Migration & Human Rights Program

Understanding Immigration Laws and Regulations

Overview

The below resources are designed to provide practitioners and others involved in the immigration law space with ways to learn more generally about the field of immigration law:

• How the U.S. immigration system works, by the American Immigration Council
• The current immigration law landscape, published by the Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII)

Recent News

These resources help practitioners and others in the field stay up-to-date on immigration law, regulation, policy, and politics:

• General news and policies:
  • AILA’s Immigration Politics Ticker, aggregating frequent dispatches regarding changes to immigration policy and politics, and its collection of daily news clips
  • Aggregation of breaking news on immigration law and regulations from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
  • Other online resources to stay abreast of current developments in immigration law, including digests, monthly publications, interim regulations, and reporting

  • January 2022 COVID-19 Resources

  • January 2022 Public Benefits Coronavirus FAQs

Research Guides for Immigration Law and Regulations

These resources are designed to assist legal professionals with their research on U.S. immigration laws and regulations:

• Comprehensive immigration law research guides:
  • Cornell University Library provides:
    • An introduction to immigration research
    • Asylum law resource guide
    • Useful immigration treatises and practice guides
    • regulations and agency materials

Immigration Training Resources for Attorney Volunteers

Know Your Rights (Video) (password protected)
Recording from November 2018.

American Immigration Lawyers Association Practice Resources (AILA)

• AILA is the national association of immigration lawyers and provides detailed trainings from experts in the field.
• Downloadable recordings, podcasts, and written advisories.
• If you are interested in volunteering with detained individuals, we recommend:
  • Preparing for Credible Fear Interviews
  • Central American Asylum Cases
  • Asylum 101 and 102
• Consider joining AILA to access all training content and subscribe to listservs and updates.

National Immigrant Justice Center

• Webinars and conference calls on emerging legal issues in immigration.
• Sign up for email updates and peruse prior recordings.
• Recommended:
  • The Muslim Ban Decision and Family Incarceration

Practicing Law Institute

• PLI provides CLEs on a variety of topics led by practitioners and experts, including many informative programs in immigration law (listed under “pro bono”).
• Downloadable recordings and live webinars.
• Recommended:
  • Programs Discussing Immigration Bond Hearings
  • Under Pressure: Representing Clients in Reasonable Fear and Credible Fear Interviews in the Trump Era
  • Defending Immigration Removal Proceedings 2018

Immigration Justice Campaign

• Webinars, volunteering opportunities, and news updates.
• Recommended:
  • Webinar on Family Separation and Detention
  • Overview of Removal Proceedings

Immigrant Legal Resource Center

• Advocacy and policy organization providing numerous detailed trainings across immigration law.
• Webinars and downloadable recordings, for a fee.
• Recommended:
  • Building an Asylum Claim
  • Introduction to Bond Hearings

Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Penn State Law

• Clinic which provides detailed written advisories on each emerging immigration issue.

National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild

• In-person seminars and access to prior seminar’s program books.

Immigration Advocates Network

• Resources for in-person trainings in your state.
• Consider becoming a member for access to additional trainings.

New York Immigration Coalition

• Online and in-person trainings.
• Coming up: 40 Hour Overview of Immigration Law: Albany

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.

• E-learning courses for a fee.

Litigating Immigration Matters

This section collects links for individuals seeking resources directly relating to litigating immigration cases.

• The Department of Justice (DOJ) publishes a practice manual for appearing before the immigration court
• Practice forms:
  • Frequently requested forms from the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), including fee waivers for immigration court and appeals from immigration court decisions, for example
  • Required forms from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), such as citizen petitions for alien relatives and applications for employment authorization.

Volunteering Legal Services and Donating to Legal Agencies

For opportunities for non-lawyer volunteers, lawyer volunteers, and agencies requesting donations, please see our page on Immigration Volunteer Opportunities.

If you are a Cornell alumnus interested in working on immigration cases with us, please email Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer at jak533@cornell.edu to connect with our mailing list.

Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
Washington, D.C.

Heartland Alliance
Chicago, IL

Human Rights First
New York, NY

National Immigration Law Center
Los Angeles, CA

Public Counsel
Los Angeles, CA

Disclaimer: This page is intended to help answer common questions regarding immigration to the United States by providing introductory resources.  This page does not provide legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship.  We strongly suggest consulting with an attorney regarding any of these questions or issues.

Resources for Finding Legal Representation

These links provide guidance for finding legal representation in immigration matters across the United States.

