We Have Rights

What We Have Rights does

We Have Rights is a nonprofit empowerment campaign launched in 2018 and operated as an initiative of Brooklyn Defender Services, a New York-based public defense organization. The campaign provides free multilingual educational resources to immigrant communities in the United States to help them understand and defend their rights during encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It serves non-citizen populations who may face language barriers or limited access to legal information, delivering content through a community-led distribution model anchored by established legal advocacy partners.

The core offering consists of three products on a Squarespace-based website (wehaverights.us): an educational video series covering five ICE encounter scenarios (ICE at the door, inside homes, in communities, during arrests, and documenting enforcement), an interactive Emergency Preparedness Plan tool with downloadable forms in multiple languages, and a multilingual resource hub linking users to partner organizations. Content is delivered in eight languages—English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Russian, and Urdu—with material developed in collaboration with immigration law experts from the Immigrant Defense Project and Brooklyn Defender Services, and notable in-kind narration from public figures including Jesse Williams and Fiona Apple.

The campaign operates without commercial revenue, distributing all resources free of charge as a public-good awareness initiative. Distribution is community-led through a partner coalition that includes ACLU, WITNESS, MediaTank Productions, Variant Strategies, Equality Equation, Indivisible Brooklyn (which led the crowdfunding effort), and CUNY School of Law CLEAR Project. There are no equity investors, no pricing model, and no paid customer relationships; reach is measured in linguistic coverage and partner-driven community distribution rather than commercial scale.

Name

We Have Rights

Legal name

We Have Rights

Website

https://wehaverights.us

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Short description

We Have Rights is a nonprofit campaign by Brooklyn Defender Services providing immigrant communities in the United States with free, multilingual educational videos, emergency preparedness tools, and legal resources about rights during ICE encounters, available in eight languages.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Immigration Rights Education & Public Awareness Campaign

NAICS

Human Rights Organizations (813311), Individual and Family Services (6241)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300), Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Immigrant & Refugee Rights Advocacy (BPAGAFAG)

akta.pro secondary industry

Migrant & Refugee Legal Aid and Documentation Services (BPADAHAE)

Keywords

• Immigrant rights education
• Know your rights videos
• Multilingual public awareness
• ICE encounter preparedness
• Community legal education

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Marketing or Sales, Operations, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Others

Revenue model

1. Public Good / Nonprofit Campaign: This is a nonprofit public awareness campaign operated by Brooklyn Defender Services. It provides free educational resources to the public. No commercial revenue model exists.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

We Have Rights provides free, multilingual educational videos and an interactive emergency preparedness plan tool that teach immigrant communities in the United States how to recognize and defend their constitutional rights during encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The campaign is operated by Brooklyn Defender Services and distributed in eight languages — English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Russian, and Urdu — through the wehaverights.us website and a network of legal advocacy partner organizations.

Product overview

We Have Rights is a single unified campaign platform providing multilingual educational resources and emergency preparedness tools for immigrant communities facing ICE encounters. The core offering consists of an educational video series available in eight languages (English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Russian, and Urdu) covering various encounter scenarios, complemented by an Emergency Preparedness Plan tool with downloadable forms. The platform serves as an empowerment campaign by Brooklyn Defender Services, connecting users with partner organizations for additional support.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• We Have Rights Educational Video Series A multilingual educational video series providing guidance on constitutional rights during encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), covering scenarios such as when ICE is outside doors, inside homes, in communities, during arrests, and when documenting ICE arrests. Available in English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Russian, and Urdu for U.S. immigrant communities.
• Emergency Preparedness Plan Tool An interactive emergency planning tool that helps immigrant individuals and families build preparedness plans for ICE encounters, with downloadable forms available in multiple languages including English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
• Multilingual Resources Hub

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered core, supporting and minor.

• Brooklyn Defender ServicescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBrooklyn Defender Services is the primary organizational driver and executive producer of the We Have Rights campaign. Lisa Schreibersdorf serves as Executive Director. The organization provides immigration law consultants and hosts the campaign infrastructure.
• MediaTank ProductionscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerProduced the campaign videos. Directed by Michael Kleiman. Part of the video production team along with Variant Strategies.
• Variant StrategiescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerProduced campaign videos and leads outreach campaign efforts. Abby Goldberg from Variant Strategies is part of the outreach team.
• WITNESScoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in the outreach campaign. Provides video documentation guidance including Filming Immigration Enforcement Tip Sheet and Considerations for Sharing Videos of Immigration Enforcement.
• ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner in the outreach campaign. Listed as a resource linking to ACLU's immigrant rights and know-your-rights information.
• Immigrant Defense ProjectcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMaterials are based on content created by the Immigrant Defense Project. Provides immigration law consulting. Linked as a resource for emergency preparedness information.
• Equality EquationsupportingGTM or Marketing PartnerPartner in the outreach campaign. Allison Hoffman, Felissa Rubin, and Kendrick Daye from Equality Equation are part of the outreach team.
• Indivisible BrooklynsupportingGTM or Marketing PartnerLed the crowdfunding campaign for the We Have Rights campaign.
• CUNY School of Law CLEAR ProjectminorOthersListed in special thanks. CLEAR Project at CUNY School of Law contributed to the campaign.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Direct peers

• Make the Road New York: Brooklyn-based immigrant community organization providing legal services, education, and organizing. Direct peer in the same NYC geography serving overlapping immigrant populations with rights-education content.
• Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC): National network of immigration legal services providers producing know-your-rights materials and training. Direct peer in immigrant rights education and multilingual resource distribution for affected communities.
• ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project: National civil liberties organization producing multilingual know-your-rights materials and legal advocacy for immigrants. Directly comparable as a partner and adjacent content producer in the same target audience and category.
• RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services): Texas-based nonprofit providing immigration legal services and community education. Direct peer in immigrant rights education and ICE-encounter preparedness, with comparable Spanish-language resources.
• National Immigration Law Center (NILC): National advocacy organization advancing rights of low-income immigrants through litigation, policy, and education. Direct peer in immigrant rights education and know-your-rights resource distribution.
• WITNESS: Global human rights organization that equips people to use video to document and respond to rights abuses. Partner on We Have Rights; directly comparable on documentation guidance and rights-education content for immigrant communities.
• Immigrant Defense Project: New York-based legal advocacy and training organization that authored the underlying content for We Have Rights. Direct peer serving immigrant communities with rights education and defense-focused materials.
• United We Dream: Largest immigrant youth-led network in the US, producing rights-education content and campaigns for immigrant communities. Direct peer in community-led know-your-rights content and outreach to immigrant audiences.
• National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC): Asian-American immigrant rights coalition providing multilingual know-your-rights resources and community organizing. Direct peer serving limited-English-proficient immigrant audiences with similar educational content.

Emerging players

• Innovation Law Lab: Nonprofit leveraging legal technology and rapid-response models to support immigrant rights. Partial overlap: adjacent in immigrant rights legal support but emphasizes tech-enabled legal representation rather than community education videos.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks2 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about We Have Rights