Resources for Organizers and Advocates Working to Abolish Detention

Freedom for Immigrants seeks to facilitate inside-outside organizing in order to strengthen the movement to abolish immigration detention.

These resources have been located or developed in partnership with people directly affected by the system, their family members and loved ones; visitation program coordinators, volunteers, and advocates in other fields; and community members.

Visitation Resources

Guide to Visiting People in Immigration Detention

To combat the isolating experience of immigration detention, communities throughout the United States are establishing volunteer-based visitation groups offering friendship and a connection to the outside world.

Community visitation groups not only transform the hearts and minds of individual visitors by providing them with opportunities to build sustained relationships with persons in immigration detention, but also ensure that persons in immigration detention can maintain family and community ties.

Additionally, visitation groups are often the only consistent community presence in immigrant prisons and jails, and they can provide civilian oversight to a system that has little public accountability.

This continuously updated guide developed by the Freedom for Immigrants network draws upon the experience and knowledge of coordinators, visitors, and advocates around the country.

It provides information and advice for people who visit and support people in immigration detention, covering critical aspects of U.S. immigration policies and and best practices for people working with individuals in the immigration detention system, including the following:

• History of the U.S. immigration detention system, policies and discrimination  

• The role of visitor volunteers in dismantling the detention system

• Reasons to visit and support people in immigration detention and why just visitation is not enough 

Se puede encontrar la versión en español de la guía para voluntarias aquí:

Guía de visitas a personas en centros de detención migratoria/ICE

Another helpful resource, although not specific to visiting people in ICE detention, is Sylvia Rivera Law Project’s Solidarity in Action: A Guide to Visiting Incarcerated Community Members.

We encourage people in Mexico to check out la Guía de Monitoreo de Detención Migratoria put together by el Grupo Impulsor contra la Detención Migratoria y la Tortura.

This parallel guide draws upon the experience and knowledge of people who have started and coordinated visitation groups around the country, presenting a series of steps to undertake when establishing community visitation as well as guidelines for coordinating, including:

• Differences between formal and informal visitation groups

• Requesting and participating in community stakeholder visits

• Recruiting and training visitor volunteers

EDUCATIONAL Resources

History and Context of Immigration Detention:

• Detained: How the U.S. Built the World’s Largest Immigrant Detention System (The Marshall Project)

• Immigration Detention Syllabus (Freedom for Immigrants)

• History of Criminalization Webinars (ICE out of CA)

• Immigrant Justice Now! Curriculum (Catalyst Project)

• Dismantling Detention webinar (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)

• Immigration Detention in the United States by agency (American Immigration Council)

Policy Advocacy Resources

• End Detention in Your District (Freedom for Immigrants)

• Guide to Launching a Dignity Not Detention Campaign in Your State (Freedom for Immigrants)

• Ending Immigration Detention: Abolitionist Steps vs. Reformist Reforms (Detention Watch Network)

Immigration Law Resources

• The Immigration Justice Campaign website has resources for learning more about asylum, bond, parole, and motions to reopen; you will need to sign up to access these.

• Release of attorney-client privilege. In English & Spanish.

• US Immigration Court Observation Manual (Hope Border Institute)

• Guide to Courtwatching (Community Justice Exchange)

• Innovation Law Lab’s Asylum Nutshell Videos

• UNHCR - Resources for Asylum-Seekers in the U.S. include country reports, LGBTQI claim resources, gang claim resources, etc. UNHCR also operates a toll-free detention hotline Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 2pm - 5pm EST with telephonic interpretation available. The hotline is accessible by dialing #566 from within detention facilities.

• The Visitor Volunteer Role & The Practice of Law (Freedom for Immigrants) Learn more about what visitor volunteers can and cannot do to support people in immigration detention on their immigration cases.

• Policies & Procedures for Visitor Volunteers Who are Legal Professionals (Freedom for Immigrants) Visitation groups in our network frequently encounter legal professionals with a passion to get involved with visitation. We strongly encourage this involvement, but we also recognize the need to protect the integrity of visitation groups and the rights of people in immigration detention.

