Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center
The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) upholds due process and human rights protections for immigrants by leveraging its network of 1,500 pro bono attorneys and organizational partnerships. Informed by its direct legal service work with approximately 10,000 immigrants annually, NIJC identifies and challenges systemic barriers to justice. NIJC advances equity and inclusion so that all individuals – regardless of ethnicity, immigration status, sexual orientation, or criminal background – can exercise their rights, reach their potential, and participate fully in society.
For several years, NIJC has been challenging the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) position that a prior removal order bars a noncitizen from being considered for asylum. In passing the Refugee Act and signing onto the Refugee Convention, Congress made the right to seek asylum broadly available and subject to limited exceptions. The categorical denial of this right to individuals who have been previously deported is improper. Nonetheless, DHS has denied thousands of people who previously were deported the opportunity to seek asylum.
GRANT CASES
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With support from the Barbara McDowell and Gerald S. Hartman Foundation, NIJC will pursue this litigation in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on behalf of a Honduran environmentalist, Carlos, who left the United States after he was ordered deported in absentia in 2003. When Carlos returned to Honduras, his environmental activism affected powerful interests, leading to him being kidnapped and tortured for three days. When he went to the police to seek help, he realized that the police were involved in his torture. Fearing for his life, Carlos fled to the United States and was detained at the border. The immigration judge granted Carlos withholding of removal (a lesser form of protection) and denied asylum.
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Immigration detainers are the lynchpin of ICE’s interior enforcement strategy. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses detainers to instruct state and local law enforcement (LEA) to keep an individual in custody for up to 48 hours to permit ICE to assume custody. Individuals held by local LEAs are commonly identified for possible removal through fingerprint sharing via the Secure Communities program. These collaborative practices between federal immigration authorities and LEAs trap and isolate thousands of individuals in the immigration detention system, many of whom were identified through routine traffic stops. Yet no policies or procedures exist to ensure the protection of fundamental due process rights. Immigrants who find themselves caught in the immigration detention and deportation pipeline, often as a result of questionable enforcement practices, have no right to court-appointed counsel. This dangerous cooperation relies on and increases racial profiling, which results in the illegal detention of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs).
To combat this abuse of power, NIJC filed a class action lawsuit, Jimenez Moreno v. Napolitano, 11-cv-5452 (N.D.Ill.), to challenge the legality of ICE’s use of immigration detainers. Both of the named plaintiffs, Jose Jimenez Moreno, a U.S. citizen, and Maria Jose Lopez, an LPR, were unlawfully subjected to immigration detainers. NIJC defeated DHS’s attempt to dismiss the litigation, conducted extensive discovery, and is currently seeking class certification.
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NIJC is involved in the litigation of the case, Cece v. Holder, currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. NIJC argued this case before the court in a rehearing en banc as amicus. The case involves an Albanian woman who feared she would be trafficked for prostitution due to the widespread trafficking of young, unprotected women in Albania. In support of Cece, NIJC is arguing that her particular social group is viable and not fatally flawed. NIJC’s brief asserts that victims of persecution – particularly those who are pro se – should not be denied relief for failing to articulate a clear PSG when they have shown they will be harmed on account of a characteristic they cannot change. NIJC is seeking to promote arguments similar to the ones raised in Cece in other federal circuits. In a similar case, NIJC is preparing an amicus brief in support of rehearing for another young Albanian woman who fears trafficking in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
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Through the Barbara McDowell and Gerald S. Hartman Foundation grant, NIJC will engage in strategic litigation to promote the positive development of refugee jurisprudence as it relates to “particular social groups” for purposes of asylum. In particular, NIJC will advocate for the courts to recognize gender as a “particular social group” that merits protection, consistent with international law standards. NIJC will formulate and promote legal arguments that support this interpretation of the law and respond to “floodgates” concerns that have been employed by adjudicators to deny protection to victims of gender-based violence. NIJC will collaborate with colleagues and pro bono attorneys to raise these cases in strategic venues.
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A grant was made for legal work related to the case brought by Carlyle Dale, who spent more than five years in unlawful civil detention. NIJC filed a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act to hold the government accountable for the damages suffered by Mr. Dale for a series of chronic illnesses. Mr. Dale had successfully challenged his deportation in a case brought in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
CASE UPDATES SINCE GRANT YEAR
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Gonzalez-Ruano v. Barr
Challenged successfully the constitutionality of ICE’s requests to issue arrest requests based on error-ridden data base used in the Central District of California and entered by ICE’s Pacific Enforcement Response Center. Gonzalez v. ICE.
A similar successful result was achieved in interpreting similar statutory language related to a protected group.
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Moreno v. Napolitano
Overturned the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (“ICE”) practice of using directives to local law enforcement to detain alleged noncitizens for pickup by ICE based solely on vague database information without more to support a probable cause determination.
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Preserved protections for individuals seeking asylum involving gender-or gang-based claims contrary to ICE’s narrow reading of the category, “Particular Social Group,” in the immigration statute.
GRANT AMOUNT
$25,000 (2017)
$10,000 (2014)
$10,500 (2013)
$10,000 (2012)
$5,000 (2011)