Happenings
RMIAN’s Social Service Project (SSP) has an opening for a TEMPORARY bilingual social worker to work with clients receiving legal representation through the Detention & Children’s Programs and to support our Social Service Project in resource development and organization.
The current position is for six months in order to provide coverage for a staff social worker on leave. If additional funding is secured, the opportunity for a full-time permanent position may become available.
The distinction between federal law enforcement and civil immigration enforcement exists partly to bolster public safety, current and former prosecutors said. They were joined in that opinion by immigration lawyers who monitored Wednesday’s actions closely or were on the frontlines helping people as they entered detention.
The community needs to be able to trust law enforcement officers and those officers need to be able to rely on the community — and depending on the crime, sources in the community — to tell them things.
“If they don’t trust law enforcement, they probably won’t go to them and tell them, hey there is a dangerous thing happening in my neighborhood,” said Laura Lunn, an immigration attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, who works out of the GEO detention center, which houses immigrants. “When you blur the lines between these different agencies, you are causing distrust within the community of both agencies.”
Two days after tactical SWAT vehicles traversed Denver and Aurora and dozens of armed federal agents went door to door looking for Venezuelan gang members, federal officials have not said how many people they detained or whether they were connected to crimes.
Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said in a news release that “while ICE is claiming these raids are targeting individuals charged with crimes, we know that they are sweeping up immigrant community members indiscriminately.”
Shira Hereld, one of the organization’s attorneys, said they saw a young girl holding her crying baby sister after their mother, their only parent, was taken by ICE agents. Hereld also saw the neighbors band together, check in on each other and help people find housing.
“These raids simultaneously expose the worst inhumanity of ICE and the most powerful humanity of our Colorado community,” Hereld said.
In 14 years of working as an immigration attorney, Laura Lunn says she has never seen Immigration and Customs Enforcement show force like the agency did in the Denver metro on Wednesday morning.
“Today was all about a massive waste of resources, a lot of fear-mongering in our community,” said Lunn, who's the director of litigation and advocacy for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, it sounds like they arrested very few people.”
“It is clearly just to show the kind of might that these law enforcement agencies have with their military-grade vehicles to go and instill incredible fear into small children and crying babies,” Lunn said.
RMIAN condemns the ongoing ICE raids happening in Denver and Aurora. While ICE is claiming these raids are targeting individuals charged with crimes, we know that they are sweeping up immigrant community members indiscriminately. RMIAN staff were horrified to see the inhumane and violent approach in yesterday’s raids.
Today, RMIAN and other partner organizations, represented by Gibson Dunn, announced the filing of a federal lawsuit against the government for shutting down critical legal orientation programs for immigrants, including people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit, filed against the Department of Justice (DOJ), Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and other defendants, challenges the government’s recently imposed stop-work order for legal access programs that have obliterated access to the most basic information for unrepresented noncitizens about their rights and obligations throughout removal proceedings.
“While we all want to live in safe communities, we know this law will not make our communities safer,” shared Nicole Loy, Policy and Campaigns Manager with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC). “Instead, it creates a chilling precedent by mandating the detention of immigrants who are merely accused of certain offenses, undermining the fundamental principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty, and further criminalizing black and brown communities, who are already unfairly targeted by law enforcement.’ This law will further erode trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities, leading to fewer crimes reported, and making everyone less safe.” More here.
On January 31, 2025, the ACLU of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) sent a letter to school districts in Colorado to provide information about the legal rights of immigrant students in Colorado and the legal responsibilities of school districts towards their students. More here.
“Taking away access to these essential and life-saving immigration legal service programs while simultaneously ordering increases in immigration enforcement and detention that will trample community members’ rights is a shocking and gross violation of the fundamental principles of due process, equal access to justice, and to our values for caring for our community members and loved ones,” Mekela Goehring, the RMIAN executive director, says in a statement. Full article here.
Whatever happens this week, the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, a nonprofit that serves immigrants, affirmed its commitment to offering legal support to “people caught in the cross hairs,” said director of advocacy and litigation Laura Lunn.
“Trump is directing resources to terrorize our community by promising to separate parents from their children and target people at home and at work,” Lunn said in an emailed statement.
But “the law matters,” she added. “Legal rights and due process matter.” Full article here.
"It’s essentially creating a black hole for people who are going into these very complex and complicated legal proceedings where the consequences may be the most serious case in their lives, and they are now being stripped of information and due process," Executive Director Mekela Goehring said. Full story and video here.
“The U.S. Department of Justice issued a ‘stop work order’ to multiple immigrant advocacy organizations around the country, including the one that funds Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. The Colorado nonprofit provides free attorney representation and other legal help to thousands of immigrants who are locked in the detention center in Aurora or fighting deportation at the Denver immigration court.” More here.
On Wednesday, January 22, 2025, RMIAN received a stop work order for its work under the Legal Orientation Program, Family Group Legal Orientation Program, and Immigration Court Help Desk Program. Collectively, these programs provide critical legal services to thousands of immigrants in Colorado (and throughout the US) every year. This stop work order stems from the harmful “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” Executive Order.
“Taking away access to these essential and life-saving immigration legal service programs while simultaneously ordering increases in immigration enforcement and detention that will trample community members’ rights is a shocking and gross violation of the fundamental principles of due process, equal access to justice, and to our values for caring for our community members and loved ones,” says Mekela Goehring, Executive Director, RMIAN.
The training was put on by Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN), which said Colorado already has the lowest rate of representation in the country for people who are facing deportation.
