Ending Sheridan: Rise of a Rights Architecture, a report by Innovation Law Lab, describes the work in Oregon that resulted in a 100% client approval rate and the closing of the use of a prison for immigration detention.
One year ago, a broad effort to end the cruel and clandestine incarceration of immigrant men seeking asylum at the Sheridan federal detention center launched.
The report describes:
- Massive Collaborative Representation: what it is and how it can be operationalized at specific sites of resistance;
- the Big Immigration Law theory;
- Oregon’s Rights Architecture and how innovation is fostered within the architecture.
The Sheridan Pro Bono project used a new mode of representation called Massive Collaborative Representation to intentionally exert power on the deportation system so that it might more fairly and more consistently adhere to the laws of the United States. The Sheridan Pro Bono Project relied on Oregon’s Rights Architecture to situate the massive collaborative representation in order to rapidly implement and scale the response
The Sheridan Pro Bono Project won 100% of the credible fear claims and 97% of the release claims—unheard-of client outcomes in traditional representational models. Although the legal representation was centralized at Innovation Law Lab, its MCR approach to representation was built on the work of a large coalition of organizations, including Unidos Bridging Community, ACLU of Oregon, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), Interfaith movement for Immigrant Justice (IMIrJ), Rural Organizing Project (ROP), Causa, ICE Out of Sheridan, Progressive Yamhill and many other organizations who regularly work together through Oregon Ready.
