Emergency: Stop Human Rights Abuses at the Southern border

Dear Community,

When I asked you to step up in response to the Muslim ban in 2017, you did. When babies were being torn from their parents’ arms in 2018, you joined the fight. And when thousands of families were living in unsanitary, makeshift refugee camps at the border in 2019, the L4GG community stepped up yet again, establishing a full-time legal clinic for asylum seekers in the Rio Grande Valley. For years we have stood together, helping save thousands of lives and fighting for the rights of asylum seekers at the border. But over the past few weeks the situation at the border has gotten significantly worse - and unfortunately I have to ask for your help one more time. 

Please, take a moment to read this post and learn about the gross human rights abuses we are trying to prevent. You can make a difference in this fight. 

First, CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) is now mandating that asylum seeker use a mobile app called CBP One to request exemptions from Title 42. Without an exemption, asylum seekers at our southern border are unable to cross into the United States and make their claim for asylum - but the only way to get an exemption is through an app that has raised numerous concerns regarding the accuracy of its technology, inequities in its accessibility, and potential privacy risks. In addition to excluding LGBTQ+ individuals from being able to seek safety in the U.S., our Project Corazon staff have also seen other troubling issues with the app, including:
 

• Getting an appointment in the app is the only way to seek asylum currently and it is nearly impossible, as the limited slots released daily fill up instantaneously. Most asylum seekers are stuck waiting in tents in Mexico without the ability to secure an appointment.

  • Asylum seekers like Waleska, a Honduran trans woman fleeing violence. Although she finally got a phone after all of her belongings were stolen in Mexico, the CBP One app slows down each morning when appointments become available, and she hasn’t secured one yet. 

• Asylum seekers suffering medical emergencies are required to secure appointments weeks in advance, leaving them at risk of dying in Mexico as they wait to secure and attend an appointment. 

  • Asylum seekers like the Julian family, whose 4-year-old child was extremely sick with a potentially cancerous tumor. They were forced to wait nearly a week while we fought their case; meanwhile, their child had difficulties eating and was at risk of missing her window of opportunity for treatment.

• Families are being left behind; appointments must be secured for each family member at the same time, which is virtually impossible due to limited availability. 

  • Families like the Hernandez family, who have four children and to date have not been able to secure six appointments together. Mom and Dad, who fled Venezuela after a police attack, must wait together in Matamoros for an appointment for a chance at keeping their family together.

A family waits to apply for asylum from inside a refugee camp in Reynosa, MX.

Second, and to make matters worse, in a court filing last week, the Biden Administration announced it intends to issue a proposed rule known as the “transit ban,” a rule that will block any person who has traveled through a third-country on their way to the border, including Mexico, from seeking asylum.

This proposed policy will directly cause death and trauma. More than 95% of our current clients, including those fighting tooth and nail for exemptions in the CBP One app would be disqualified from seeking asylum. Without reaching our borders, many of our clients will die. 

We Need Your Help. L4GG has been working on the Hill and coordinating with other organizations about the issues with the CBP One app, and we will now be joining larger advocacy efforts against the transit ban. But we cannot do this alone. 

We need the country’s eyes on this issue if we want something to change. 
 

1. Urge your Senators and Representatives to join this letter about the transit ban and the CBP One app issues currently being led by Reps. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ). 

   • If you have any connections on the Hill, please work with staffers in your network to urge Members of Congress to join this letter. The deadline to sign the letter is this Friday, February 17th at 2 pm ET.
      

2.  Please share this post with like-minded justice warriors and/or members of the media in your network. In particular, we need the media to cover the impact of these policies on the people at the border. L4GG is ready to help tell these stories.
    

   • We’re continuing to compile examples of how this policy impacts migrants. If you’re an immigration attorney and would like to share your experience, please reply to this email.
      

3. Donate to Lawyers for Good Government and Project Corazon. Your support makes it possible for us to defend against human rights abuses. Every dollar helps.

Thank you for joining in this fight. By lifting up our voices together, we can and will save lives, protect LGBTQ+ people from abuse, and keep families together. We will keep you updated as we continue to advocate for humane immigration policies.

In solidarity,
Traci

Traci Feit Love
Founder and Executive Director
Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG)

L4GG Statement on the Killing of Tyre Nichols

We are horrified by the senseless killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers, not only for the extreme brutality on display, but also because police acts of violence are an all too common phenomenon in our country today. 

2022 was the highest year on record for individuals killed by police: more than 1192 people lost their lives. And Black people were 26% of those killed by police in 2022 despite being only 13% of the population.

We must end the corrupt policing system that continues to produce these horrific acts of violence, disproportionately harming Black Americans. As an organization, we join the call to end pretextual traffic stops, and for the Federal Departments on Transportation and Justice to use their authority to hold responsible parties to account. 

Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG) remains committed to the fight for racial justice. Last year, we produced a report documenting the ways in which police officers in school settings regularly commit abuses against children and are protected from being held accountable by our nation’s qualified immunity laws. Regardless of whether an officer is in a school setting or conducting a traffic stop, police officers must never be allowed to abuse the power conferred on them by the government - and when they do abuse that power, they must be held accountable. L4GG will continue to stand with and work alongside communities most directly impacted by systemic racism and oppression.

Learn more about our Lawyers for Racial Justice Initiative: L4GG.org/RacialJustice

Lawyers for Good Government's 2023 Goals

Lawyers for Good Government has been hard at work laying the groundwork to achieve our 2023 goals! We are excited to share those foundational goals with you and expand on what our various programs will be doing to reach them.

We are in this fight for equal justice and human rights together. With your help, we can achieve things that would otherwise be impossible. Read ahead to see how you can participate in and support these crucial efforts!

GOAL #1: SAVE LIVES & DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS

In 2023, your support will continue to save lives at the Southern border. Last year, Project Corazon was able to help 1347 asylum seekers secure entry into the U.S. This year, we plan to expand our full-time legal clinic in the Rio Grande Valley to assist approximately 3,500 asylum seekers. We will also expand into the interior of the U.S. to provide remote legal services to hundreds of asylum seekers and refugees who require assistance to legally remain and work here. Learn how you can be a part of this critical work here.

Meanwhile, we will continue executing the Reproductive Health & Legal Assistance Project with the collaboration of more than 500 pro bono volunteers and more than 50 law firm and corporate legal department partners, as well as L4GG’s new Reproductive Justice Staff Attorney, Alyssa Morrison. RHLAP helps pregnant patients access needed medical care by researching by sharing ongoing, up-to-date legal guidance for reproductive healthcare providers. Volunteer with this cause by watching this webinar and following the instructions on how to get started!

Additionally, our Climate Change and Environmental Justice team will spearhead their newly launched Climate Funding Clinic, which will provide free, direct legal advice to 20 frontline communities to assist them in obtaining federal funding for climate resilience, clean energy, and climate justice projects. If you’d like to volunteer to help these efforts, please fill out this form.

GOAL #2: HELP WIN STATE-LEVEL POLICY FIGHTS FOR EQUITY, JUSTICE, AND CIVIL RIGHTS

In 2023, we will continue empowering and inspiring thousands of lawyers and law students across the country to fight for racial justice, equity, and civil rights at the state level through the State Legislative Advocacy Academy (SLAA). In addition to training opportunities for the larger L4GG community, we will directly coach and work with 20 State Advocacy Leaders who will help mobilize the larger L4GG community in support of state legislative wins. Register for SLAA here!

Meanwhile, our Policy & Strategic Engagement team will expand partnerships with mission-aligned frontline groups doing grassroots legislative advocacy on key issue areas (racial justice, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants’ rights, and climate justice). With pro bono support, we were able to publish/update 6 policy reports in 2022. This year, we strive to research and produce at least 9 policy reports supported by high-impact, consistently maintained databases. We will also design an effective, innovative training program to empower at least 300 pro bono attorneys in our network to deliver exceptional legal research in support of policy work. Interested? Make sure you’re subscribed to learn more in the coming months!

GOAL #3: INCREASE PRO BONO PARTICIPATION & ATTORNEY ENGAGEMENT

In 2023, we aim to mobilize $25 million in pro bono legal services. We also plan to add at least 15 new pro bono partners (law firms and/or in-house legal departments) through consistent outreach, meetings with potential partners, and expansion of pro bono opportunities.

Our Pro Bono Initiatives team will increase levels of pro bono participation for individual attorneys by 50% through increasing the number of opportunities available to them, raising awareness of L4GG programs, and making it easier for volunteers to find and participate in relevant opportunities.

Furthermore, we will design and implement a calendar of educational opportunities throughout the year to help at least 1,250 lawyers and law students use their legal skills to bring about positive change for individuals, communities, and/or the public at large. Make sure you’re subscribed to stay in the loop about these opportunities!

your involvement and support is key!

2022 could not have been L4GG’s most impactful year without the support of folks like YOU that make up our L4GG community. Let’s work together in 2023 to continue tackling these pressing issues and use our unique skills as lawyers to fight for good government!

L4GG Releases Report Finding That Police Officers in Schools Escape Even Basic Liability For Hurting Kids

A new report from Lawyers for Good Government shows that school police are held even less accountable for abuses than cops overall due to court-created norms that give them nearly limitless power.

