We propel and uplift transformative campaigns through movement lawyering.
JUST FUTURES LAW
Just Futures Law seeks to transform how litigation and legal support serves communities and builds movement power. We believe in the bold leadership of grassroots groups and organizers. We aim to work hand in hand with them to tear down oppressive systems.
Art by: Natalia Navarro
OUR WORK
We believe in a non-traditional approach to defend and grow the movement.
Legal work must center the leadership and lived experience of organizers, activists, and base-building community groups. Therefore, lawyering must serve, not direct, social movements. Attorneys have a critical movement role to play as partners in tearing down oppressive systems that have resulted in our mass deportation and incarceration state, and building democratic institutions that truly invest and grow communities.
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As activists, organizers, and base-building community groups continue their work to disrupt and dismantle deportation and mass incarceration systems, JFL works alongside these efforts to provide our unique expertise in immigration, criminal justice, and surveillance issues, as well as proficiency in developing strategies to counter emerging threats. Learn More →
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Movements need legal strategies beyond traditional lawyering to propel our movements forward. We believe organizing combined with legal strategy can build the power needed to yield transformative outcomes. Movement lawyering focuses on the big picture; we hold in consultation more than one subject of a lawsuit, and work tirelessly to construct offensive legal strategies for ground-breaking grassroots policy campaigns. Learn More →
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Our impact to date has included working with Mijente to launch the TakeBackTech fellowship to train a new bunch of advocates on grassroots directed research, working with Grassroots Leadership to fight for the release of detained individuals under Operation Lone Star, and representing activists in their fight against tech giants like Clearview AI. Make A Donation →
OUR PARTNERS
We strive to be true allies to those paving the way to a just future.
A future without bans or walls, without prisons or police—requires a strong immigrant rights and racial justice movement, and it requires legal advocates to defend and grow that movement.
This work has included working with Mijente to launch the TakeBackTech fellowship to train a new bunch of advocates on grassroots directed research, working with Grassroots Leadership to fight for the release of detained individuals under Operation Lone Star, and representing activists in their fight against tech giants like Clearview AI.
GET INVOLVED
PROGRAM AREAS
We work in partnership with immigrant and racial justice organizers and base-building groups across 3 program areas.
Our work includes deploying litigation, policy, and advocacy strategies at the local, state, and federal level.
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A massive, militarized technological surveillance machine is being deployed against Black and Brown communities to supercharge arrests and deportations. Local, state, and federal law enforcement, as well as private companies, are rapidly expanding the use and scope of surveillance technology, leading to abusive criminalization and reducing privacy. The expansion of these surveillance systems has created massive profits for companies who contract with governments at all levels to push criminalization agendas. We aim to fill a gap of policy advocacy, research, and litigation that will energize and strengthen local and national campaigns combating harmful technologies deployed by local police, Department of Homeland Security, and corporations.
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A strong movement requires a strong defense. From surveilling protesters, to deporting immigrant activists who speak out about ICE abuse, DHS has weaponized immigration enforcement to punish those who speak out against injustice. This is part of a broader history of government suppression of social movements and dissent through incarceration, deportation, and mass surveillance. The targeted retaliation and surveillance of protesters has chilled speech and association (or the right to associate). We’re fighting to curb and combat surveillance, protect speech, and end the use of surveillance technology on those who speak out and exercise their rights.
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We fight to reduce the deportation pipelines in state and federal criminal legal systems. We provide legal support to grassroots groups challenging police criminalization and collaboration with ICE. We respond to grassroots’ requests for help on individual cases that sit at the intersection of these systems. For example, we worked on unlawful re-entry prosecution cases, the most prosecuted federal crime in the United States; we also worked on Operation Lone Star, a Texas program that targets suspected migrants for state prosecution. We are a core member of the Immigrant Justice Network, a network of seasoned immigrant rights groups advocating for systemic changes in our immigration laws at the federal level.
