Immigrant Justice

Our Criminal Justice Reform program seeks to transform the criminal justice system by advocating for policies that disentangle local law enforcement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), increase use of clemency to reduce mass incarceration, and promote restorative justice as an alternative to punitive approaches to criminal justice. We also push for policies that diminish the power of the prison-industrial complex, demanding investments in marginalized communities rather than in policing and the carceral system. In collaboration with organizational partners statewide, we have successfully ended the voluntary practice of transferring community members to ICE in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Contra Costa Counties.

Spotlight

We helped draft and pass the CA Values Act (SB54), which prevents state and local law enforcement agencies from using their resources on behalf of federal immigration enforcement agencies. Widely known as the sanctuary state law, the Act limits the use of state and local resources from being directed toward immigration enforcement purposes. The Act further ensures that our schools, hospitals, and courthouses are safe spaces for everyone in our community. It became the strongest pro-immigrant policy in the country, culminating from years of our policy advocacy on the TRUST Act and the TRUTH Act. After the Trump administration challenged the law in March 2018, in June 2020, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal and ultimately left the Values Act as binding California law.

Throughout, we have worked to implement the CA Values Act county-by-county in our efforts to stop the state-to-prison-to-ICE pipeline. In San Mateo County, for instance, Sheriff Carlos Bolanos had allowed over 100 people to be handed to ICE in 2018 after they were eligible for release, nearly half of all such transfers in the entire Bay Area. After years of advocacy through the the San Mateo County Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Sheriff Bolanos announced in November 2021 that he would end his cooperation with ICE, a victory resulting from years of the coalition supporting communities and community organizing in San Mateo to stop the transfer of immigrants to ICE from the county jail.

Working with a wide array of community partners and advocates, our Immigrant Rights program has sought to end the mass incarceration and deportation of immigrants and refugees, especially amid the spread of COVID-19 in prisons. By providing free legal services to immigrants and refugees in San Francisco and throughout California, leading class-action lawsuits, and organizing with community members to fight deportations of loved ones, we protect and mobilize Southeast Asian, Black, Latinx, and other immigrant communities of color directly impacted by unjust carceral and immigration policies.

Spotlight

In early 2021 we won pardons from California Governor Gavin Newsom for two clients: Kao Saelee and Bounchan Keola. Kao and Boun are both refugees from Laos who came to the US as children and were sentenced to decades in prison as teenagers. While incarcerated, they served as firefighters and risked their lives battling some of the worst wildfires in California history. Boun was nearly killed after a tree collapsed on him during the Zogg Fire. Upon finishing their sentences, both were transferred to ICE. We advocated against these transfers with support from media, celebrities, and elected officials across the country including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Protected from deportation by the pardons, they were released in May, and continued to speak out on behalf of fellow detainees.