CLIENT SERVICES

CLEAR provides free legal representation and a broad range of other services in support of partner communities and movements. 

Specifically, we represent and advise community and movement members on a vast set of issues that arise in connection to government policies and practices deployed under the guise of “national security” and “counterterrorism.”

If we cannot support you, we will try to refer you to others.

Represent and advise clients approached for questioning by the FBI, NYPD, DHS, and other law enforcement agencies; those served with grand jury and trial subpoenas; and those facing searches and surveillance.

Represent and advise clients experiencing travel difficulties and delays because of U.S. government searches, scrutiny, and watch-listing, including those on the No Fly List, those subjected to secondary screening, or travelers in civil forfeiture proceedings whose money was confiscated by U.S. customs.

Represent and advise clients who are under threat of denaturalization; whose U.S. passports have been revoked, denied, or delayed; who are facing long delays in their applications for U.S. citizenship or other immigration benefits (often due to “security holds” or CARRP); and who are in immigration detention or removal proceedings based on security-related allegations.

Advise community members on safe and lawful charitable giving options.

Know Your Rights Workshops

CLEAR teams facilitate know-your-rights (KYR) workshops at mosques, schools, Muslim student associations, and other community centers, all tailored to community needs. Topics include: interactions with law enforcement; searches and scrutiny at airports and borders; dealing with possible informants and infiltration by law enforcement; and charitable giving.

Community Organizing Support

CLEAR teams support local and national grassroots community organizing and movements responding to and shaping so-called “national security” and “counterterrorism” policies and practices.

Strategic Litigation

CLEAR brings groundbreaking and precedent-setting lawsuits that grow organically out of the other axes of our work. We develop and leverage impact litigation to eliminate or reform unlawful or improper policies and practices that harm the civil and human rights of communities in New York City and beyond. Our litigation work also serves to enhance community and media pressure to hold law enforcement accountable for their actions. In this effort, CLEAR aims to partner with and complement the work of larger impact-litigation groups, while ensuring that a wider range of needs and issues are addressed.

Capacity Building

CLEAR trains its law student members and conducts Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminars for bar-admitted attorneys at public defender organizations, immigration legal services providers, law firms, and non-governmental organizations in order to continue building a network of pro- and low-bono lawyers equipped to handle CLEAR-mandate cases nationwide.