Mission Statement
Al Otro Lado is a bi-national advocacy and legal aid organization serving migrants, refugees and deportees in the United States and Mexico.
We leverage vital partnerships and engage thousands of volunteers to increase our capacity and help build a broad-based immigrant justice movement. Our approach is multidisciplinary, client-centered, and trauma-informed, combining fierce legal advocacy with holistic support. The clients we serve include medically vulnerable and disabled migrants, people in detention, and all families who have been separated by unjust US immigration policies. Al Otro Lado conducts human rights monitoring in immigration prisons and at the border, informing our impact litigation and policy advocacy strategies with a focus on dismantling systems of oppression.
Our History
Al Otro Lado started as a project to support the deportee community in Tijuana, Mexico. Al Otro Lado screened deportees and migrants for violations of civil and human rights by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement authorities, sometimes within as little as hours after their deportation from the U.S. Soon, dozens of volunteer U.S. attorneys began traveling to Tijuana several times per year to provide essential legal information to those who had been deported and those seeking asylum in the United States.
When Trump was elected president in November of 2016, CBP began turning asylum seekers away from U.S. ports of entry, in violation of U.S. and international law. Al Otro Lado and its volunteers began accompanying asylum seekers to the ports, and documented hundreds of unlawful turnaways, as well as repression of migrants and advocates by Mexican authorities. In April of 2017, Al Otro Lado began to prepare our first class action lawsuit against CBP challenging their unlawful “turnback” policy. The lawsuit, Al Otro Lado v. Nielsen, was filed in July of 2017.
Through 2017 and 2018, Al Otro Lado grew exponentially to meet the growing needs of thousands of refugees traveling in caravans, as well as the thousands of refugee families that were separated by CBP/Border Patrol while trying to seek protection at the U.S. border. Al Otro Lado opened its first dedicated Tijuana office near the San Ysidro Port of Entry in early 2017 to meet the growing urgent humanitarian and legal needs of refugees trapped in Tijuana. Al Otro Lado became the primary organization representing parents who had been separated from and deported without their children, and has since successfully reunified dozens of families. Al Otro Lado was also one of the first organizations documenting family separations on the California border and helped educate the public through media and advocacy campaigns. The Border Rights Project team also created service and volunteer engagement models that helped AOL host over 2,000 volunteers to serve over 6,000 refugees in Tijuana during those years.
In 2019, Al Otro Lado opened its first San Diego office to serve migrants detained at the Otay Mesa and Imperial Detention Facilities, and expanded its Los Angeles office to serve migrants detained at the Adelanto Detention Facility. Al Otro Lado’s LA office also helps refugees, survivors of violence and torture, homeless migrants, and others become residents, citizens, and obtain work authorization.
When the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020, Al Otro Lado quickly pivoted to a remote service model that enabled us to serve refugees throughout Mexico, as well as engage remote volunteers from all over the world. Our San Diego and Los Angeles teams filed habeas and parole petitions to secure the release of medically vulnerable migrants from ICE prisons, and have continued to utilize litigation strategies to advocate for our clients and the broader migrant community.
As of 2021, Al Otro Lado is either counsel or an organizational plaintiff in nine class action lawsuits challenging detention conditions, forced labor in private ICE prisons, and policies that restrict access to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Al Otro Lado also recently expanded to the Southeast United States to assist the families of immigrants who died in ICE custody, as well as others suffering abuse and neglect in ICE prisons. Al Otro Lado also frequently provides testimony and advocates before UN and Interamerican human rights bodies, U.S. Congress, and with other elected officials in the U.S. and Mexico. We also engage with the Biden administration to reopen the border to asylum seekers and reunify families that remain separated.