Originally started as a project of the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, CAIR Coalition became an independent non-profit organization in 1999. In the last decade, CAIR Coalition has more than doubled in size and has added two new programs to complement the original work serving detained adult immigrants. These include the Detained Children’s Program, which assists unaccompanied immigrant children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in juvenile facilities in Maryland and Virginia, and the Virginia Justice Program which educates public defenders on the immigration consequences of crimes with the goal of lessening the disparate impact of criminal proceedings on non-U.S. citizens who often face much harsher consequences than individuals with U.S. citizenship.

Vision

Equal justice for all immigrants at risk of detention and deportation in the Washington, DC region. They are driven in the pursuit of this vision by the understanding of the grave human costs of the American detention and deportation system.

Mission

The Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition strives to ensure equal justice for all immigrant men, women, and children at risk of detention and deportation in the DC metropolitan area and beyond through direct legal representation, know rights presentations, impact and advocacy work, and the training of attorneys defending immigrants in the immigration and criminal justice arenas.