center visitation program for our clients. CAIR Coalition also met with several law firms who support our pro bono representation program to increase pro bono legal services for residents.