RMIAN has an immediate opening for a full-time Staff or Senior Staff Attorney who will work within RMIAN’s Advocacy & Litigation Program and will be supervised by RMIAN’s Director of Advocacy & Litigation. RMIAN seeks a litigator experienced in immigration and constitutional law as well as detention issues. Based on current needs, the attorney will primarily challenge unlawful detention through filing petitions for writ of habeas corpus in federal district court and subsequent appeals. The attorney will also support RMIAN’s other areas of federal court litigation.

RMIAN has an immediate opening for a full-time Staff Attorney in our Detention Program to provide legal information for clients detained at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility. This position is meant for an attorney dedicated to equal justice for all – someone who has experience in immigration law, particularly removal defense (and preferably in a detained setting).

RMIAN has an immediate opening for a Staff Attorney to represent and provide legal information for noncitizens who are detained by ICE at the Denver Contract Immigration Detention Facility in Aurora. The successful candidate is an attorney able to manage a robust caseload independently and demonstrates a keen understanding of immigration law and legal strategy. The Staff Attorney will provide direct representation to noncitizens as well as legal information and consultation to unrepresented noncitizens detained at the Aurora facility.

RMIAN’s Executive Director, Mekela Goehring, and Director of Advocacy & Litigation, Laura Lunn, discuss immigration detention with RMIAN founding Board Member Hiroshi Motomura on his podcast “Unsettled: Immigration in Turbulent Times.” Have a listen to this insightful conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Castbox or Zolberg Podcasts.

Habeas Training by RMIAN and Colorado Bar Association

On April 28, 2026, RMIAN and the CBA-CLE are providing a half-day training on the nuts and bolts of representing clients in habeas petitions. A group of experts will walk you through the ins and outs of filing habeas petitions, answer burning questions, and offer robust materials that will ease the burden of learning how to file and present habeas petitions in the District Court for the District of Colorado with a litigation goal focused on securing clients’ freedom from detention. The event is free for anyone committing to take on a pro bono case in the next two years and the program has been submitted for four General CLE Credits.

The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network has a “robust attorney-referral program,” according to Laura Lunn, its advocacy and litigation director. “Knowing the rules is absolutely the best tool we have at our disposal,” she says.

RMIAN and 23 other Colorado organizations sent a letter to the members of our Congressional delegation demanding an investigation into and accountability for the death of Delvin Francisco Rodriguez , a Colorado resident from Summit County, who died in ICE detention after being transferred to an ICE detention center in Mississippi.

Immigration attorneys say use of 'pretermission' raises due process concerns for people seeking asylum

Monique Sherman said: “If somebody has never been to a country, they really deserve some time to learn about that country and figure out if they think they would be safe there and to be able to come up with those arguments,” Sherman said. “This is concerning in all cases, but when somebody has an attorney, we’re able to at least give them a fighting chance, and we have won several oppositions to these motions.

“But most people don’t have lawyers,” she said. “We meet with as many of those people as we can to advise them of their rights, and we’ve met with several who were just blindsided by this.”

“Our lawyers and our social workers are on the front lines every day, fighting for justice, ensuring that kids are not forced to represent themselves in immigration court,” said Mekela Goehring, executive director at RMIAN.

Goehring says while donations from small businesses were not finalized by Friday night, the organization received more than $18,000 from more than 100 new community donors on Friday alone.

“This has been a powerful day and just an amazing showing of support at a time in which things have felt certainly quite dark,” Goehring said. “Proud to be a Coloradan today.”

RMIAN joined 1,025 organizations in expressing our horror, outrage and deep grief about the continued violent attacks on our immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as their many allies and supporters. We signed on to a letter to Congress demanding “an immediate halt in all funding for these deadly operations until the violence, abuses, and deaths in American communities and in immigration detention centers stop. Congress must refuse to provide one dollar to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol through the appropriations process and immediately take action to revoke the tens of billions already given through last summer’s reconciliation bill.”

This report aims to document the historic expansion of detention under the Trump administration. It details not only the policy changes which have led to ICE detention reaching the highest level on record, but also their impact on the individuals who have found themselves locked into it. The growth in immigration detention, and the spectacle which has accompanied the construction and use of new facilities — coupled with the near-elimination of any transparency into the operation and use of those facilities — is the backbone of President Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

As this report reveals, rather than focusing on serious public safety threats and flight risks, the Trump administration is primarily using detention to pressure people into giving up their chance to remain in the United States.

RMIAN joined more than 400 other civil rights and human rights organizations to call on Congress to rein in the escalating violence and lawlessness endangering our communities.

Arrest rates through mid-October increased fourfold over 2024

Monique Sherman, the Detention Program Managing Attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said that the data matches her expectations, and that a much larger share of detained people she saw this year were apprehended internally — at work, home or during a traffic stop — rather than at the border.

On Monday afternoon, December 22nd, Jeannette Vizguerra-Ramirez walked out of the Aurora Immigration Detention Center into the loving arms of her family, after nine long months inside the facility.