Today, L4GG released a report which finds that police in schools often get away with abusing children. This is due to the confluence of two contentious court-created legal standards: qualified immunity and the court’s interpretation of their duty to maintain order in the school. Together, they give school police, administrators and teachers nearly limitless power, while abdicating them of their responsibilities under the Constitution and despite us finding nearly 250 instances of documented in-school abuse of children by officers pledged to their care. Children’s rights are swept aside, leaving them without any protection from beatings, handcuffings, false arrest and even sexual violence. 

A map of states where students have lower constitutional protection from abuse.

Moreover, the report finds that the presence of police in schools is correlated with more punitive discipline, higher rates of referrals to law enforcement and on-campus arrests, lower grades and decreased graduation rates, and more.

In particular, the report finds that:

• School police officers are immune from being held accountable for violations of civil rights. An absurd application of the law results in cops getting away with wide-ranging, unconstitutional offenses against minors, such as strip searches, isolation, and excessive force that results in injuries, such as a broken arm.

• Although many imagine that increased law enforcement personnel in schools will protect children from rare mass school shootings, in practice, school police officers instead arrest and brutalize children over minor disciplinary issues. 

• Police in schools do not make them more safe from school shootings — instead, police in schools over-police children of color and students with disabilities, leaving them traumatized and underprotected.

• Over 500 national, state, and local organizations support removing permanent police presence from schools.

• School “safety” overall is an over $2.7 billion dollar industry, while public schools nationwide are underfunded by $150 billion annually. 

This report is especially relevant as students across the nation continue to suffer abuse at the hands of school cops - just this month, a 15-year-old student in Rockford, IL was body-slammed by a police officer and suffered a fractured skull and permanent brain damage.

Schools are not prisons. It is time for policymakers to stop pushing policies that make schools resemble prisons instead of the nurturing educational environment they are supposed to be.

““Our findings are clear: not only do police make schools less safe for students, there is also a dangerous lack of basic accountability for police misconduct in schools. Increasing the number of police officers in our schools would be ​​dangerous to the health, well-being and focus of our public school students, particularly students of color. We must provide better state level protections from police in school misconduct, stop investing in school police officers, and start investing instead in effective interventions that make schools a safer learning environment, like stationing counselors, nurses, psychologists, and social workers.” ”

— Mika Fernandez, L4GG Vice President of Policy and Strategic Engagement

Click here to read “Armed, Dangerous, and Outside the Law: How School Resource Officers Escape Even Basic Liability for Hurting Kids”

L4GG Releases Report Finding $2T in Federal Funds May Not Benefit Communities Most Vulnerable to Climate Change In States Lacking Equity Policy Guidelines

A groundbreaking report from Lawyers for Good Government identifies significant gaps in crucial information needed for decision-makers and communities in many states to target Biden funding to frontline “Disadvantaged Communities”

L4GG today released an interactive report compiling critical guidance on state-level policies surrounding how to access the recently-authorized federal infrastructure funding. The report found that many states lack the necessary information they need to allocate this funding to communities most vulnerable to climate change, such as those in Jackson, Mississippi, without clean water and coastal communities in Florida experiencing catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Ian.

A map of which states have defined “Disadvantaged Community” for the purposes of determining disproportionate environmental burden around energy and climate, from the report.

Money on the Table: The federal government authorized a historic $2 trillion investment in green energy and infrastructure through recent climate and infrastructure bills (Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s Infrastructure Law of 2021, and the American Rescue Plan Act). Over the next five years, this funding will be distributed to states and local governments to address infrastructure, clean energy, and climate change. Additionally, Biden’s Justice40 Initiative requires at least 40% of these federal investments in climate and clean energy go to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. However, there is no clear definition of “disadvantaged community” in each state to help decision-makers target the funding to where it’s needed most. 

Information on disadvantaged communities is 1) not consolidated 2) nearly impossible to find and 3) extremely inconsistent. To make matters more complicated, each state has different metrics for defining a “disadvantaged community”.

Summary of Findings: L4GG’s new report is an interactive document that allows stakeholders from each state (including Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C) to identify the defined communities that fall under Biden’s Justice40 Initiative. The report also provides any known existing or proposed state level policies for J40 implementation, and identifies relevant state-level decision makers and agencies regulating climate, energy, water, and infrastructure to facilitate community engagement and ensure coordination between agencies.

The report finds that:

• Only 31% of states have an established definition of “disadvantaged community” in the climate or equity space.

• Only 25% of states have an active map identifying “disadvantaged communities.”

• Only 17% of states have existing or proposed guidance directly related to implementing Biden’s J40 initiative.

• Only 44% of states with existing equity guidance consider race a criteria in designating underserved communities, which is critical to addressing environmental racism.

• While the White House asked all states to identify a specific infrastructure manager or coordinator for implementation of these funds, only 54% of states have publicly identified such a manager or manager teams.

