ABOUT US
Just Futures Law seeks to transform how litigation and legal support serves communities and builds movement power. We are experienced legal strategists who are part of a larger organizing vision led by impacted people.
We are WOC-led and unapologetically abolitionist.
OUR KEY PRINCIPLES
Just Futures Law designs and executes legal support, lawsuits, and advocacy with organized communities to dismantle mass surveillance, incarceration, and deportation systems using these key principles:
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Legal work must center the leadership and lived experiences of organizers, activists, and base-building community groups.
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Lawyering must serve, not direct, social movements.
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Legal strategy is one part of provocative, visionary campaigns for justice and liberation.
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Effective power building requires timelines longer than one case or one ruling.
OUR STORY
Just Futures Law was launched in 2019 by four women at the urging of grassroots groups and organizers calling for a new form of legal support and partnership, where legal strategy would serve communities and help build movement power. We emerged to provide innovative legal support as true partners.
HOW WE WORK
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.
This combination of skills and subject expertise is often inaccessible to community and grassroots organizations. We step in to provide the resources necessary to support these groups fighting against well-resourced, well-funded corporations and institutions. Our lawsuits, legal support, and advocacy portfolios are co-designed with and accountable to grassroots groups. We work in partnership with immigrant and racial justice organizers and base-building groups in the following ways:
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To develop legal and advocacy strategies to disrupt criminalization and deportation.
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To build a political home for lawyers and legal workers who recognize that directly impacted communities are the heart, soul, and tactical brain of social justice movements.
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To file litigation aligned with organizing groups and leaders.
OUR PROGRAM AREAS
We currently focus on three programmatic areas which have been identified with partners and movement organizers as urgent areas that must be addressed:
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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.
STATE AND LOCAL ADVOCACY
From sanctuary cities and noncitizen driver IDs to the defense of individual organizers, state and local policies and victories offer immediate life-saving pathways to justice as well as important opportunities for experimentation and innovation with new legal and organizing tactics.
Local experiences often pave the way to national solutions. Building on successful track records of state and local legal victories, JFL will continue to support organizing and campaigns with research, litigation, and policy strategies aimed at winning seminal victories and re-shaping the integrity of protections to state residents, including noncitizens.
FEDERAL POLICY ADVOCACY
From fighting anti-immigrant bills to curbing the power of government agencies to surveil and criminalize, federal policy work is critical to defending the movement and creating long-term change.
Cross-cutting federal policy agendas present opportunities for sweeping wins that cover both DHS and DOJ as well as consumer agencies that can rein in surveillance corporations such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Board. We will continue to build out intersectional technology, immigration, and criminal justice policy platforms in Washington, DC.
