Community-Led Movements

From the beginning, we knew the power of combining legal advocacy with community empowerment to deliver change.

When we set up practice in a small storefront in Oakland, our staff consisted of one attorney and a handful of dedicated community activists and law clerks. As our movements for justice grew, our team also grew.

Today, our community advocates work directly with families and residents in the Bay Area and across the state. We distribute know-your-rights materials in dozens of languages, forge relationships with partner organizations to build shared power, and engage in coalitions that sustain social movement infrastructure and strength. Across our issue areas, we also build and center the leadership of directly impacted community members. Through our Yuri Kochiyama fellowship, for example, formerly incarcerated community members work with organizations, lawmakers and communities to advance and implement legislation at the intersection of criminal justice and immigrant enforcement systems.

When the needs of immigrants, refugees, their families, and communities are put first, our movements win. Through our work with community, we have helped workers win back stolen wages, led successful campaigns to reduce mass incarceration and free refugees from state prison, increased access to translated materials for immigrant voters, and helped reunite families who were separated because of the Muslim Ban and other policies targeting Muslim communities.