Every day, people detained by immigration authorities file urgent legal requests in federal court, asking judges to intervene — to challenge an unlawful detention, to restore a right that has been taken away, to reunite a family. These are called habeas corpus petitions, one of the oldest and most fundamental protections in our legal system.
Many of these people have no lawyer. They write their petitions by hand, or with the help of another detained person, and file them from inside a detention facility.
You would expect these cases to be publicly available. They are, technically, but with a catch that effectively hides them from view. Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative exists to fix that.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, everything we do flows from three core purposes:
1. Promoting public understanding of civic rights and access to justice. Most people don't know what habeas corpus is, how immigration courts work, or what rights a detained person actually has. We believe that informed citizens make for a healthier democracy, and that understanding your rights, or your neighbor’s rights, is the first step towards defending them.
2. Enhancing public access to court records and related legal information, including federal habeas corpus case materials, through lawful, secure, and privacy-protective means. Court documents are, by definition, public. But a procedural rule effectively puts thousands of immigration filings out of reach for anyone who can't show up to the right federal courthouse in person during business hours. We close that gap — carefully, legally, and with rigorous attention to the privacy of the people whose cases we make available.
3. Conducting research, analysis, and public education related to court transparency, due process, and the rights of individuals affected by incarceration and immigration detention. Documenting individual cases is important. But patterns matter too. We support researchers, journalists, and advocates who are working to understand what is happening across the immigration detention system as a whole and to hold institutions accountable for what that data reveals.