Zenab Youssef
Celebrating Two Years of the IRA: Our ...

As we commemorate the two-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) today, August 16, there is much to celebrate about this historic legislation. The IRA represents the largest-ever climate investment in our country’s history, creating unprecedented opportunities for clean energy savings.

However, we at L4GG are acutely aware that historically marginalized communities often lack the resources to access the IRA’s historic funding opportunities. In response, we have intensified our efforts over the past two years to ensure that the benefits of the IRA reach those who need them most. See what we’ve been up to!

Celebrating Two Years of the IRA: Our Achievements and Impact
Zenab Youssef
A Law Student's Journey at the Border with ...
A Law Student's Journey at the Border with Project Corazon
L4GG Updates
Zenab Youssef
We Won’t Sit Silently in the Face of ...

Not enough people are talking about the water crisis in Jackson, MS. On Tuesday, the Mississippi governor declared a state of emergency for Jackson’s water system, the city’s largest treatment plant. Most of the city’s 150,000 residents are without running water, having to rely on bottled water for drinking, showering, brushing their teeth, and cooking.

We Won’t Sit Silently in the Face of Environmental Racism - Neither Should You
L4GG Updates
Sterling Howard
What can YOU do to fight for abortion access ...
L4GG Updates
Sterling Howard
L4GG Publishes Joint Report with New Georgia ...

Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), the nation’s largest community of attorneys committed to human rights and equal justice for all, and New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit voting rights and civic engagement organization in Georgia, today released a report on ‘ballot selfies’, or the practice of taking photos of oneself at the ballot box and/or with their ballots.

A ballot selfie is when a person takes a photo of themselves holding their marked ballot and usually uploads the photo to a social media account to show friends that they voted, and for whom they voted. Ballot selfies are a great way to promote voting and engage with one’s community, yet many states have laws that prohibit them. Advocacy organizations are concerned that laws prohibiting ballot selfies are tools of voter suppression, and another way to criminalize ordinary behavior.

Click here to download “Selfie-Defense Training: Understanding and Reforming Laws that Ban Photographing and Sharing Your Ballot”

The report found that ballot selfies are completely legal in 28 states, and illegal in 13 states. Five states have laws prohibiting ballot selfies at polling locations, but not when casting a mail-in or absentee ballot. Six states have laws governing ballot selfies that are unclear. The report calls for states to update their laws to explicitly allow voters the right to take a ballot selfie, and prevent voter fraud and bribery without curtailing free speech.

L4GG Publishes Joint Report with New Georgia Project on Ballot Selfies

Travel Fund

Project Corazon Travel Fund in Action - Crucial Rapid Response Assistance

Project Corazon Travel Fund in Action - Crucial Rapid Response Assistance

“Jose” and his 15-year-old daughter “Lizbet” (names have been changed to protect them) fled El Salvador during the summer of 2019. Jose had been stabbed by a gang member and made a police report. The gang member had deep connections with the police, and Jose was beaten by police on three occasions. Jose and Lizbet tried to move across the country to escape the violence, but the violence followed them, this time in the form of a drive-by shooting attempt. That’s when Jose and Lizbet decided to flee El Salvador to avoid certain death.

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Video: How Project Corazon’s volunteer lawyers are making a difference at the border

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In August 2019, Project Corazon (a Lawyers for Good Government Foundation program) launched a pilot program in Matamoros (Mexico), sending a group of 6 volunteer lawyers to the border to provide pro bono legal services to asylum-seekers stuck in the administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program.

The group was able to serve more than 130 asylum-seekers in a single weekend, providing legal guidance and workshops to families who would otherwise have no access to legal services.

Based on the success of the pilot, Project Corazon is expanding the program. Two weekend workshops will be held in September 2019, and beginning in October 2019, a full-time immigration lawyer with the Lawyers for Good Government Foundation will begin working full-time in Brownsville, Texas (just across the border from Matamoros), scaling the program to include preparation of asylum applications and connecting individual asylum-seekers with pro bono legal counsel.

Please support this important work - we can’t do it without your help. Click here to contribute now.

What can YOU do to help immigrants whose rights are under attack?

What can YOU do to help immigrants whose rights are under attack?

The Trump administration argued in court this week that detained migrant children do not require basic hygiene products (like soap and toothbrushes) to be held in "safe and sanitary" conditions. Lawyers who recently interviewed detained children report that kids are living in "traumatic and dangerous" conditions - insufficient food and water, going weeks without bathing, kids as young as 7 years old being told to care for the babies and toddlers.

Parents and other adults in detention aren't faring any better. In one processing center in El Paso, a cell designed for 12 people was crammed with 76, causing migrants to stand on the toilets for breathing space. Up to 900 migrants were held at another facility designed for 125. In another case, a teenage mother holding a sick and dirty premature baby spent 9 days detained without access to medical care for her newborn. They "wouldn't give her any water to wash [the baby]."

Doing nothing in the face of these atrocities is not an option.

Pro Bono Attorney Nancy Arevalo: Report from the Migrant Caravan

Pro Bono Attorney Nancy Arevalo: Report from the Migrant Caravan

On November 8, 2018, attorney Nancy Arevalo responded to a call for Spanish-speaking immigration attorneys willing to travel to Mexico to provide legal help to refugees traveling with the migrant caravan.

Just two days later, with support from the L4GG (Lawyers for Good Government) Foundation’s Project Corazon Travel Fund, Nancy was on a flight to Queratoro, Mexico. We asked Nancy to share what she experienced in her own words, which are excerpted below.