Victory! Migrant Justice settles with ICE-colluding Vermont DMV

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Human rights organization Migrant Justice and the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles have reached a settlement in a federal anti-discrimination lawsuit. The case, Migrant Justice v. Nielsen, stems from the DMV’s practice of information-sharing and collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), targeting Latinx drivers license applicants. 

“With this settlement, the state of Vermont makes good on its promise to guarantee access to driver’s licenses without discrimination,” said Migrant Justice leader and suit plaintiff Enrique Balcazar. “Though justice delayed is justice denied for the many whose lives have been ruined by the DMV’s harmful collaboration with ICE, we firmly believe that this settlement will put an end to that abuse of power going forward. Vermont’s immigrant community can now safely exercise this hard-fought right.”

Read more about this victory on our website.

Trump's "desperate" appeal to get the Supreme Court to life block on public charge immigration rule

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After losing on an emergency stay motion in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the Trump administration filed a motion with the Supreme Court asking that the injunction barring implementation of its public charge rule, also known as the “immigration wealth test,” be lifted before the injunction is due to be argued in the Second Circuit on expedited appeal. 

The Trump administration is grasping at straws in their desperate attempt to expedite implementation of their racist wealth test for immigrants even before the government’s appeals have been heard by the circuit courts. We hope that the Supreme Court sees this motion for what it truly is and immediately denies it. Now, more than ever, it is critical that the public charge policy, which the lower courts called ‘repugnant to the American Dream of prosperity and opportunity through hard work and upward mobility,’ continues to be blocked.

Every day our injunction remains in effect it protects millions of hard-working immigrant families across the nation.

Read our full statement on our website.

Freedom Flicks - "A Bitter Legacy"

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On Thursday, January 30, we’re partnering with Tsuru for Solidarity, New York City Day of Remembrance (NYC DOR), and the Japanese American Citizens League – New York to bring you a free screening of "A Bitter Legacy," a feature documentary on the history of Japanese-American detention during WWII. 

"A Bitter Legacy" investigates the "Citizen Isolation Centers," harsh and secret prisons created within the Japanese-American incarceration camp system to separate citizens deemed “trouble-makers” by the U.S. government from their peers. These secret prisons have been called precursors to Guantánamo.

The screening will be held at the Helen Mills Theater at 7 p.m. Following the film, Advocacy Program Manager Aliya Hussain will moderate a discussion with Staff Attorney Diala Shamas, filmmaker Claudia Katayanagi, and ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Carl Takei, about the legacy of Japanese-American incarceration during World War II and the criminalization of other communities in the name of national security.

For more information and to RSVP, head to our events page.

The Activist Files Podcast: Restitution and repair - a discussion on reparations with Dr. Ron Daniels and Marbre Stahly-Butts

“There is no path to justice without adequate remedy to repair the material harms and the perpetual legacy of slavery.” On the 22nd episode of “The Activist Files,” our Associate Executive Director Donita Judge, talks about reparations with Dr. Ron Daniels, president of the National African American Reparations Commission and past executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Marbre Stahly-Butts, executive director of Law 4 Black Lives and a member of the leadership team of the Movement For Black Lives Policy Table, who helped develop the Vision for Black Lives Policy Platform.

Ron and Marbre discuss their respective platforms that demand for reparations for Black people — how they overlap and differ; the shifts in H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African-Americans Act; how tools, such as The New York Times’ 1619 Project and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “The Case for Reparations” published in The Atlantic, have caused a surge in the reparations movement; and the obligation to continue the work for reparations for Black people based on the legacy of activists who have been in this space since before the Civil War.

Listen to the episode on our website.