Staff Attorney, Immigration Practice

About CFR

The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and our goal is to reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in foster care. CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense to parents charged by ACS with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience losing children to foster care and safely reunifying their families. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams. In 2015, CFR expanded its practice to provide legal and social work services to parents in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters.

In addition, CFR’s Juvenile Justice Practice represents youth in Queens and Manhattan in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Community Advocacy Project represents parents during a child protective investigation (prior to court involvement) and assists parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records. We annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents, youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families.

In the Summer 2022 CFR opened an office in the Bronx and became a conflict provider for family defense respondents in the Bronx.

Under the supervision and guidance of CFR’s Immigration Litigation Supervisor, the Immigration Staff Attorney’s primary responsibility will be to represent clients in applications for immigration benefits before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, the immigration courts, and other applicable administrative and judicial bodies. The staff attorney should expect to work with clients from all of the boroughs serviced by CFR.

The candidate will work collaboratively with CFR legal teams, composed of attorneys, social work staff, paralegals and parent advocates from the family defense, criminal defense or civil defense units. Familiarity with our most commonly occurring immigration case types is preferable, e.g. domestic- violence-based relief, family-based applications, naturalization, Temporary Protected Status, and asylum. The immigration candidate may also represent CFR in local, state, and national coalitions, trainings, and conferences. Over the years, CFR Immigration has had to respond to unexpected immigration crises and other client needs. The ideal candidate will be open to helping with special projects as needed.

The candidate should expect to:

• Support CFR Immigration’s intake/referral teams as needed;
• Stay abreast of rapidly changing immigration rules, laws, pending legislation, and procedures;
• Promptly maintain data in our case management system and client legal notes; and
• Represent clients in affirmative, defensive, and appellate immigration matters;
• Conduct community education, training and outreach, and promote the work of CFR and CFR Immigration;
• Advise CFR’s criminal and family defense practices about the immigration consequences of each proceeding;
• Assist with the continued growth and improvement of CFR’s immigration practice.
• Represent CFR clients with SIJS applications in Queens, Manhattan and Bronx Family Courts;
• Support CFR’s Immigration supervisor with other projects including Policy and Communications advocacy;
• Assist with training and mentoring of law students, volunteers, and pro bono attorneys/scholars;

Candidates for this position should have at least 2 years of experience as an attorney that includes directly representing clients in all aspects of USCIS and immigration court proceedings. Familiarity with the intersection of immigration with other legal issues is especially helpful, i.e., criminal, family, and public benefits. This is the ideal position for a professional who enjoys taking initiative and developing best practices in a new program and who enjoys the exhilaration and challenges of a growing endeavor.

Applicants should be able to demonstrate strong interpersonal and communication skills, an ability to work as part of a team and a desire to share in both the exhilaration and challenges of a growing endeavor. Candidates bilingual in Spanish are strongly encouraged to apply.