Heartland Alliance provides legal protection at home and abroad for people in danger, including refugees, migrants, victims of trafficking, and other vulnerable populations facing discrimination or violence.  Our work includes:

Services for Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum-Seekers:

We work both domestically and internationally to ensure human rights protections and access to justice for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.  Through the Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), we provide direct legal services to and advocate for these populations through policy reform, impact litigation, and public education. NIJC is a national leader in working to reform the broken system of immigrant detention. 

From Iraq to Rwanda, we also work to improve legal protections abroad through a variety of efforts including promoting the legal rights of sexual minorities and protecting victims of gender-based violence and minors in the juvenile justice system.

Violence Recovery Services:

Heartland Alliance provides comprehensive services to more than 450 children and adults each year who are victims of domestic violence and sexual violence in the City of Chicago.  Services include legal advocacy, case management, parenting classes, and individual and group counseling. 

Youth Services:

Through two community-based residential programs (one for boys and one for girls), Heartland Alliance runs the only residential rehabilitative alternative to juvenile detention in Cook County.  Additionally, we run a nationally recognized center for unaccompanied immigrant children who seek to be reunited with their families, affording the children legal protection and providing them a variety of services such as counseling and case management in a residential setting.