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A Note From the Executive Director

Dear Defenders of Immigrant Rights:

No one is safe when a government can arrest people without warrants, defy judicial orders, unilaterally revoke an individual’s legal status, or deport people to third countries where they face torture and abuse.

A year ago, who would have imagined that these reprehensible attacks on the rule of law would target immigrant neighbors with the stunning frequency we see today? NIJC—supported by our immigrant neighbors—has fought especially hard this year to preserve due process and defend human rights.

It has not been an easy fight. Every day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abductions in communities near and far outpace the capacity of legal advocates to respond. Unprecedented attacks on America’s legal system and mass firings of immigration judges without cause continue. And the government has redirected billions of tax dollars from lifesaving legal services to private prison companies with reputations for holding people in inhumane conditions.

In the face of this adversity, we move forward with conviction. Each day, NIJC’s legal teams win relief for clients and reunite them with families. In an era of disinformation, we empower immigrants with the knowledge to exercise the rights guaranteed to them under U.S. law. For example, NIJC recently filed a motion to enforce the Castañon Nava consent decree on behalf of more than 20 people who were violently arrested in their neighborhoods without a warrant. In this case, as with all impact litigation cases, NIJC provides underlying immigration representation to the impacted individuals to ensure that they benefit from their participation in larger reform efforts.

Each of these victories is a light in dark times. With your support, NIJC will do everything in its power to defend human rights, due process, and the rule of law.

Your ongoing commitment and support makes this critical work possible. Thank you.

Gratefully,

Mary Meg McCarthy
Executive Director

NIJC’s Mission

To establish and defend the legal rights of immigrants regardless of background and transform the immigration system to one that affords equal opportunity for all.

NIJC’s Unique Model

NIJC’s multi-pronged model combines four strategies to ensure access to justice for immigrants and their families, while fighting to transform the immigration system into one that upholds justice and human rights.

• Direct legal services: Legal information, comprehensive legal screenings, legal representation, and application filing
• Impact litigation: Litigation in the federal courts to challenge policies and practices that violate human rights
• Policy advocacy: Advocacy at national, state, and local levels and in partnership with coalitions to promote immigration policies that advance human rights
• Strategic communications: Public education through research, reports, presentations,and media

Legal Service Practice Areas

Our legal teams have the depth and breadth of expertise to provide high-quality legal services in a comprehensive range of matters, including:

• Asylum
• Removal defense
• Adjustment of status for asylees and refugees to obtain lawful permanent residence
• Naturalization
• Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
• Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
• Legal status for survivors of crime, trafficking, and domestic violence (U visa, T visa, VAWA)
• Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) for children who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned
• Family petitions
• Bond or habeas petitions for detained immigrants

FY2025 Accomplishments

IMPACT

SUCCESS RATES

Who We Serve

Heidy’s Story

It’s never late to try to
achieve your dreams.

-Heidy

NIJC’s comprehensive legal services programs help immigrants and their families navigate the complex and often punitive immigration system at every stage of their journey toward permanent status.

After Heidy’s abuser threatened her in her native Honduras, she knew she had to protect herself and her two-year-old daughter. Despite the many risks, Heidy made the difficult decision to put her dream of being a teacher on hold and left everything to make a dangerous journey northward.

Soon after Heidy and her daughter crossed the U.S. border and asked for protection, immigration officers sent them to a family detention center in Texas and said they would be deported. Fortunately, a visiting legal services provider
helped Heidy and her daughter understand their rights and secure their freedom from detention.

Over the next several years, NIJC’s Indiana team, along with students from the University of Notre Dame’s School of Law’s NIJC Externship Program, worked together with Heidy to seek asylum protection. Heidy later returned to NIJC for support when she applied for lawful permanent residence and, finally, U.S. citizenship. Today, Heidy and her daughter are part of a close community in Indiana, and she is again pursuing her life-long dream of being a teacher.

To watch a video of Heidy’s story, please visit: immigrantjustice.org/Heidy

“When I did that first interview with [my attorney] … in that moment, she gave me all the faith that I was looking for.”
-Heidy

Impact Highlights

Responding to New Policies and Practices

Drawing upon decades of experience, NIJC teams nimbly and effectively defend immigrant families and communities from hostile policies and unlawful mass detention tactics that violate human rights and separate families.

Educating Communities about Their Rights

As the Trump administration dramatically increased arrests targeting immigrants, communities and service providers turned to NIJC for legal training and information about immigrant rights. From January to June 2025, NIJC led 18 Know Your Rights (KYR) presentations, educating 1,892 people. These presentations took place in Indiana and Illinois, as well as virtually, and were hosted by community partners including churches, schools, consulates, and advocacy organizations.

Rapidly Responding to Courthouse Arrests

In January 2025, ICE changed its guidance and began allowing its agents to arrest people at immigration court and place them in expedited removal proceedings. This practice punishes people seeking to comply with the law by stripping them of their basic due process rights under the Fifth Amendment and denying them the opportunity to have their cases heard by a judge. In addition to filing a lawsuit to challenge this unlawful practice, NIJC attorneys went to the court to provide critical information to immigrants being arrested and their loved ones, including about how to track the location of detainees. NIJC filed emergency motions and applications to temporarily pause client deportation orders and give them time to pursue legal relief.

Streamlining Access to Counsel for Detained Immigrants

NIJC is a founding member of the Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance (MIDA), a collaborative project designed to increase legal representation for detained immigrants. In early 2025, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids targeted Chicago, NIJC immediately ramped up legal consultations and collaborated with MIDA partners to develop a centralized intake system to streamline services. From January to July 2025, MIDA has received more than 370 requests for assistance. NIJC’s Detention Project also has expanded its capacity and provided training for other NIJC projects and partner organizations whose clients are increasingly being swept into the immigrant detention system.

