The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) is a legal resource center for Michigan's immigrant communities. MIRC works to build a thriving Michigan where immigrant communities experience equity and belonging.
In order to realize this mission the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center:
- Builds capacity through education and training about immigration law and the complex relationship between immigration status and immigrants' rights in areas including access to public benefits, family law and child welfare, civil rights, and worker's rights.
- Answers questions and provides technical support to attorneys and advocates serving low-income immigrants.
- Recruits, trains, and mentors volunteer pro bono attorneys.
- Leads systemic advocacy to advance the rights of low-income immigrants and their families.
- Tracks and analyzes legislative and legal developments related to immigration law and immigrants' rights.
- Builds coalition and relationship among immigrant advocacy and other social justice and civil rights organizations statewide.
- Represents individual clients in priority areas including naturalization and citizenship matters and the rights of survivors of domestic violence, refugees, unaccompanied minors, and farmworker rights.
- Represents clients in impact cases involving violations of civil rights by law enforcement or government entities, access to public benefits for immigrants and children of immigrants, the unauthorized practice of immigration law, and any other civil legal issue relating to immigration status.
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Susan E. Reed co-founded MIRC to expand access to immigration legal services and advance pro-immigrant policy in Michigan. Susan has led and partnered on advocacy and impact litigation that has: developed public funding for immigration legal services at the federal, state, county, and city level; preserved and expanded Medicaid access for approximately 85,000 noncitizens; recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost and stolen wages for immigrant workers; advanced civil rights for detained immigrants and people of color targeted by immigration enforcement; and secured legal immigration status and citizenship for thousands of individual clients. Susan was appointed by the Michigan Supreme Court to the inaugural Foreign Language Board of Review following her successful advocacy for the court rule that created the board and expanded language access in Michigan's courts. She represents immigrant and immigrant rights interests as a long-time member of the Michigan State Planning Body for Legal Services and as part of several State Bar of Michigan initiatives. She is a proud member of the first class of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network. Susan is a graduate of Marquette University and the University of Minnesota Law School.