Contigo Immigrant Justice (formerly Santa Fe Dreamers Project) is a national leader is a national leader in legal services for LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers.

• In 2017, CIJ began serving transwomen who were detained at the Cibola detention facility. During that time, we advocated fiercely to end the detention of all transgender individuals due to medical neglect, lack of mental health services, poor conditions of detention, and abuse of solitary confinement. In 2020, the transwomen pod was closed at Cibola. However, the pod was transferred to the Aurora detention center in Aurora, Colorado. We pivoted to continue serving the very vulnerable women detained there.  

• In May 2023, the border closure under Title 42 ended when the public health emergency was determined to be over, but the situation at the border has hardly improved. The government used an app, CBPOne, which created a new way to keep asylum-seekers stuck at the border, often waiting for months for an appointment to present themselves to request asylum.

• CIJ again pivoted in the quickly changing asylum and border enforcement landscape to work alongside partners on the ground in Ciudad Juarez to provide LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers with the information and tools to navigate this landscape, including: know your rights presentations, orientations to the US asylum system, and preparation for the first interviews with the asylum office (credible or reasonable fear interviews, also known as fear interviews).

If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community seeking asylum inside or outside the US, or if you are an organization interested in partnering with us in this work, please contact us at info@santafedreamersproject.org.