• A guide to help immigrants find legal advice from the American Immigration Lawyers Association
• A national legal services directory from the Immigration Advocates Network
• A free online legal screening tool for undocumented youth from Educators for Fair Consideration
• A list of free legal services by state from the U.S. Department of Justice

Resources for Non-Legal Services

• A list of scholarships for immigrants and a guide for working as an undocumented immigrant from Educators for Fair Consideration
• Information on health care for immigrants from the National Immigrant Law Center
• A compilation of rights and benefits associated with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals(DACA), from the National Immigrant Law Center
• An overview of educational rights and resources for immigrants from the National Immigrant Law Center
• A comprehensive list of benefits for economic support that are available to immigrants, including food assistance and disaster assistance, from the National Immigrant Law Center

Resources for Understanding and Dealing with the Deportation Process

• The National Immigration Law Center provides a personal and family guide for people who have been detained and face deportation
• The Immigrant Legal Resource Center outlines a plan to prepare in case a family member is detained or faces deportation (the guide is also available in Spanish)
• Detention Rights: The National Immigration Project provides printable guides for knowing and enforcing your rights when in immigration detention (the knowing and enforcing your rights guide is also available in Spanish)
• Detention Rights: This Community Resource Kit prepared by the National Immigration Project provides step-by-step guidance on what to do when a family member is detained (this guide is also available in Spanish)
• This Spanish factsheet, prepared by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, includes tips for community members to remain calm and stay safe in the current deportation climate
• The Immigrant Justice Network helps you understand who can be deported and how deportation proceedings begin

Resources for Knowing Your Rights

• Know Your Rights Fact Sheet: Everyone living in the U.S. has certain basic rights under the U.S. Constitution. This fact sheet from the National Immigration Law Center describes the rights you have and provides suggestions for what you should do to assert your rights. The fact sheet is available in English, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, and Korean
• Video Guide: The ACLU’s video guide explains what you should do when you are questioned about your immigration status
• Red Cards: The Immigrant Legal Resource Center provides Red Cards to help people assert their rights and defend themselves against constitutional violations. Red cards provide critical information on how to assert these rights, along with an explanation to ICE agents that the individual is indeed asserting their rights. Click here for more information on red cards
• Rights of Victims of Crimes: The National Immigration Project provides guides for handling gender and workplace violence

Disclaimer: This page is intended to help answer common questions regarding immigration to the United States by providing introductory resources.  This page does not provide legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship.  We strongly suggest consulting with an attorney regarding any of these questions or issues.

Upstate New York Resources

These links provide information for individuals and entities in upstate New York. They focus on legal representation but some include resources on education, housing, and other areas. Specifically, these resources focus in and around the metropolitan areas of Ithaca, Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo.

• The Cornell Farmworker Program organizes a directory of English and Spanish resources for migrants, farmworkers, and immigrants organized by county.
• The Cornell Farmworker Program also offers resources for housing, banking, legal services, education, job training, and health and other services.
• The Upstate Immigration Project of the Legal Aid Society (click on “Immigration Program”) provides legal representation, advice, and information for individuals seeking refuge, a change in immigration status, to avoid deportation, or assistance against discrimination due to immigration status. Through its regional offices, the Legal Aid Society assists individuals in forty-seven of New York’s sixty-two counties.
• The Department of Justice’s New York Free Legal Service Providers List is updated regularly, and is organized by an immigration court and by the types of individuals and/or claims each provider will represent.
• Legal Assistance of Western New York provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income, low-asset individuals who are U.S. Citizens or have a U.S. citizen in the household. They provide services to 14 counties in western New York, including Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, Wayne, and Yates Counties through its regional offices.

Ithaca Area

• The Cornell Farmworker Program conducts on-farm workshops in Spanish and English on immigrant rights and emergency planning. The program also maintains a printable guide to immigration-related services in Tompkins county, including education, English language, and legal services.
• Cornell Law School provides free legal representation through its clinical programs, including:
  • Advocacy for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Communities Clinic;
  • Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic;
  • Farmworker Legal Assistance Clinic; and
  • Legal Research Clinic for all other matters
• The Catholic Charities of Tompkins/Tioga has an Immigrant Services Program that offers legal immigration and support services to Tompkins County’s immigrant community.
• Legal Assistance of Western New York provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income, low-asset individuals who are U.S. Citizens or have a U.S. citizen in the household to individuals in Tompkins County through its local Ithaca office.
• Both Ithaca and Tompkins County are sanctuaries.  While the definition of “sanctuary city” and “sanctuary county” varies widely, this may slow or otherwise alter the way agencies enforce or gather information about the immigration status of residents.

Rochester Area

• The Cornell Farmworker Program maintains a printable guide to immigration-related services in Monroe County, including education services.
• Legal Assistance of Western New York provides free legal services in civil matters to low-income, low-asset individuals who are U.S. Citizens or have a U.S. citizen in the household to individuals in Monroe County through its local Rochester office. Rochester is a sanctuary city. While the definition of “sanctuary city” varies widely, this may slow or otherwise alter the way agencies enforce or gather information about the immigration status of residents.

Syracuse Area

• The Cornell Farmworker Program maintains a printable guide to immigration-related services in Onondaga county, including housing, education, and legal services Syracuse is a sanctuary city. While the definition of “sanctuary city” varies widely, this may slow or otherwise alter the way agencies enforce or gather information about the immigration status of residents.

Buffalo Area

• The Department of Justice’s New York Free Legal Service Providers List contains a list of lawyers and legal service organizations who will represent many individuals for free in Buffalo Immigration Court.

