Regional Model for the Defense of People in the Context of Mobility

This Regional Defense Model for People in the Context of Mobility is an initiative carried out for the Inter-American Association of Public Defenders -AIDEF- with the support of the European Union Program EUROsociAL + and is part of the improvement of access to justice in migrants. The proposed model considered difficulties such as the pandemic, which has aggravated access to rights and legal representation of migrants, which requires a more emphatic action by the Public Defenders’ Offices since they are the only alternative that these people will have for protection of their human rights.

This document includes some inter-American and international standards on the matter, formulating recommendations applicable to the work of the legal representation of migrants and refugees.

Considering the particularities of each Public Defender’s Office that is a member of AIDEF, the present model is formulated, containing seven pillars. The first is the specialization in the subject of immigration law and the right of refuge, which is usually little known by the operators of the justice system and by the public administration in general. The other pillars of the model are: training, coordination mechanisms, strategic litigation, knowledge management, communication and awareness and, finally, data collection.

The model seeks to become a benchmark that makes visible the defense of migrants and refugees and their access to justice, a task carried out by the Public Defenders of the region.