CIPR Resource Guide
Recurring Volunteer Opportunities & Workshops
Casa de Paz: Casa de Paz offers a safe, temporary space for those being released from the detention center in Aurora, CO and works to facilitate their next steps towards unification with their loved ones. Their various programs, such as the Welcome Team, Visitation Program and Cartas de Paz are seeking volunteers on an ongoing basis. To learn how to get involved, click here.
Colorado Asylum Center: The Colorado Asylum Center hosts bi-weekly asylum workshops and is regularly seeking bilingual English/Spanish speakers as well as volunteer attorneys and general volunteers. To sign up for a workshop, click here.
City of Denver: The City of Denver hosts recurring Work Authorization workshops on Mondays and Tuesdays for eligible newcomers. They seek bilingual, non-attorney volunteers, Non-Spanish Speaking Volunteers, and Immigration Attorney volunteers. To find out more about the volunteer categories and sign up, click here.
CIRC: The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition accepts volunteers on a rolling basis for roles and functions such as Legal Observer, Documenter, Grassroots Fundraising, Legal Services, Communications and Translation. To learn more about the volunteer roles and indicate your interest, click here.
Servicios de la Raza: Servicios de la Raza is a local non-profit focused on providing essential services and mental health supports to Colorado’s Latinx communities. Their food bank often seeks volunteers and they offer various practicum experiences for graduate students pursuing a career in mental health supports. To volunteer, email jennys@serviciosdelaraza.org. To learn more about practicum opportunities, click here,
International Rescue Committee: The International Rescue Committee offers various volunteer opportunities throughout their programs, including tutoring high-school age children, airport pickups and setting up new arrival housing
AFSC: AFSC Colorado has two immigrant and ally groups: The Not1More (N1M) Deportation Tables are comprised of 41 immigrants in Metro Denver and Fort Morgan fighting their own or their family members’ deportation. Coloradans for Immigrant Rights (CFIR) is a group of 1550 allies led by 16 core members who coordinate a statewide rapid response network to support community members during ICE actions.
Static Resources & Recurring Coalition Meetings (Know Your Rights, Family Preparedness Etc.)
Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN): Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network keeps an evergreen list of Know Your Rights Resources, Family Preparedness Packets, and Colorado-Specific Protections
CIRC: Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network keeps an evergreen list of Know Your Rights Resources, Family Preparedness Packets, and Colorado-Specific Protections
Centro para los Trabajadores Colorado Resource Directory: Centro presents a directory of resources that is organized in eight sections to reflect a holistic approach to wellness for the care of the immigrant worker.
Accounts to Follow
CIRC (co_immigrant)
cfirofafsc
juntoscommunityus
abolishicedenver
casadepazco
Substack/instagram follow experts:
austinkocher
ccgarciahernandez (Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez)
Nicoletteglazer
Circ_actionfund
Rmian_org
Sanctuarycampusnetwork
sanctuary4All Colorado
Coloradopeoplsalliance
Convivir.colorado
Movimiento_poder
Adam Isacson (WOLA)
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
Nicolette Glazer
Dara Lind
Ernesto Castañeda
Jeff Crisp
Kathleen Bush-Joseph
Stephanie Leutert
Yael Schacher
Migration Policy Inst
Molly O’Toole
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
Andrew Selee (Migration Policy Institute)
Daniel M. Kowalski
Caitlyn Yates
Daniel E. Martínez
National Immigrant Justice Center
Americans for Immigrant Justice
Migration Policy Center
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Blogs & Books to Read
Threshold by Ieva Jusionyte: Ieva Jusionyte’s firsthand experience as an emergency responder provides the background for her gripping examination of the politics of injury and rescue in the militarized region surrounding the US-Mexico border.
Illegal Traveler by Sharam Khosravi (2011): Based on fieldwork among undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers Illegal Traveler offers a narrative of the polysemic nature of borders, border politics, and rituals and performances of border-crossing.
Boundaries by Richard Blanco: Boundaries challenges the physical, imagined, and psychological dividing lines—both historic and current—that shadow America and perpetuate an us vs. them mindset. In contrast to the current narrowing definition of an America with very clear-cut boundaries, Blanco and Hessler cross and erase borders
Empire of Borders by Todd Miller: Empire of Borders is a tremendous work of narrative investigative journalism that traces the rise of this border regime. It delves into the practices of “extreme vetting,” which raise the possibility of “ideological” tests and cyber-policing for migrants and visitors, a level of scrutiny that threatens fundamental freedoms and allows, once again, for America’s security concerns to infringe upon the sovereign rights of other nations.
Dear America—Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas: This book––at its core––is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in.
Everyone Who is Here is Gone by Jonathan Blitzer. 2024. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/625425/everyone-who-is-gone-is-here-by-jonathan-blitzer/
Solito by Javier Zamora (2022): A memoir of a boy’s journey through Guatemala, Mexico and the US border to reunite with his family
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (2020)
White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall by Reece Jones (2021)
Against the Wall by Jenn Budd (2022), critical and reflective memoir of a former CBP agent
We’re Here Because You Were There: Immigration and the End of Empire by Ian Sanjay Patel (2021)
Immigration Realities by Ernesto Castañeda and Carina Cione. 2024: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/immigration-realities/9780231203753
Operation Gatekeeper by Joseph Nevins (updated 2010 version)
Border Games by Peter Andreas (there is an updated 3rd edition I think 2022)
The Land of Open Graves by Jason de León (2015)
Outsourcing Control by Katherine Tennis (Korbel faculty) (2020)
Laboring for Justice by Rebecca Galemba (Korbel faculty) (2023)
Reluctant Reception: Refugees, Migration, and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa by Kelsey Norman (former Korbel postdoctoral fellow) (2021)
How Migration Really Works by Hein de Haas (2024)
Refuge: How the State Shapes Human Potential by Heba Gowayed (2022)
They Leave Their Kidneys in the Fields: Illness, Injury, and Illegality among US Farmworkers by Sarah Horton (2016)
Undoing Border Imperialism by Harsha Walia (2013) and Border & Rule (2021) by Harsha Walia
Suspended Lives: Navigating Everyday Violence in the US Asylum System by Bridget Haas (2023)
Separated: Family and Community in the Wake of an Immigration Raid by Wiliam Lopez (2019)-read this one alongside/or instead of the one by the journalist with the same “Separated” title that was made into a documentary!
Illegality, Inc. by Ruben Andersson (2014)
Suspended Lives by Bridget Haas (2024)
Court of Injustice by JC Salyer (2020)
The Slow Violence of Immigration Court by Maya Pagni Barak (2023)
Pathogenic Policing: Immigration and Enforcement in the US South by Nolan Kline (2019)
Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders by Leisy Abrego (2014)
The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth are Transforming That it Means to Belong in America by Andrea Flores (2021)
Banished Men: How Migrants Endure the Violence of Deportation by Abigail Andrews (2023).
Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees by Lamis Abdelaaty (2021)
Deported by Tanya Golash-Boza (2015)
Smugglers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling by Jason de Leon (2024)-National Non-fiction award winning book