The Challenge
An estimated 47,000 people live and work in Philadelphia without proper immigration documentation. An overwhelming majority have been in the United States for more than five years. These individuals work, pay taxes, support the economy, and have families. For the past decade, undocumented adults and children in Pennsylvania have been represented by the Pennsylvania Immigrant Family Unity Project, a group of more than twenty legal service, community, and advocacy organizations with a small staff distributed across multiple coordinating agencies. The recent diminution of funding—including the elimination of federal funding for representation of unaccompanied minors, legal orientation, and know your rights for immigrants in detention—and the expanded scope and accelerated pace of removal and deportation efforts have made the establishment of a consolidated, universal representation program for immigrants in detention more urgent. Philadelphia is poised to join many other cities and states in ensuring a robust and stable public defender service for low-income, detained and non-detained, non-citizens facing deportation.
The Project
Lilah Thompson will partner with the Defender Association of Philadelphia to develop a dedicated Immigration Legal Unit within the organization. The unit will represent non-citizens in immigration proceedings and collaborate with system partners to advance policies to reduce criminalization, prevent detention and removal, and facilitate pathways toward legal residency for immigrants.
This Stoneleigh Fellowship is enabling Lilah to:
- Lay the foundation for a new legal unit, including: developing procedures, protocols, and data systems for the unit; recruiting, hiring, and mentoring a new team; and building knowledge and cross-departmental integration on complex immigration issues.
- Establish the legal unit as a strategic hub for individual casework, targeted impact litigation, community engagement, and system-level collaboration across the local and statewide legal ecosystem.
- Ensure systemic impact by institutionalizing the legal unit as a model of leadership, mentorship, and advocacy that creates sustainable capacity for immigration representation at the Defender Association of Philadelphia.
