Rutgers School of Law–Newark will host an all-day conference on immigration detention issues on Friday, March 23, 2012. The conference, titled “Immigrant Detainees: Alone, Unrepresented & Imprisoned,” will feature a keynote address by U.S. Senator Robert Menendez ’79.

The conference is a joint effort by the Rutgers–Newark, Seton Hall, Cardozo, and New York University law schools. Co-sponsors include Lowenstein Sandler PC, Gibbons PC, the Rutgers–Newark Center for Migration and the Global City, the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic, the Rutgers Immigrant Rights Collective, the Rutgers Human Rights Forum, the Seton Hall Law Center for Social Justice, the American Friends Service Committee, and Human Rights First. 

Panelists will include nationally renowned immigration experts, judges, practitioners, academics, and former detainees. Among the issues to be discussed are:

• Immigration detention in New Jersey – what types of immigrants are being detained; how many are being detained, where, and for how long; the conditions of their confinement
• Mandatory detention and its impact on immigrants
• Alternatives to detention
• Due process and the state of immigration court proceedings for detained individuals
• Access to counsel in immigration court proceedings for detained individuals

The conference is free and open to the public; however, preregistration will be required. Panelists and other conference information, including how to register, will be announced in the near future at www.law.newark.rutgers.edu/immigrant-detainees.