Raising Public Awareness of Rights Abuses

The U.S. government has spent record-breaking amounts of taxpayer funds on ICE detention. Supporting congressional oversight is critical to monitoring this historic spending and to ensure that immigrants are not being held in abusive conditions. In June, NIJC organized a congressional visit to the immigrant processing facility in Broadview, Illinois. After ICE denied the congressional delegation entry, NIJC joined them at a press conference to draw attention to this overreach of executive authority and demand that members of Congress be allowed to exercise oversight in accordance with the law.

Immigrant Children’s Protection Project

Children who appear in immigration court face the possibility of deportation and family separation, yet—like adults—they are not provided court-appointed counsel. Recognizing the unique vulnerability of unaccompanied immigrant children, the bipartisan 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) set aside funding to ensure children have access to legal services.

NIJC received funding for nearly two decades under the TVPRA to represent unaccompanied immigrant children in the Chicago area, including those who faced deportation, family separation, and persecution and/or trafficking in their home countries. In FY2025, NIJC’s Immigrant Children’s Protection Project:

• Secured termination or dismissal of removal proceedings for 122 children, ending their deportation cases so they could await decisions on their applications for legal status without the threat of deportation
• Filed 107 asylum applications for children who feared persecution in their home countries
• Obtained Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS)—a type of status for children and youth who have been abandoned, abused, or neglected by a parent or guardian—for 39 children

In an unprecedented act of cruelty, on March 21, 2025, the government issued a notice that terminated this funding. NIJC joined a lawsuit challenging this decision in the federal courts and secured a preliminary injunction in April 2025. However, litigation is ongoing, and the future of the federal funding remains uncertain.

NIJC’s strong partnerships with law firms and companies have been a vital source of support to ensure that hundreds of children continue to have access to NIJC’s legal services and a meaningful opportunity for due process. In the immediate aftermath of the funding termination, more than a dozen pro bono partners stepped up to represent about 50 cases, ensuring that they will have continued representation despite uncertain funding. NIJC’s donors and philanthropic partners also stepped forward to bolster these essential services for immigrant children.

As we move forward, NIJC and our partners will continue to zealously advocate for immigrant children to defend their due process rights, protect them from deportation to harm, and reunite them with their families.

Immigration Court Helpdesk

As of June 2025, the nationwide immigration court backlog had reached 3.4 million cases, including 2.2 million asylum seekers who had filed applications and were awaiting hearings or decisions. More than 222,500 cases were pending in Illinois, and more than 52,000 were pending in Indiana.

Due to the volume of cases, court staff are overwhelmed, and there are not enough low-cost or pro bono legal service providers to address the needs of unrepresented individuals. NIJC’s Immigration Court Helpdesk (ICH) at the Chicago and Indianapolis immigration courts and remote services through the ICH hotline are a critical resource for immigrants, serving as the legal equivalent to urgent care medical services.

For immigrants who would be without access to legal information, NIJC’s ICH staff explain what to expect in court, assist with document preparation, answer logistical questions, identify emergencies (such as imminent filing deadlines), provide referrals for legal representation, dispel myths and fears, and help participants make informed decisions as their cases move forward. NIJC provides group information sessions, individual consultations to discuss case-specific questions and prepare documents, self-help workshops to prepare applications for specific forms of relief, and limited in-court assistance.

Critical in this environment of uncertainty and misinformation, the ICH is more important than ever. NIJC is committed to maintaining the ICH.

ICH staff held more than 1,900 individual information sessions to help immigrants without legal representation understand their rights and obligations under the law. In addition, NIJC hosted 85 group information sessions that provided legal information to 749 participants and assisted 219 participants with applications for legal relief. The Indianapolis ICH, established in February 2025, has served 40 individuals since its inception.

Because ICH services help the immigration court to run more smoothly, NIJC staff have built positive relationships with court staff, and judges often refer individuals to the ICH for assistance.

Litigation and Policy Victories

NIJC’s impact litigation and policy advocacy have been critical to defending the rights of asylum seekers, long-term immigrant neighbors, immigrant children, and families, as well as exposing the human toll of this administration’s unlawful mass detention and deportation actions. NIJC has remained nimble and responsive as the government has rapidly changed policies and practices to intentionally overwhelm the legal system and make it more difficult to
fight against human rights abuses.

This timeline highlights some of the ways that NIJC has upheld human rights in this pivotal moment:

NIJC’s Pro Bono Partnerships

Working with NIJC has been a privilege and
highlight of my legal career…I am honored to join their unrelenting fight for dignity and justice.

-NIJC Pro Bono Attorney

NIJC’s pro bono volunteers maximize the reach of our lifesaving legal services and help secure long-term protections for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

In FY2025, over 2,600 legal volunteers from the nation’s leading law firms and corporations engaged in pro bono work with NIJC. These volunteers donated over 66,000 hours to defend due process for immigrants by assisting at legal clinics, taking on cases, conducting legal research, and supporting impact litigation.

By the Numbers:

• 2,470 cases supported by pro bono attorneys
• 690 new matters placed with pro bono attorneys
• 40 legal clinics hosted by NIJC and pro bono partners
• 50 trainings provided by NIJC to pro bono attorneys

Numbers don’t tell the whole story. Each client with representation has a team of legal advocates by their side as they navigate the complex immigration system. Volunteers help ensure NIJC’s clients feel seen, believed, and valued in a system that attempts to undermine their stories.

NIJC is grateful to our ever-growing pro bono network for their dedication to immigrant clients and communities.

FY2025 Financial Summary

(Unaudited)

Ways to Help

Contact NIJC

Learn more about urgent needs. Email NIJC.