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Immigrant rights lawyers call out ICE, as courthouse arrests increase
Stay Vigilant
ChangeLawyers grant partner California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ) is sounding the alarm. Lisa Knox, executive director of CCIJ :
“My message here today is, don’t feel like you have to avoid the court. You’re not alone. We’re all here for you. There is a whole community of people who are here to support youâŚWe want to remind people that they have a right to oppose any attempt by the government to dismiss their case – they have the right to talk to a volunteer lawyer for advice and they have the right to talk to a volunteer if ICE is trying to arrest them.â
Across California, ICE has increased the use of legally-suspect tactics, such as wearing plainclothes without clear identification.
Law firms who denounced White House enjoy support and new clients
Speaking Of...
In retrospect, the decision by 4 law firmsâJenner & Block, Perkins Coie, Susman Godfrey and WilmerHaleâ to fight the White House through the courts is paying off.
The Wall Street Journal reports: âAt least 11 big companies are giving â or intend to give â more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisionsâ
The goodwill also extends to mid-sized firms who were vocal in their support of the rule of law. Keker Van Nest & Peters, a ChangeLawyers partner, has never been better known according to managing partner Laurie Carr Mims: âOur firm is now known more broadly than itâs ever been known in the legal community and even beyond the legal community.â
I am an Arab-Jewish lawyer. I resigned from the DOJ when they tried to use antisemitism to undermine free speech.
More Of This
Lily Sawyer-Kaplan began her legal career as clerk on the 9th Circuit and then the DC District Court, before become a lawyer at the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ.
Sawyer-Kaplan is both Jewish and Arab, and she saw first-hand how DOJ leadership was trying to drive a wedge between her two identities.
âThe current leadership in this office purports to âprotectâ the Jewish side of my family from antisemitism. It is true that antisemitism is historically rooted and ongoingâŚ[but] efforts to combat antisemitism cannot come at the expense of a functioning liberal democracy. The Trump administrationâs policies and rhetoric will not keep Jews safe.â
Why did conservative judges overturn the will of the voters?
Less Of This
Last November, Missouri voters shocked the nation when they voted for a ballot measure establishing reproductive rights in one of the reddest states.
Six months later, the state Supreme Court made abortion illegal again. UC Davis Law professor Mary Ziegler argues in an essay for Slate that âwhat is happening in Missouri is still a sign about the limits of ballot measures.â
