ILD’s advocacy work prioritizes abolishing immigration detention and re-imagining the U.S. immigration system entirely. We regularly collaborate on efforts demanding change locally and nationally — change aimed at abolishing the structures that sanction immigrant detention and other systemic indignities.

Most recently, ILD partnered with Immigrant Defense Advocates (IDA) to file an amicus brief supporting a successful bill that ended private detention contracts in California (AB32) so that no one profits from human lives. ILD also conducted extensive advocacy for AB3228, a recently enacted California law that requires immigration detention centers in California to meet the basic standard of medical care under their contractual obligations and represented the first plaintiff to sue under this new law for substandard medical care. ILD also continues to advocate for immigration court reform to make the immigration court an independent court rather than an agency within the Department of Justice. This reform is necessary to eradicate the inherent conflict of interest, implicit biases, and lack of accountability and impartiality entrenched in the current immigration courts and the BIA.