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Torture
Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment devalue human dignity, the foundation of U.S. and international human rights law. But they still occur in the U.S. criminal and immigration systems through prolonged solitary confinement, police and prison official brutality, and deplorable conditions in prisons and immigration detention centers.
Guided by the U.S. Constitution and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, we work to end torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment in the U.S. criminal and immigration systems.
Litigate
We go to court with human rights defenders pursuing systemic change.
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Uriostegui Rios v. Trump: Freeing torture survivors from indefinite detention
This case asks whether the federal government can continue to detain someone who was granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture when there is no substantial likelihood it will be able to remove her to a third country in the foreseeable future.
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Amaya v. Trump: Ending immigration detention at Angola
This case challenges the repurposing of a notorious, inhumane, and shuttered unit at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, as an immigration detention center used to indefinitely detain people as punishment for past crimes for which they have already served their time.
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Doe v. Rhoden: Stopping sexual abuse in immigration detention
This case seeks accountability for Ana Doe, a 33-year-old woman who survived human trafficking only to be sexually abused by guards at Florida’s Baker County Immigration Detention Facility.
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Monroe v. United States: Dismantling barriers to accountability for police brutality
This case seeks to protect the human right to a remedy and reparation for survivors and victims of U.S. police brutality. It asks the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to instruct the United States to reform civil laws to ensure access to civil remedies for people subjected to police brutality.
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Fulton v. Noem: Ensuring medical discharge planning upon release from ICE detention
Second Circuit panel holds that courts likely have jurisdiction over challenge by man with end-stage renal failure to lack of medical discharge planning prior to removal.
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RFK Human Rights v. Department of Homeland Security: Ensuring oversight of immigration enforcement
This case challenges the executive branch’s sudden closure of three oversight offices within the Department of Homeland Security that Congress mandated be created, funded, and staffed in order to safeguard human rights and protect the public from government wrongdoing.
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Transgender Law Center v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Exposing cruel and degrading treatment of trans people in immigration detention
Federal court orders government to release documents exposing cruel and degrading treatment of transgender people in immigration detention.
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K.N.N. et al v. United States of America: Stopping torture on deportation flights
This case challenges the abusive use of a full-body restraint device called the WRAP during deportation flights.
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Justice for Migrant Families v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Exposing abuse at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility
This case under the Freedom of Information Act seeks to expose ongoing denial of medical treatment and abuse by guards at a New York immigration detention center.
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J.K.A. v. United States of America: Stopping retaliation for protesting detention center abuses
This case seeks accountability for torture and cruel and degrading treatment inflicted on Cameroonian men in immigration detention in Louisiana and on deportation flights.
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Cenesca v. Feeley: Fighting prolonged solitary confinement in immigration detention
Federal court finds due process violated by prolonged immigration detention with repeated solitary confinement.
Expose
We uncover wrongdoing in reports, complaints, and public hearings.
Educate
We inform the public and policymakers about systemic human rights abuses and how to stop them.
Our Partners
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American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
With more than 1.1 million members, 500 staff attorneys, thousands of volunteer attorneys, and offices throughout the nation, the ACLU fights government abuse and vigorously defends individual freedoms including speech and religion, a woman’s right to choose, the right to due process, citizens’ rights to privacy and much more.
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ACLU of Louisiana
Since 1956, the ACLU of Louisiana has worked to advance and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States and the State of Louisiana.
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Atlas of Blackness
Atlas of Blackness (AOB) is a grassroots multimedia artistic research-based organization that mentors Black foster youth by providing them with resources to document their untold stories to produce authentic narratives rooted in their truth. Their work includes mutual aid support, Documenting MN community journalism program, child welfare & prison research, and resource sharing, including legal support.
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Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative
Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative is dedicated to providing vital support and resources to Black LGBTQ+ immigrants who face unique and multifaceted challenges.
