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Coalitions of attorneys, rights groups, and other organizations are developing a powerful new infrastructure to challenge the Trump administration’s mass deportation machine. Several so-called habeas projects have been created in states or regions across the country in recent months to connect noncitizens facing unlawful detention with pro bono attorneys who can file habeas corpus petitions on their behalf in federal court.

“When it became clear that the administration had made it its priority to prevent people from accessing bond and immigration courts and, really the mission of the administration seems to be to keep people in detention for as long as possible, we saw a need to help facilitate access to the federal courts,” Christy Rodriguez, a senior immigration attorney at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), told Truthout. MLRI is one of the groups leading the Habeas Project of New England, which serves immigrants jailed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, or Vermont, as well as Massachusetts residents jailed in Connecticut.

Similar projects have also been launched to support jailed migrants in New Mexico, New York, Minnesota, and some Gulf Coast states. The National Immigration Project coordinates regular check-in calls across several habeas projects so member organizations can share best practices, talk trends in case law, and support each other.

Habeas corpus, meaning the right to challenge your detention before a judge, is one of the oldest rights in the U.S. legal system. But for many of the immigrants incarcerated in ICE jails, accessing federal court to enforce that right is impossible without the cost-free support that habeas projects provide. Rodriguez said that since the Habeas Project of New England was launched, it has compiled a list of about 200 federal litigators willing to take on cases, and it has screened over 220 cases.

“We keep seeing that courts keep finding that these detentions are unconstitutional, that people are being held without due process.”

“We keep seeing that courts keep finding that these detentions are unconstitutional, that people are being held without due process.”

“Habeas is an opportunity [to challenge unlawful detention],” Amy Romero, chief legal counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island and a mentor with the Habeas Project of New England, told Truthout. “It’s a review of the constitutional rights of people, which includes the right to due process, and we keep seeing that courts keep finding that these detentions are unconstitutional, that people are being held without due process.”

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