The report not only helps to identify the communities states need to prioritize, but also provides communities with critical information to make their voices heard, including contact information for state decision makers. Policymakers need this information to upgrade infrastructure and build climate resilience projects for vulnerable communities that have historically been ignored. If they don’t get the crucial information found in this report, this funding may end up exacerbating climate inequities rather than combating them.

“Implementing the recent and massive federal investment in climate change could either be done in a way that enhances our nation’s prosperity or widen its gulfs of inequity. Sometimes the biggest barrier to entry is lack of information, so our goal is to help every local community impacted by climate change have the information they need in order to apply for federal funding for new climate change resilience and clean energy projects and to make their voices heard by state-level decision makers holding the purse strings.”

— Jillian Blanchard, Director of L4GG’s Climate Change Program

Click here to read “Will $2 Trillion in Climate and Infrastructure Investments Go Where It’s Needed Most: A 50-State Survey of State Policies and Decision Makers to Help Ensure Federal Investments Go to “Disadvantaged Communities” Under Biden’s J40 Initiative

What can YOU do to fight for abortion access after Dobbs?

UPDATE - Please Join our Emergency Call on Tuesday, 6/28 at 3pm ET - How Lawyers Can Fight for Abortion Access and Other Civil and Human Rights. This is an on-demand webinar and all registrants will receive a copy of the webinar (even if you’re reading this after 6/28).

The Supreme Court today ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, an indefensible decision that strips away a fundamental and constitutional right to bodily autonomy. It’s a shattering blow that will harm millions and impact all of us. 

Half of the states in the U.S. are now likely to follow suit and severely restrict or ban abortion. As a result, even more people will be forced to travel hundreds of miles out of state or carry pregnancies to term against their will in violation of their human rights. 

Millions of individuals across the U.S. still need abortion care. The right to decide whether or when to have a child is essential for social, economic, and racial equality. 

DOING NOTHING IN THE FACE OF THIS DECISION IS NOT AN OPTION.

Here are 4 concrete things you can do to help fight for abortion access:

1. Get Informed: Learn what the Dobbs decision means for your state or territory. What is the current status of abortion access in your state? Do you know if your state has a pre-Roe ban on abortion that was never repealed and might be enforced once again? Does your state have a trigger ban that is intended to ban abortion if the Supreme Court limits or overturns Roe? To learn more about the status of abortion rights in your state or territory, we recommend two policy maps, one from the Center for Reproductive Rights and one from Guttmacher Institute here.
   

2. Volunteer your time and expertise to help protect abortions in your state. We must pursue proactive protections beyond the courts and focus our efforts on building power from the ground up, at the state and local levels. Below are a few ways you can do that.
   

   • If you’re a lawyer or a law student, sign up for L4GG’s new State Legislative Advocacy Academy, a first-of-its-kind training series for lawyers to learn how to use their unique skills and privilege to influence public policy in their home states. Members of our initial lawyer cohort will go through a multi-part training in the fall of 2022 ready to fight for abortion access and other key issues in their own state during the 2023 legislative session.
     

   • If you’re a lawyer at a large law firm, ask your pro bono coordinator whether your firm is a Pro Bono Partner of L4GG. If your firm is already a partner, there may be opportunities forthcoming for you to volunteer for abortion access projects that our policy team is working on. If your firm would like to learn more about partnering with us, please ask your pro bono coordinator to email us at probono@L4GG.org.
     

   • If none of the above opportunities is applicable to you, but you'd still like to help, make sure you’re on our email list and check the websites of some of our organizational allies for other ways to volunteer - The Brigid Alliance and the Center for Reproductive Rights are good places to start.
     

3. Donate to the L4GG Action Fund to advance state protections to abortion access and other issues of civil and human rights. L4GG is working on two fronts to protect abortion access and we need your support. First, we’re launching the above-mentioned Advocacy Academy this fall that will mobilize lawyers nationwide to influence public policy in their own states on issues like reproductive and racial justice. Second, we are working in coalition with leading abortion access groups to ensure they have the legal resources they need to enact new state-level protections of abortion care, including providing them with pro bono volunteers and trained state legislative advocates from our Advocacy Academy.
   

4. Support providers, patients, abortion funds, and clinics on the ground. If abortion is protected in your state, support your local providers with the resources they will need to serve out-of-state patients in light of Dobbs. If abortion is not protected in your state, consider supporting the Brigid Alliance or your local Abortion Fund to cover procedures, transportation, lodging, and more. The National Network of Abortion Funds is a great place to start.

If you’re unable to offer money, time, or expertise right now, you can still help by sharing this post with your friends, family, and contacts via email, Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks. Please help us get the word out. 

The L4GG Action Fund is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, and as such donations are not tax-deductible.