Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) applaud the introduction of the New Way Forward Act by U.S. House Representatives Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Pramila Jayapal, Karen Bass, and Ayanna Pressley.
Nonprofits serving immigrant communities and advocates for racial equity, health, children, farmworkers, and working families today filed suit to block implementation of the Trump administration’s “public charge” regulation, which threatens millions of immigrant families — disproportionally families of color. La Clínica de la Raza et al. v. Trump et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asks the court to declare the regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unlawful and unconstitutional. DHS finalized the regulation on August 14, 2019.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a final rule making sweeping changes to the "public charge" test that will disproportionately block immigrants of color from obtaining lawful permanent residency, also known as green cards, inhibit immigrant workers and foreign students from extending or changing their visas, and undermine the ability of green card holders to re-enter the U.S. if they have spent more than 6 months abroad. The new rule dramatically expands the public charge ground of exclusion from a limited inquiry into whether an immigrant relies on the government for cash assistance or institutional care to an extraordinarily broad test that will exclude anyone who may use, at any time in the future, one of the supplemental benefits that millions of working Americans rely upon, such as non-emergency Medicaid, food stamps, and subsidized housing.
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.
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.