Immigrants’ Rights

We believe in the freedom of movement and migration for all people.

The immigration system was designed to uphold white supremacy and has used the law to exclude, surveil and punish immigrants of color. The TakeRoot Justice Immigrants’ Rights team finds creative ways to use and change the law in order to build power in immigrant communities of color.

Our community partners are led by immigrants of color who work to build power, lead campaigns for legislative and policy changes and create spaces where immigrants can thrive.

We support their members in obtaining and maintaining immigration status and tackling systemic oppression in policing, surveillance, employment, housing, access to benefits, courts, medical care, education, and resources to build wealth (e.g. banks).

To build power in immigrant communities, we:

  • Offer popular education workshops to provide essential and up-to-date information on changing immigration policies;

  • Offer Know Your Rights trainings to empower individuals during ICE interactions;

  • Provide rapid response and support for individual members targeted by ICE;

  • Staff community-based legal clinics to screen members and take on cases for immigration relief including removal defense, asylum, applications for T and U visas, Special Immigrant Juvenile status, naturalization, family based petitions and more;

  • Support the development of immigrant community defense networks;

  • Work in coalition with local and national immigrants rights groups,

  • Challenge harsh immigration laws and enforcement practices;

  • Promote language access, and

  • Combat immigration fraud.

Our Immigrants’ Rights Partners

In the news

As we look back on 2019, TakeRoot is celebrating the extraordinary courage of clients like Tamara* a Haitian asylum seeker we worked with this year. This fearless political activist was repeatedly persecuted and threatened because of her vocal opposition to