The U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to hear three of the Trump Administration’s appeals of decisions that block the Administration from terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). Currently, the federal government is under court order to accept and process renewal applications, but it is not accepting new applications.
Today, the parties in Bhattarai v. Nielsen, a case challenging the termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for people from Nepal and Honduras, asked the Court to enter an order temporarily halting termination of TPS for people from those countries. Under the agreement, TPS for Nepal and Honduras—currently slated to end on June 24, 2019 and January 5, 2020, respectively—would remain in place at least until the appeal in Ramos v. Nielsen, another TPS case, is decided.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles (Advancing Justice-LA) and Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint yesterday to demand greater government transparency about dramatic changes to policies on issuing Notices to Appear (NTA), generally the first step for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to begin deportation proceedings.
Six adults with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and two U.S. citizen children of TPS holders filed a class-action lawsuit today seeking to stop the unlawful termination of TPS for over 100,000 TPS holders from Honduras and Nepal and prevent the separation of tens of thousands of U.S. citizen children from their TPS-holder parents. The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and Sidley Austin.
On January 3, 2019, a federal judge issued a nationwide temporary restraining order preventing ICE from redetaining most Cambodian refugees with final deportation orders without first providing notice.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reportedly meeting with Vietnamese government officials this week to discuss potentially drastic changes to the terms of an agreement that has governed the deportation of individuals to Vietnam since 2008.
This week we had a major victory in our work on behalf of the Cambodian American community, many of whom arrived here as refugees. Last fall, in the wake of the largest immigration raids targeting the Cambodian community, we filed Chhoeun v. Marin, a federal lawsuit on behalf of Cambodians at risk of unlawful arrests and detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This week, the federal judge in Chhoeun ruled that our lawsuit could move forward as a class action.
As June wraps up and Immigrant Heritage Month comes to a close, the Value Our Families coalition flexed a lot of organizing muscle throughout the month to fend off the Trump administration’s sustained attacks on immigrant and refugee families.
The only consensus Speaker Paul Ryan got with his immigration bill today was to let anti-immigrant politicians openly attack and scapegoat immigrants and their families on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a purely symbolic, political act, House leaders forced a floor vote on Rep. Goodlatte’s “Securing America’s Future Act” to appease the extremists in their caucus. Although the Senate says they won’t take up either the Goodlatte or the Ryan-Trump immigration bills, supporters in the House have scheduled the Ryan-Trump bill for a vote tomorrow.
Our mission is to advocate for civil rights, provide legal services and education, and build coalitions to positively influence and impact Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders and to create a more equitable and harmonious society.