Summary: 

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative (SIFI) provides high-quality, pro bono legal representation to immigrants detained in the southeastern United States. By ensuring that skilled attorneys are available to protect detained immigrants’ due process rights, SIFI endeavors to win every meritorious deportation defense and release case arising out of Trump-era immigration enforcement actions.                      

SIFI currently provides legal representation in release (bond, parole, and habeas corpus), deportation defense, and civil rights cases to immigrants imprisoned at the five largest and most isolated detention centers in the Southeast: the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA; the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, GA; the Folkston ICE Processing Center in Folkston, GA; the LaSalle ICE Processing Center in Jena, LA, and the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Pine Prairie, LA.  SIFI’s four offices are in or near the towns where the detention centers are located.  

Each office generally has a Lead Attorney, two or three Direct Services Attorneys and one or two Project Coordinators. Pro bono attorneys, law students, and volunteer interpreters regularly join the SIFI on-the-ground teams for week-long shifts to expand SIFI’s legal representation, focused on release cases but also including immigration merits cases, high impact advocacy, and individualized advocacy. This includes identifying eligibility for any defense against removal; eligibility for release through bond, parole, habeas corpus, or other claims; and potential litigation and other advocacy involving issues such as law enforcement misconduct during enforcement actions, procedural due process violations in immigration court proceedings, and conditions of confinement.

SIFI was developed and is directed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). SIFI is part of SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project practice group, which works to protect the rights of immigrants and their children to ensure they are treated with dignity and fairness.

The SIFI Senior Attorney- Immigration and Volunteer Engagement (“SIFI SA”) will train, mentor, and supervise full-time on-the-ground Direct Services Attorneys and Lead Attorneys from each SIFI office. In collaboration with SPLC staff, the SIFI SA will develop materials to onboard incoming SIFI attorneys with various levels of legal and immigration law experience, implement program-wide models to further develop SIFI attorneys’ professional development skills, including the SIFI Lead Attorneys, in research, writing, and oral advocacy, and will also develop trainings in substantive immigration law, direct services representation, and high-impact civil rights advocacy. Additional supervisory duties will include reviewing certain filings and dockets at SIFI on-the-ground offices and providing substantive feedback.  The SIFI SA will also conduct assessments to identify areas of support and mentorship to advance the SIFI’s representation of individuals in detention and mission to abolish immigration detention.

In collaboration with SIFI’s Ocilla office, the SIFI SA will represent SIFI’s clients, primarily within the Irwin County Detention Center, in the Atlanta Immigration Court – these court appearances will be focused on arguing bond motions based on filings prepared by the SIFI Ocilla staff. Additional court appearances and the preparation of immigration court filings relating to custody and deportation defense proceedings are likely to be assigned based on SIFI’s docket and staffing needs. The SIFI SA at times also will travel to SIFI’s offices when additional on-the-ground immigration law assistance and expertise is needed. 

The SIFI SA, in collaboration with SIFI staff and collaborating organizations, will also manage all aspects of SIFI’s training and volunteer engagement efforts with pro bono attorneys, law students, interpreters, and non-attorney volunteers to ensure SIFI’s objectives and missions are being fulfilled. Ultimately, SIFI strives to ensure volunteers are advocates within SIFI, their respective home states, and at the national level to build a movement calling for fair immigration reforms, including ending immigration detention. The SIFI SA will conduct assessments to gain a deepened understanding of SIFI’s current volunteering model, client and case needs, SIFI staff’s current interaction with actual and potential volunteers, and SIFI volunteers’ experiences. The SIFI SA’s duties with respect to volunteer management may also include the design of targeted recruitment campaigns for volunteers, reviewing applications from potential volunteers, managing the scheduling of volunteers and overall volunteer database, monitoring actual and potential volunteers’ abilities, preparing volunteers for SIFI’s on-the-ground and Remote Team volunteering opportunities, and engaging volunteers within various SIFI volunteer opportunities along with the larger immigrant rights and civil rights movements, based on a variety of factors including each volunteer’s location, interests, and abilities.