• Refugee & Asylum Flow Chart (UNHCR)

• Protecting and identifying stateless persons in immigration detention (UNHCR)

• Glossary of Legal Terms (English–Spanish) (Washington Courts)

• The Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook, published by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, provides some aid in protecting your rights behind bars.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING RESOURCES

• Rebuilding Trust: A Case Study for Closing and Repurposing Immigration Detention Facilities (Freedom for Immigrants) In 2018, Freedom for Immigrants published this 72-page report that offers a case study on the Santa Ana City Jail.  As we work to achieve our mission of abolishing immigration detention, we need to take steps not only to close immigrant prisons and jails, but also to repurpose them into spaces that serve the public.

• Deportation 101: A Community Resource on Anti-Deportation Education and Organizing (Detention Watch Network)

• Ending Local Collaboration with ICE: A Toolkit for Immigrant Advocates (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)

• Toolkit for Community Organizers: Prison Divestment to Build Freedom Cities (Enlace / Prison Divestment Movement)

• Resource Page from AORTA, a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT RESOURCES

• Tortured & Detained: Survivor Stories of U.S. Immigration Detention (Center for Victims of Torture)

• Healing the Hurt: A Guide for Developing Services for Torture Survivors (Center for Victims of Torture)

Impact of Detention & Deportation on Families

• Torn Apart by Immigration Enforcement: Parental Rights and Immigration Detention (Women's Refugee Commission)

• Detained or Deported: What about my children? (Women's Refugee Commission)

• Guide for Detained and Removed Parents with Child Custody Concerns (Women's Refugee Commission)

• Protecting Assets & Child Custody in the Face of Deportation: A Guide for Practitioners Assisting Immigrant Families (Appleseed)

• Financial Handbook for Families Facing Detention & Deportation (Families for Freedom)

• Family Preparedness Plan (Immigrant Legal Resource Center)

Navigating Trauma

• Podcast by Penelope Young Andrade, a psychotherapist who specializes in managing anxiety, depression, and trauma on 10 self-care reminders for people experiencing vicarious trauma (National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild)

• Vicarious Trauma in the Struggle for Immigrant Justice (American Friends Service Committee)

• Trauma Stewardship Institute Free Downloads

Accompaniment & Sponsorship Resources

• Immigrant Justice Accompaniment Skill-Share Network and their Understanding Solidarity Toolkit

• Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s (UUSC) Congregational Accompaniment Project for Asylum Seekers

• Toolkit for Faith Communities to Accompany People Seeking Asylum

• Supporting Asylum Seekers: A Toolkit for Congregations (The Episcopal Church)

Best Practices for Writing Letters of Solidarity to Individuals in Immigration Detention

• English one-pager (Freedom for Immigrants)

• Spanish one-pager (Freedom for Immigrants)

• Ideas and Tips for Organizing Letter-writing Events (Survived & Punished)

Anti-Racism & Dismantling White Supremacy

• Changing systems, changing ourselves: Anti-racist practice for sanctuary, accompaniment & resistance: a four-session webinar that explores self- and group-reflection on undoing racism in the context of immigrant rights solidarity, the U.S. immigration system's history of racial exclusion and how it plays out today, the theology and practice of accompaniment, and real life examples through case-studies and practical skills.

• Catalyst Project Anne Braden Program Readings and Homework: a four month-long anti-racist training program for white social justice activists.

• Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ): a national network of groups and individuals working to undermine white supremacy and to work for racial justice.

• Community Ready Corps (Allies & Accomplices) [CRCAA]: The 5 Methods of Divestment & Weaponization of White Power & Privilege

Medical Advocacy for Liberation

• Recommendations for Safe Release Procedures During Covid-19 (Freedom for Immigrants, Physicians for Human Rights, and Women’s Refugee Commission)

• Medical Justice Alliance

• Asylum Network at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)

• Doctors for Camp Closure (D4CC)

Deportation Defense Campaigns

• Deportation Defense Manual in English + Spanish (Make the Road New York + Immigrant Defense Project)

• Deportation Defense Toolkit in English + Spanish (Mijente + Just Futures Law)

• Participatory Defense: Re-Defining Defense and Using People Power as a Tool for Liberation

• Deportation Defense Guide for the Faith Community: Lifting Up Individual Deportation Cases in the Trump Era (Faith in Action)

• A.R.M. Case Campaign & Organizing Manual (Families for Freedom)