Mekela Goehring, executive director of RMIAN, said the training focused on how to argue for bond for detainees.
"What we know is that if people have representation, they're 10 times more likely to win their cases," said Goehring. "If they can get a bond and get out of immigration detention while they're fighting their cases, then they have access to information, to the resources."
About 100 lawyers just took a crash course in persuading immigration judges to grant bond and release people who are locked up at the ICE detention center in Aurora. The training put on by RMIAN took place Friday, three days before President Donald Trump returned to office on promises to deport tens of thousands of immigrants in what he has called “Operation Aurora.” More here.
Today RMIAN, CBA-CLE, Colorado Lawyers Committee, and the Boulder County Bar Association are partnering to train volunteer attorneys to represent clients in the release from immigration detention bond and parole. We are grateful to the over 100 attorneys in Colorado who registered for this training and who are committed to protecting due process, the rule of law, and equal access to justice.
RMIAN has an immediate opening for a Staff Attorney to represent noncitizens who are detained by ICE at the Denver Contract Immigration Detention Facility in Aurora. The successful candidate is a seasoned attorney able to manage a robust caseload independently and demonstrates a keen understanding of immigration law and legal strategy. The Staff Attorney will primarily provide direct representation and supervise others providing direct representation to noncitizens detained at the Aurora facility who are selected without regard to the merits of their cases under RMIAN’s universal representation model and who are appointed counsel through the National Qualified Representative Program (NQRP).
Read the Introduction of RMIAN Founding Board Member and UCLA Law Professor Hiroshi Motomura’s new book, Borders and Belonging, here.
RMIAN Director of Advocacy & Litigation, Laura Lunn, pens an opinion piece featured in the Colorado Sun. “It is in all our interests to step up and help where we can. Deporting millions of immigrants would create devastating ripple effects that would hurt families and Colorado for generations to come. Let’s all get involved to make a meaningful impact in someone’s life and bring our communities closer. “
The Director of Development & Communications is responsible for the strategic planning, execution, management, and evaluation of fundraising efforts at RMIAN. Responsibilities include annual giving, major gifts, development and stewardship of donors, fundraising events, and external communication. Additionally, the Director of Development & Communications will oversee RMIAN’s substantial grant and contract portfolio, including proposal writing and reporting. Ultimately, this person is instrumental in shaping and executing the long-range fundraising plan for the organization. This position works closely with the Executive Director, Vice President of Finance, and the Board of Directors. The Director of Development & Communications is a member of the RMIAN leadership team. This position will supervise the Development and Communications Coordinator.
In The Denver Gazette, RMIAN’s Director of Advocacy and Litigation, Laura Lunn, speaks out about preparing for potential changes in immigration enforcement that could impact our neighbors, friends, and families. Lunn shares “More than anything, people are afraid, and (the Trump administration) has been really effective at making people fearful,” she said. “I can’t understate all of these terrible things that could happen, but the day-to-day existence of living with the type of fear people experience when they’re being threatened is really powerful.”
In a recent Colorado Sun article, RMIAN’s Children’s Program Managing Attorney, Ashley Harrington, shares, “There is so much fear. So many children are calling us to say, ‘Am I going to get deported? Are my parents going to get deported? Can you please help us?’ There’s such widespread fear already even from the rhetoric, even though nothing has happened yet. It’s been really overwhelming to hear how terrified children are.”
In response to revelations about "Operation Aurora," a plan under the Trump administration to deport thousands of immigrants from the Denver area, RMIAN joins other advocates in condemning this extreme, anti-immigrant tactic. The strategy, which sought to coordinate large-scale raids to apprehend and deport immigrants, has sparked widespread concern within Colorado’s immigrant advocacy community.
In a recent Denver Post article, RMIAN’s Executive Director, Mekela Goehring, shares, “Now, the most critical component is ensuring there are lawyers in the system so there is some accountability and a check of due process,” Goehring said. “Separating children from their parents (or) forcing people to be in a prison-like setting while navigating immigration proceedings is incredibly harmful to community members.”
Join RMIAN's partner, Colorado Immigrants Rights Coalition, for a free webinar on December 17, 2024 from 6pm - 7:30pm. Get information on how to protect yourself and your community from immigration enforcement.
RMIAN has an immediate opening for a Temporary Staff Attorney to represent noncitizens who are detained by ICE at the Denver Contract Immigration Detention Facility in Aurora, through the end of June 2025. The successful candidate is a seasoned attorney able to manage a robust caseload independently and demonstrates a keen understanding of immigration law and legal strategy. The Temporary Staff Attorney will primarily provide direct representation and supervise others providing direct representation to noncitizens detained at the Aurora facility who are selected without regard to the merits of their cases under RMIAN’s universal representation model.
RMIAN has an immediate opening for a full-time Supervising Attorney in the Detention Program. The Supervising Attorney will manage a team of attorneys providing direct representation to individuals detained at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado, and will provide direct representation to noncitizens at the facility who are selected without regard to the merits of their cases under RMIAN’s universal representation model.
This position is meant for a seasoned immigration attorney with experience managing others. The Supervising Attorney’s time will be split between a robust caseload and supervision of other attorneys, so experience practicing removal defense immigration law, preferably in a detained setting, along with a strong desire and commitment to managing others, is vital.
What Trump’s second term means for Colorado immigrants, public lands, abortion access and Space Command
President-elect, who has pledged to start mass deportations in Aurora, also plans changes on energy policy