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Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project
The Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP) uses leadership development and organizing to address the ways in which trans and queer Black immigrants are criminalized by the criminal law and immigration system, and marginalized in the broader immigrant community.
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California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ)
CCIJ utilizes coordination, advocacy, and legal services to fight for the liberation of immigrants in detention in California.
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California Mandela Campaign
Solitary confinement is one of the most severe and destructive practices used in detention facilities. The World Health Organization, United Nations, and other international bodies have recognized solitary confinement as greatly harmful and potentially fatal. People with disabilities, pregnant people, youth, and the elderly are all at heightened risk from the harm caused by solitary…
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Center for Constitutional Rights
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Gittis Legal Clinics
The Gittis Legal Clinics are Penn Carey Law’s teaching law firm, comprised of nine in-house clinics that offer students unique opportunities to develop essential lawyering skills and professional values.
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Global Rights Advocacy (GRA)
CCIJ utilizes coordination, advocacy, and legal services to fight for the liberation of immigrants in detention in California.
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The #HALTsolitary Campaign
The New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (NYCAIC), the coalition behind the #HALTsolitary Campaign, works to end solitary confinement for all people, promote alternatives proven to better protect people’s health and safety, and build on these changes to dismantle the racial injustices and punishment paradigm that underpin the entire incarceration system.
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Immigration Equality
For 30 years, Immigration Equality has worked to secure safe haven, freedom, and equality for the LGBTQ and HIV-positive communities. Through direct legal services, policy advocacy, and impact litigation, we support immigrants who face discrimination based on who they are and whom they love.
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Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy (ISLA)
Our investigation of a Louisiana immigrant detention center highlights the egregious human rights violations found across all of ICE’s 200 jails.
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La Resistencia
La Resistencia is a grassroots organization led by undocumented immigrants and people of color that have been oppressed by the immigration enforcement system.
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Project South
Project South’s work is rooted in the legacy of the Southern Freedom Movement, and our mission of cultivating strong social movements in the South powerful enough to contend with some of the most pressing and complicated social, economic, and political problems we face today.
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Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network
The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) provides free immigration legal and social services to immigrant children and to adults in immigration detention.
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Sanctuary New Orleans Abolition Project
SNAP is a transgender-led advocacy project to prevent the systemic abuse of LGBTQI+ systems-impacted people in greater New Orleans.
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Seattle University School of Law
Seattle University is dedicated to educating the whole person, to professional formation, and to empowering leaders for a just and humane world.
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Transgender Law Center
Transgender Law Center is the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people. Since 2002 we’ve been organizing, assisting, informing and empowering thousands of individual community members towards a long-term, national, trans-led movement for liberation.
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The Unlock the Box Campaign
Unlock the Box is a national advocacy campaign aimed at ending solitary confinement in all U.S. prisons, jails, detention facilities, and juvenile facilities, and bringing the United States into full compliance with the UN’s Mandela Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners within 10 years.
Read the Latest
Egypt: CFJ, Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, and RFK Human Rights Submit Communication to African Children’s Rights Mechanism
منظمات لجنة العدالة ومؤسسة سيناء لحقوق الإنسان وروبرت ف. كينيدي لحقوق الإنسان تتقدم ببلاغ إلى لجنة الخبراء الأفريقية لحقوق الطفل ورفاهه
Uriostegui Rios v. Trump: Freeing torture survivors from indefinite detention
Nonprofits Urge ICE to End Detention of Pregnant People Following Reports of Abuse and Medical Neglect
Amaya v. Trump: Ending immigration detention at Angola
The New York Times: ‘People Are Losing Hope’ Inside ICE Detention Centers
New complaints expose pattern of systemic sexual abuse, harassment, and forced labor at Louisiana ICE facility
Newsweek: Trump Admin’s $4.7 Million Deal With El Salvador Revealed in Court Filing
US inflicts systemic human rights abuses on Black people in Louisiana immigration detention centers: report to UN International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement
Help us protect human rights
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