• The Immigration Justice Campaign promotes access to legal counsel for immigrants held in detention centers by building a broad network of pro bono allies training private lawyers to defend immigrants facing removal. They seek lawyers willing to be trained and mentored to represent detained immigrants; removal defense experts willing to mentor new volunteers; and non-lawyers, such as interpreters, who can provide support to pro bono legal teams.
• The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights  is training adults who want to become “child advocates” who will work one-on-one with unaccompanied immigrant children while they are subject to deportation proceedings.
• The Advocates for Human Rights works both nationally and internationally on asylum and other issues. This organization provides a guide for  NGOs, nonprofits, and activists to become involved in domestic and international human rights advocacy. They are seeking both lawyer and nonlawyer volunteers for individual representation, court observers, interpreters/translators, office and events support, and remote database work.
• Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project works to prevent the deportation of asylum-seeking families fleeing violence. The group accepts donations and asks people to sign up for volunteer opportunities for interpreters, attorneys, law students, and others,  here.
• Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso provides legal representation to immigrants who might not be able to afford it otherwise. It’s accepting  volunteers and donations.
• RAICES is a nonprofit that provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children, families and refugees in Texas. It’s accepting donations and volunteers at its website. In addition, the #postcards4families campaign will donate $5 to RAICES for every postcard kids write to help the separated immigrant children.
• The Children’s Immigration Law Academy has pro bono attorneys representing children in immigration-related proceedings. It’s also providing specialized training to legal service providers and volunteers who are serving unaccompanied immigrant children. (Non-lawyer volunteers may be able to help—the website isn’t clear.)

• American Gateways provides legal services and representation to detained parents. Currently American Gateways is seeking volunteers to represent detained parents and is accepting donations.
• The CARA Project is currently recruiting attorneys, law students and paralegals with experience in asylum work. The CARA Project asks volunteers to be fluent in Spanish or willing to work with an interpreter.
• Kids In Need of Defense partners with major law firms, corporations and bar associations to create a nationwide pro bono network to represent unaccompanied children through their immigration proceedings. Volunteers don’t need to have immigration law experience.

• Free Our Neighbors uses donor funds to pay immigration bonds for people held in immigration jail who currently lack the means to pay the bond themselves, especially channeling donations to remote areas with few resources.
• Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley shelters immigrants who’ve recently been released from U.S. Border Patrol custody.
• Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services is the largest provider of free and low cost immigration services in West Texas and says it’s the only organization in El Paso serving unaccompanied children.
• The Austin Bar Association Civil Right and Immigration Section is coordinating training for pro bono attorneys to handle credible fear interviews for asylum seekers.
• South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project is providing free legal services to asylum seekers detained in South Texas.
• Justice for Our Neighbors provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant individuals and families in Texas.
• The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is  raising money to provide immigrant children “immediate shelter and beds, medical services, counseling and therapy to help them deal with the trauma of family separation.
• Together Rising is collecting money that’ll go to advocacy groups that are working to reunify immigrant children with their families.
• Comfort Cases is raising money to provide backpacks to the separated immigrant children. Each case will contain items such as blankets, pajamas, toiletries, a stuffed animal, a book, a journal and art supplies.
• Tahirih Justice Center is providing free legal and social services to immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence.
• Circle of Health International has staffed a clinic caring for refugees and asylum seekers immediately upon their release. Their McAllen clinic is currently seeing upwards of 100 patients a day.
• The Office of Refugee Resettlement requires that all people who want to foster one of the unaccompanied immigrant children be fully licensed by their state. If you are not already licensed, the agency recommends contacting organizations such as United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services.
• Annunciation House is helping serve immigrants and refugees in El Paso. The organization is accepting donations here. [Note: The Asylum/CAT clinic has worked with the sole on-staff attorney at Annunciation House. She and the other volunteers there are awesome.
• The Human Rights Initiative of North Texas is representing asylum seekers as well as unaccompanied minors — including those separated from parents.
• The Salvation Army of El Paso is supporting 17 shelter rooms for separated families while they await reunification with their children and their court hearings.
• Baker Ripley’s team of immigration attorneys are providing representation to detained families seeking asylum as well as working to reunite children and parents.
• La Posada Providencia in San Benito runs a shelter for people who have applied for asylum and been released from detention centers while their cases are pending.
• The Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee in El Paso started the Fronterizo Fianza Fund, which will go toward things like posting bond for asylum seekers.

• A coalition of Texas groups are working at the Inter-American Commission: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/05/31/texas-based-attorney-ask-oas-order-feds-end-family-separation/
• The Advocates for Human Rights advocates both nationally and internationally, and provides a guide for  NGOs, nonprofits, and activists to become involved in domestic and international human rights advocacy. They are seeking both lawyer and nonlawyer volunteers for individual representation, court observers, interpreters/translators, office and events support, and remote database work.
• The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:  https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23174&LangID=E and the government of Mexico: https://noticieros.televisa.com/ultimas-noticias/mexico-condena-separacion-familias-eu-es-cruel/

• The New York Immigration Coalition
• Erie County Bar Association Volunteer Lawyers Project
• Hiscock Legal Aid Society
• Legal Aid Society of Rochester
• Volunteer Lawyers Project of Onondaga County
• Workers’ Center of Central NY
• Worker Justice Center Of New York