PSJD Public Interest News Digest – December 13, 2019
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! Big news this week included revised plans for legal aid funding out of Ontario and a Department of Education decision not to issue full refunds to student debt-holders who were victims of fraud by for-profit colleges. You may also want to give the first article in the immigration section a look. I’d say more, but unfortunately I have to run.
See you around,
Sam
Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues
- BuzzFeed reported that “US Border Officials Are Issuing Fake Court Notices to Keep Out Immigrants Who Have Won Asylum[.]”
- Minnesota Lawyer reported that “[w]hile the government previously targeted immigrants with a criminal history, undocumented immigrants today are being put into removal proceedings even though they have no criminal record in the United States, lawyers say. As a result, a backlog of immigration cases is clogging the docket…across the country. Immigration attorneys say the sheer number of cases has outstripped their ability to help asylum-seekers. The [DOJ] has instructed immigration judges to pick up the pace of their cases.”
- In California, “[a]n immigration nonprofit accused [ICE] in [] federal court [] of preventing detainees from calling its hotline for reporting detention center abuses.” (Nonprofit Quarterly also covered this story.)
- In Utah, “a federal judge…decided.. [that p]eople born in the territory of American Samoa should be recognized as U.S. citizens[.]”
Student Loans & Student Debt
- In Washington DC, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos came under intense scrutiny from congressional Democrats on Thursday for refusing to fully forgive student loans for people who say they have been defrauded by for-profit colleges. DeVos has instead proposed a loan forgiveness plan based on earnings data.”
- In Pennsylvania, the Penn Capital-Star published a profile of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, titled “How an obscure Pa. state agency became one of the nation’s biggest student loan servicers.”
- The Chronicle of Higher Education profiled the various legal challenges to the Trump administrations’ efforts to “roll back student-loan oversight”.
- The Roosevelt Institute published an analysis concluding that “[t]he [US] Education Department could cancel all U.S. student debt itself–and without any action by Congress[.]”
Legal Tchnology
- In Washington DC, “Attorney General William P. Barr [] signaled that the Justice Department plans to [] explor[e] new legal tools to probe [tech] companies for their privacy abuses and the way they police content online.”
- In Fresno CA, “[t]he Fresno Public Defender’s Office and Uptrust the social justice text messaging communication platform, has [sic] announced a partnership to reduce the number of Failure to Appear (FTA) incidents, arrest warrants and technical violations in the county.”
- In Pennsylvania, “the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled [last month] that it is a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination to compel a defendant to disclose a password to allow policy access to a “lawfully seized, but encrypted, computer.”
- In New York NY, the city’s “Automated Decision System Task Force” “failed at even completing a first necessary step in its work: getting access to basic information about automated systems already in use, according to task force members and observers.”
- Meanwhile, AI Now Institute published a shadow report last week that, according to CityLab, “has issued a stark warning cry about ‘the limitations of existing bureaucratic procedures’ to tackle automated decisions.”\
- Fast Company reported on “[a] new chatbot called Mona, designed for Facebook Messenger and Telegram, [that is designed to] get reliable information and services on[to] the same platforms that refugees are already using, and reach them on their own terms with information and services that they [can] use when they actually need it most[.]”
Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring
- LegalNewsLine published a warning from a partner at ReedSmith that “[c]ity, county and tribal governments’ strategy of hiring private lawyers in opioid and other litigation is causing a ‘misalignment of the values’ between those entities and the traditional primacy of state attorneys general[.]”
- In Dallas-Fort Worth TX, “[u]nion representatives for Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas employees [picketed] the group’s board meeting.”
- In Houston TX, “[a] coalition of advocates, legal groups and a workers’ union [opposed] the district attorney’s upcoming budget request for 58 more prosecutors and questioning her commitment to justice reform.”
- Government Executive analyzed “All the Federal Workforce Provisions Tucked into the Defense Policy Bill[.]”
- In Alberta, the president of the Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association described the province’s working conditions for prosecutors as “a state of continual crisis[.]”
- In Philadelphia PA, “Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, the 41-year-old pro bono legal services organization serving emerging artists and arts organizations, will return to being an independent nonprofit after more than a decade of being funded by the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia’s Arts and Business Council.”
- The Environmental Integrity Project reported that a survey of “annual expenditures and staffing levels from fiscal year 2008 to 2018 for state agencies that protect public health and the environment [revealed that] state eliminated 4,400 positions at agencies responsible for protecting the environment.”
- The Arizona Republic reported that “[e]ven in a lengthy economic expansion, many nonprofits still have trouble providing social services and all the other support needed by the community…[as n]ationally, the pattern has been one of lower donations from middle-class sources.”
Access to Justice – Civil
- In Toronto ON, the province’s “attorney general [] cancell[ed] planned cuts to legal aid funding, but this year’s 30-per-cent budget cut is being made permanent.”
- In Canada more broadly, the Globe and Mail reported that “[l]egal experts say the justice system is failing Canada’s working poor, many of whom are unable to afford lawyers and end up pleading guilty or representing themselves in court.”
- NextCity Magazine surveyed changes in local government to ask, “Is Tenants’ Right to Counsel on Its Way to Becoming Standard Practice?”
Access to Justice – Criminal
- In Wyoming, the State Public Defender, who “has warned the Legislature that her office is essentially in crisis due to heavy caseloads and struggles to retain attorneys,” “spoke in favor of Gov. Mark Gordon’s budget proposal for the 2021-22 biennium[.]”
- In Maine, “[t]he Main Legislature’s government watchdog agency [announced] a more thorough investigation into how the state provides legal services for the poor, with a specific focus on the oversight of the program and its procedures.”
Criminal Justice Reform
- In North Carolina, “[t]he State Judicial Council convened…to discuss judicial branch reforms and to push for increased funding…for improved case management, bail reform, and improved drug treatment courts…It was the first time the council had convened in five years[.]”
- In New Hampshire, “[Governor] Sununu appoint[ed a] former public defender to head [the] parole board.” The new Chairman, Jennifer Brooke Sargent, also has experience as a judge and a prosecutor.