National Immigrant Justice Center

The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) has unique legal expertise to represent immigrants in a range of matters, including asylum; removal defense; visas for children who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned; visas for survivors of crime, trafficking, and domestic violence; and release for detained immigrants through bond, habeas petitions, and other means. NIJC is one of the only organizations in Indiana that provides free or low-cost removal defense to both non-detained and detained individuals and that has the capacity to appeal cases to the federal court system.

NIJC offers a full suite of legal services, including providing legal information and screenings, defending immigrants against deportation in immigration court, assisting with applications for legal relief, and appealing cases to the federal courts. Services include both brief, limited scope services, which are time limited and focused on a specific issue, and full scope representation, in which an NIJC represents a client for the lifetime of their case. Through Know Your Rights presentations, NIJC educates community members about their rights and obligations under the law and changes in immigration policy. Additionally, NIJC offers Immigration Court Helpdesks at the Indianapolis and Chicago immigration courts, which provide free legal information and consultations to unrepresented immigrants and help the courts run more smoothly by ensuring people understand the proceedings.

Indiana immigrant communities face a highly adversarial environment, in which an already complex system has been made increasingly hard to navigate due to constantly shifting policies and practices that are often designed to quickly deport people without due process. New obstacles—such as prohibitively expensive fees for applications for status, the elimination of pathways to relief, and increased scrutiny of applications (including citizenship)— exacerbate the difficult environment and make access to counsel more critical. The ballooning of the federal budget for immigration detention and enforcement has led to large scale enforcement, often using violent and unlawful tactics, and expanded the immigration detention system, despite deteriorating conditions in detention. There are currently nearly 66,000 people in ICE custody, and a total of 51 people have died in custody, the highest level in over a decade (TRAC, 2026; ICE, 2026).

NIJC’s legal expertise and multi-strategy model is critical to defending due process rights, ensuring a fair day in court, and preserving family unity and equal opportunity for Hoosier immigrants. To respond to increased detention, NIJC increased our capacity to represent detained immigrants and visits Indiana jails (including Miami County) to provide legal orientations and identify clients. NIJC’s legal services staff also identify human rights violations in detention and elevate these issues to NIJC’s Litigation Project for potential litigation.

General operating support remains NIJC’s most critical ongoing need. Flexible funding allows NIJC to stay nimble amid an environment of escalating obstacles and ever-shifting challenges, while also supporting the long-term organizational sustainability essential to continuing this work for Indiana’s immigrant communities.