Staff Attorney, Detained Adult Program

Description

The Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition is now Amica Center for Immigrant Rights (“Amica Center” for short).  to learn more about our new name. Since our founding in 1999, we have grown significantly and added new services to support immigrants in detention. Recently, Amica Center has outgrown our name, expanding beyond our initial services and geographic boundaries.

“Amica” is the Latin word for “friend,” and that echoes the way we approach what we do. Just as friends stand with one another, Amica Center stands with our clients to achieve the safety, stability, and opportunity we all deserve.

We are the only non-profit organization in the Washington, D.C. area that is exclusively focused on providing legal assistance to adult and child immigrants detained by the government in the Capital Region and beyond.

The Detained Adult Program (DAP) works with hundreds of adults who are detained by ICE each year, providing information, support, and legal representation. We provide trauma-sensitive, person-centered services, and deeply value the autonomy of the people we work with in detention as they navigate the fundamentally inhumane immigration system.

Amica Center’s Detained Adult Program is a highly collaborative work environment. Each team lead works directly with a focused team, but all colleagues are interconnected through, for example, case workshops or staff-run committees.

DAP staff is a source of expertise in the highly complex and ever-changing immigration system. They have persisted through administration changes, policy shifts, and attacks on the rights and freedoms of immigrants through project-focused cohorts that arise to address challenges or to brainstorm and implement affirmative strategies.

A Staff Attorney in the Detained Adult Program focuses on: (i) screening individuals for program eligibility and immigration relief, (ii) managing a caseload of direct legal services to immigrant adults held in facilities in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere outside the DMV region, (iii) maintaining client and stakeholder information up to date in the organization’s database, (iv) advocating with stakeholders and community representatives for program and clients, and (v) the mentoring of pro bono attorneys.

This project provides legal representation to detained immigrants regardless of their criminal history and immigration procedural postures.

Representation:

• Manage a caseload of in-house direct legal representation of detained clients in removal proceedings mainly before the Annandale, Baltimore, Elizabeth and Sterling Immigration Courts and other courts as needed. This includes representation in cases such as Asylum, Withholding of Removal, Protection under the Convention against Torture, Board of Immigration Appeals, U-Visas, T-Visas, and Cancellation of Removal. Provide expert mentoring to outside pro bono attorneys representing detained immigrants on a pro bono basis.
• Prepare Post Release Plans and social service plans, in coordination with social services staff.
• Research, engage, and prepare experts on health, behavioral health, and country conditions.

Detention Facility Services:

• Conduct government detention center visits as needed to prepare clients for their immigration hearings.
• Conduct individual intakes with immigrants at the detention facilities or remotely as necessary. Provide necessary follow-up after intakes to evaluate program eligibility and eligibility for relief, including performing research, securing criminal/juvenile delinquency records and obtaining additional information from family and community members.

Organizational Services:

• Ensure the inputting and accuracy of data and case information into shared databases in a timely fashion.
• Assist other program staff in completion of their workload during high-work/low-bandwidth periods.
• Take part in stakeholder relationship activities, including in-person and telephonic meetings with community groups, governmental bodies and representatives, and other legal service providers.
• Engage with internal Amica Center committees and…