Following the 2016 elections, NCCIJ* and NCRRIDN**, two immigrant removal defense collaboratives, joined efforts to provide better legal assistance to the detained immigrant community in Northern and Central California. CCIJ was born of this merger. After several years of incorporating rapid response, detained representation, legal screenings, and data strategy into our work, we realized that traditional ideas of lawyering and non-profit work were not resulting in the systemic change we desired. We realized that the only truly effective way to do this work is through community-legal partnership and power-building of impacted communities. Seeking justice in a system that criminalizes people of color and keeps people caged in conditions that violate their most fundamental rights has led us to question the traditional non-profit legal services model. That is why we believe that coordination, advocacy and legal services have to go hand in hand in order to move forward strategies for liberation on individual and systemic levels.