Laura Lunn, RMIAN Director of Advocacy & Littigation, celebrated her release, saying “For decades, Jeanette has advocated for her community. When she was detained earlier this year, she needed her community to step up for her - and that is exactly what they did, showing up at vigils each week to remind her and others detained that they are not forgotten. RMIAN is honored to be a part of the team supporting Jeanette, the larger immigrant rights movement, and engaging in necessary legal battles to ensure that people can speak out without facing unlawful restrictions on their liberty and impermissible limits on their freedom of speech.” 

In 2025, a year marked by what some lawyers describe as attacks on the rule of law, a Colorado federal judge preliminarily blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from conducting warrantless arrests in the state without determining probable cause.

Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said that in a year when people across Colorado have been "terrorized" by mass enforcement actions and "brutal" arrests, the ruling made clear that ICE cannot conduct warrantless arrests without showing good reason.

Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network loses $1 million in federal funding cuts

“There have been major increases in immigration enforcement and detention, loss of vital legal protections, increases in fear and attacks on the immigrant community, exponential increases on removals, unlawful removals and, on top of all of that, RMIAN has seen deep losses in funding to all of our work,” Goehring said. “You’re starting with a deeply unjust and unfair process where there isn’t a whole lot of due process, and what we’ve seen is that all those hardships have been compounded because of a series of both policy and legal decisions the federal government has made.”

Enemies of the State

How the Trump Administration declared war on Venezuelan migrants in the U.S.

By Jonathan Blitzer

For 25 years, RMIAN has stood alongside immigrants and their families in Colorado—defending due process, protecting human rights, and ensuring that all people have access to justice. Because of supporters like you, RMIAN has provided free legal representation and social service support to tens of thousands of people over the past 25 years. Please donate today to ensure this impact continues! Your generosity ensures that no one faces this system alone—that loved ones have someone to represent them and to protect their rights.

This year, RMIAN proudly celebrates 25 years of providing life-changing legal representation and advocacy for immigrants in Colorado. Join us on December 3rd to commemorate this milestone and to show appreciation for our volunteers and supporters that helped make it possible!

This Friday, November 14th - Please join the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network and the Colorado Bar Association Continuing Legal Education for our annual Immigration Law CLE training! CLE Credits: General Credits - 5.00

This training is only $75 for attorneys who agree to take a pro bono case through RMIAN.

A federal judge on Friday found a "real risk" that the government would try to unlawfully deport a man who was tortured in his home country, and ordered a hearing to determine if he should be released from immigration custody while his case proceeds.

Per his attorney, RMIAN’s Laura Lunn: “Mr. Maldonado's case is emblematic of everything that's wrong with the immigration system. He survived past torture in El Salvador and Costa Rica and the Department of Homeland Security locked him up without a key," she said. "Today he can breathe a little easier, and I hope that very soon, he will regain his liberty, reunite with his family, and finally live a protected life here in the United States."

With workplace raids and “roving patrols,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has dramatically ramped up its efforts to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants in recent weeks throughout major U.S. cities.

“We are setting people up,” RMIAN’s Emily Brock said of the government’s new strategy. “We’re giving people a set of rules they’re told to follow, and then halfway through the game, we’re changing the rules with no notice. And it includes a loss of liberty. … That is an intentional incitement of fear in the community, and it is not what I believe this country stands for.” Full article here.

Image: Damian Dovarganes/AP

On May 30, Frizgeralth de Jesús Cornejo Pulgar was scheduled for a hearing in a United States immigration court. But Cornejo Pulgar—an asylum seeker from Venezuela fleeing potential persecution from paramilitary groups aligned with the government of Nicolás Maduro—was not able to attend the proceeding. The 26-year-old is stuck in El Salvador. He is one of some 230 Venezuelans the Trump administration disappeared, without due process, to the Central American country’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). More here.

The Trump administration dismantled a program that offers legal representation to detained migrants with mental illness or cognitive disabilities. The program, known as the National Qualified Representative Program (NQRP), offered qualified representation to those deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. Without the program, vulnerable people will face deportation proceedings without legal representation.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained an immigrant who showed up for a hearing at the Federal Immigration Courthouse Friday morning after leaving the courtroom. Article here.

Federal agents detained a family of three after they attended a hearing at Denver Immigration Court on Thursday, part of a spate of courthouse arrests nationwide over the last two weeks as the Trump administration pursues a new strategy aimed at mass detentions. More here.

On May 29, 2025, ICE arrested a family at the Denver Immigration Court family docket. RMIAN has a daily presence at the court, providing information, Know Your Rights presentations, and legal representation to children and families before the court. At the court this morning, a group of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers surrounded a family of three--their toddler was truly terrified. 

RMIAN rejects the idea that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “wellness checks” have the intention of protecting children; they have the opposite effect.

The "wellness checks" being conducted by various federal law enforcement agencies claim to be about ensuring the safety of children. In reality, these visits are part of an ICE directive to locate and investigate unaccompanied children and their sponsors, threatening family unity for kids, many of whom have experienced abuse, abandonment, and neglect.

Nonprofit legal services organizations are suing the Trump administration to restore a critical national program that provided federal funding for legal representation for people deemed mentally incompetent who are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

RMIAN and ACLU Colorado want a federal judge to order class-action status, which would protect hundreds of detainees from deportation without due process