In 2002, the Immigrant Defense Project, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center — the country’s foremost immigration advocacy and defense organizations with expertise in the immigration consequences of crime and national, regional, and local indigent defense organizations — came together to create the Defending Immigrants Partnership (DIP).
The stated mission of DIP, which was the first national collaborative devoted to fostering changed perceptions and effective practices within the criminal justice system, was to ensure high-quality legal representation for indigent immigrant clients in criminal and civil matters. To provide defenders the means to make systemic improvements in their representation of noncitizen clients, DIP:
- trained thousands of indigent defenders on criminal defense of immigrants;
- created user-friendly written materials available on-line;
- created various office models or “protocols” for how defender offices with limited resources can set up structures so that they can provide this advice;
- trained and mentored attorneys to serve as in-house immigration experts at defender organizations across the country;
- wrote and distributed timely practice advisories on key cases;
- analyzed and advised on the immigration consequences of thousands of individual criminal cases;
- and educated the criminal defense community about the meaning of and responsibilities of Padilla.
IDP continues to provide a wide range of resources for defenders, including written materials, expert advice, and trainings.