Primary Job Functions:

• Train, supervise, and mentor SIFI’s attorneys to ensure optimal representation of SIFI’s clients and the professional development of each attorney in immigration law and civil rights advocacy;
• Create program-wide and individualized onboarding materials for each incoming SIFI staff member based on their prior experience;
• Represent SIFI’s clients in Atlanta Immigration Court in a variety of immigration proceedings, with a focus on bond hearings based upon filings prepared by SIFI’s on-the-ground staff;
• Review and/or prepare immigration legal filings and represent clients in immigration courts within Georgia and Louisiana based upon case and staffing needs;
• Periodically travel to SIFI’s on-the-ground offices to provide supervisory feedback, assistance, and expertise, as needed;
• Conduct assessments of current SIFI volunteer programming to identify areas for growth, including with respect to SIFI’s case needs, volunteers’ experiences with SIFI, and long-term engagement with SIFI’s representation model, mission, and objectives;
• Work with organizational partners and SIFI staff to design and implement robust volunteer recruitment, training, and engagement representation model;
• Work with SIFI staff to design targeted recruitment and engagement strategies for pro bono attorneys, law students, interpreters and other volunteers, especially those located in the Deep South including rural Georgia and Louisiana;
• Develop program-wide and individualized trainings to prepare volunteers with varying backgrounds for their volunteer collaborations with SIFI;
• Implement individualized engagement and retention strategies to ensure each volunteer’s experience will provide a foundation for immigration reform advocacy tailored to an individual’s location, interests, and abilities;
• Support on-the-ground staff’s management of volunteers;
• Ensure that all staff and volunteers meet the highest standards of ethics and professionalism; and
• Other functions necessary to full mission and objectives of SIFI.

Qualifications –

Education and related work experience:

• JD from an accredited university;
• Membership in good standing in the bar of any state and/or the District of Columbia;
• Seven or more years practicing immigration law, particularly pertaining to custody and removal defense, strongly preferred, though we will consider candidates with five to seven years of experience with demonstrated exceptional qualifications;
• Success in training, supervising, and mentoring attorneys, law students, legal support staff and volunteers with varying backgrounds in immigration law and provision of direct legal services;
• Knowledge of the impacts of immigration detention on detained individuals and their families and communities;
• Understanding of the deportation machine in the context of the current political climate, the expansion of hate and extremist groups, and impacts of U.S. foreign policy on transnational migration;
• Experience with large case and/or volunteer management databases;
• Excellent legal research, writing, and editing skills;
• Demonstrated ability to multi-task;
• Demonstrated enjoyment of decidedly unglamorous programmatic work and understanding of how that work is critically important to the struggle for immigrant rights and the larger civil rights movement;
• Demonstrated dedication to and experience working with low-income, immigrant clients;
• Willingness to spend considerable time meeting with detained individuals, staff, and actual or potential volunteers in the Deep South;
• Demonstrated excellent organizational skills and time management;
• Demonstrated ability to do difficult and often draining work while maintaining emotional balance, being a supportive colleague, having fun at times, and clinging to a long-term optimistic vision of how our work will make the world a better place;
• Humility, kindness, humor, emotional intelligence, and the other kind of intelligence;
• Ability to listen to critical feedback and make adjustments in response to that feedback;
• Ability to provide sincere and meaningful positive feedback, and to provide critical feedback in a constructive manner;
• Willingness to spend considerable time traveling in the rural Deep South and to appreciate the many wonderful things about life in the Deep South while remaining aware of the enormous challenges many people in the Deep South face;
• Valid driver’s license; and
• Commitment to working long hours. 

Preferred Skills That Will Strengthen Applications:

• Experience representing individuals at the Atlanta Immigration Court;
• Proficiency in Spanish, Creole, French, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu and/or other languages; and
• Experience working within volunteer-based projects. 

To Apply:

Along with a resume, please submit a legal writing sample relating to immigration law, a cover letter, and three references. 

Other Special Considerations:

This job is performed under general office conditions and is not subject to any strenuous physical demands or dangerous conditions.

Duration:

This is a permanent, full-time position.  We require a minimum one-year commitment from all SIFI staff.

Disclaimer:

The statements herein are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the employee in this position.  These statements are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of a person in this position.

An Equal-Opportunity Employer with a Commitment to Diversity

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and as an organization committed to diversity and the perspective of all voices, we consider applicants equally of race, gender, gender identity, color, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, disability, political affiliation, national origin, or prior record of arrest or conviction. Top of Form

Organization Details