A Panel Discussion · Civil Rights & Immigration Enforcement

Civil Rights, I.C.E.
& The Great Writ

Meet The Lawyers Who Are Meeting The Moment With Innovative Legal Strategies In Pursuit Of Liberty And Justice For All.

Thursday, September 10, 2026 · 5:30 p.m.

Atlanta's John Marshall Law School · Room 2049

245 Peachtree Center Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia 30303

RSVP: ccji@johnmarshall.edu | Hosted and provided by CCJI and CHALLSA · Dinner provided by CHALLSA · CLE Credit

Come Eat, Learn, and Get Involved

ICE detention has hit record highs, most people detained have no criminal conviction, and few have a lawyer or any guarantee of one. Civil rights violations, deaths, and abuses have largely gone unremedied.

But reform is happening — case by case, through lawyers who are willing to demand accountability and win despite the odds.

Featuring

Katie Blankenship

Immigration attorney and civil litigator, and founder of Sanctuary of the South, a grassroots legal services organization built to serve immigrant families across the South. Co-counsel and an organizational plaintiff in the case that forced "Alligator Alcatraz" to open its doors to counsel — pressure that helped lead to the facility's closure. SOS's habeas practice has freed 30 people from detention to date. Former ACLU.

Brian Orozco

Kulis Law

Civil rights attorney at Kulis Law with five active lawsuits against ICE — and counting. A DePaul Law graduate, Brian has spent over a decade litigating police brutality and prisoner rights cases across Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, representing incarcerated clients in every federal district and maximum-security facility in the state. He's now applying that same demand for remedy to ICE conduct: discovery, preserving the claim, and unmasking the people who commit the harm.

"A social engineer is a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who understands the Constitution of the United States and knows how to explore its uses in the solving of problems of local communities and in bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens."

— Charles Hamilton Houston

Program

5:30

Welcome & Program

Mission of CCJI
People's Lawyering & the Habeas Initiative
When Civil Rights Are Threatened

5:45

Unmasking and Exposing Injustice

Speaker introductions
Getting into Alligator Alcatraz
Named defendants & discovery
Universal representation
Nuts and bolts of government accountability
Impact litigation — the bigger picture

6:20

Questions from Law Students

Intersection of immigration & civil rights
Blankenship's access-to-counsel injunction
Orozco's resistance to Midway Blitz
What can I do?

6:45

Audience Questions

7:00

Networking & How to Get Involved

Read More About the Program

Being a "social engineer" through civil rights work is as important now as it ever was. This work is not only about fighting for those who are being persecuted, but also about upholding the rule of law with the future in mind. That is what the attorneys on this panel are doing right now.

The nexus of immigration and civil rights advocacy is as broad as it ever has been. Protesters clash with federal agents on America's streets, detention centers pop up like POW camps, and the Fourth Amendment appears to be ignored — all in the name of "protecting the American people against invasion" (January 2025 executive order).

ICE detention reached a record high of over 73,000 people in January 2026. Roughly three quarters of those detained have no criminal conviction. Most have no lawyer, nor are they guaranteed one. Detainees range from child to elderly and can be held from months to over a year. Civil rights violations, deaths, and abuse have largely gone unchecked and unremedied.

There is resistance, however. Katie Blankenship and Brian Orozco are not accepting these impositions on life and liberty lying down. They join us to discuss the role that civil rights attorneys have long played in setting and holding the standard for what Americans expect from their government.

Reform and accountability rarely come all at once — they come case by case. We'll explore the panelists' impact litigation, including:

Blankenship was co-counsel and an organizational plaintiff on the litigation team behind that injunction — the case that opened the doors to counsel at Alligator Alcatraz and helped lead to its closure. Orozco, meanwhile, is representing plaintiffs who have been harmed by ICE and CBP during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago last fall — including a baby and a U.S. citizen who was pulled from his car and restrained despite identifying himself. The suits, alleging Fourth Amendment violations among other tort claims, face an uphill battle as recovery against federal agents is no easy feat. Orozco does not shy away from such challenges, however, as he himself was tear-gassed while representing clients at one of the confrontations.

Ahead of the panel, we will send out a short set of cases and articles for attendees to review, and a link for students to submit questions.