Happenings
AILA-Colorado, Colorado Bar Association CLE (CBA-CLE), Colorado Lawyers Committee (CLC), and Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) invite you to a half day CLE on April 9th, 2025, from 12:45 to 4:00PM (approved for 3 general credits). The CLE will be in person (bring your own lunch) at CBA-CLE with a virtual option.
Family Preparedness for Immigrant Families will cover the legal and practical aspects of preparing our clients for possible detention and/or deportation under the new administration. Our leading Colorado experts will present on the nuts and bolts of “family protection plans,” medical powers of attorney, financial powers of attorney, delegations of parental authority, testamentary appointment of guardian forms, the tools available within the Colorado courts to safeguard children, and how to navigate the current climate of fear and uncertainty with our clients.
RMIAN joins community organizations and elected officials across Colorado in calling for the immediate release of Jeanette Vizguerra, a beloved mother, grandmother, and longtime community leader, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unjustly and forcibly took her into custody without warning at her workplace Monday, March 17, 2025 and immediately transferred her to the GEO immigration detention center.
RMIAN condemns the Trump administration’s March 15, 2025 executive order that invokes the Alien Enemies Act to trample fundamental principles of due process and rule of law in our country’s immigration legal system. RMIAN applauds a federal court’s order yesterday blocking the use of this executive order.
The Iliff School of Theology host its March Renewal Session: The Future of Loving our Immigrant Neighbors with RMIAN Executive Director, Mekela Goehring, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, at 12:00pm MT via Zoom. More on this event and links to registration here.
In Denver, we defend our neighbors. Denver has long been a leader in standing up for ALL our families - regardless of where they were born.
Take Action Now: Sign this petition organized by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and let Denver Mayor Mike Johnston him know you support Denver’s commitment to welcoming all people and ensuring that every person — no matter where they were born — can live with dignity and equal rights under the law.
Together, we make Denver stronger.
Denver7 had a conversation with Ashley Harrington, RMIAN Children’s Program Managing Attorney, highlighting the critical role of legal representation in protecting vulnerable children navigating immigration proceedings. Watch the full segment here.
RMIAN celebrates the rescinding of last Tuesday's stop work order for legal services funded through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children’s Program. Full article here.
Laura Lunn, the Director of Advocacy & Litigation at RMIAN, speaks with USA Today about the lack of information surrounding the recent ICE arrests."This sh ould be terrifying to folks in our country that people are disappearing," says Lunn. "Our federal government is rounding up people in our community and not telling anyone what happened to them."
Today RMIAN celebrates the rescinding of Tuesday's stop work order for legal services funded through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children’s Program. With this stop work order, the federal government gravely imperiled the ongoing representation of children in immigration proceedings.
This order affected over 90 legal service providers across the U.S., including RMIAN, which together represent over 26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children in immigration court proceedings. About 160 children in Colorado were impacted by this order, where the federal government halted funding for their legal representation with the stroke of a pen.
Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative, Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project, Immigration Equality, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Sanctuary New Orleans Abolition Project, and the Transgender Law Center filed a joint submission urging the United Nations to denounce widespread abuse of LGBTQ+ people in for-profit immigration detention facilities across the United States.
“Queer and trans immigrants are illegally, systematically, and doubly penalized for their identities – by their countries of origin, from which they escape, and by the U.S., the country that is supposed to protect them,” said Shira Hereld, staff attorney at Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. “The U.S government and ICE’s treatment of trans immigrants sends a clear and noxious message: for some immigrants, there is no safe quarter anywhere.”
On February 18, 2025, the federal government issued a stop work order for legal services funded through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children’s Program. This stop work order gravely imperils the ongoing representation of children in immigration proceedings.
“RMIAN is appalled and outraged that the administration has stopped funding legal representation for unaccompanied children. RMIAN represents hundreds of unaccompanied children--some as young as two-years-old--who would otherwise be forced to navigate the complicated immigration legal system alone. RMIAN's clients include children who have been subjected to child abuse and neglect, trafficking and sexual abuse who fled to the U.S. for safety and protection,” says Ashley Harrington, RMIAN Children’s Program Managing Attorney.
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. “