PSJD Public Interest News Digest – February 28, 2020
Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives
Hello there, interested public! It’s been a busy few weeks, with ICE officials continuing to make arrests in California state courthouses despite a new state-level ban on the practice and the Supreme Court hearing arguments concerning a 1986 statute making it a crime to “encourage” unauthorized immigration. Student loan debt also remains a key topic, with a new report from the Student Borrower Protection Center arguing that “the use of education data in underwriting private student loans creates economic and racial inequality for borrowers.”
As always, these stories and more are in the links below.
See you around,
Sam
Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Issues
- In Maryland, “Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been permitted to run facial-recognition searches on millions of Maryland driver’s license photos without first seeking state or court approval, state officials said — access that goes far beyond what other states allow and that alarms immigration activists in a state that grants special driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants[.]”
- In Sonoma County CA, “U.S. immigration agents arrested two people at a Northern California courthouse, including a man detained in a hallway on his way to a hearing, flouting a new state law requiring a judicial warrant to make immigration arrests inside such facilities.”
- In Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration is waiving certain procurement regulations to help speed up construction on the border wall…The waivers affect 10 statutes, including requirements for open competition and justifying selections[.]”
- Also in Washington DC, “[t]he Trump administration has issued a hiring freeze for non-asylum officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, pausing any new onboarding for positions related to benefits and programs for legal immigrants.”
- Also also in Washington DC, “[t]he Supreme Court…seemed doubtful that a 1986 federal law that makes it a crime to “encourage” unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the United States could be squared with the First Amendment.”
Student Loans & Student Debt
- In Washington DC, “Trump’s 2020 budget and 2021 budget proposes…the consolidation of income-driven repayment plans and the elimination of Public Service Loan Forgiveness.”
- Meanwhile, “[a] recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicated that income-driven repayment (IDR) plans for student loans are growing rapidly.”
- Also meanwhile, new Department of Education data “[shows that as] more time passes, it is very likely more borrowers will receive forgiveness.”
- Also also in Washington DC, “[l]obbyists on both sides of the debate over U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s borrower-defense rule say it’s increasingly possible that the Republican Senate could join the Democratic House in rebuking the administration over the rule critics say makes it harder for defrauded students to have their education loans forgiven.”
- The Student Borrower Protection Center released a report titled “Educational Redlining”, finding that “the use of education data in underwriting private student loans creates economic and racial inequality for borrowers.”
Legal Technology
- In Washington State, LegEx, “[a] new data visualization tool…developed by [the] University of Washington…draws on bill information made available by the state to enable students, journalists and voters to visually explore the lawmaking process.”
- In New York NY, the N.Y.P.D. announced it “will start expunging some of the 82,000 people in [its DNA] database who have never been convicted of a crime.”
- In Ithaca NY, “Cornell is joining the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), a collaboration of 36 colleges and universities committed to building the field of public interest technology and preparing a generation of civic-minded technologists.”
Non-Profit & Government Management & Hiring
- In the United States, “law students from some of the best law schools in the country…signed a letter to the Judicial Conference asking for specific reforms [to workplace misconduct policies], specifically: publicly reported federal judiciary “climate surveys,” expanding the Office of Judicial Integrity, centralized employment discrimination responses for federal judges, and information-sharing between law schools and the federal judiciary for reports of judicial misconduct.”
- In Washington DC, “[t]he IRS is nearly done with proposed rules that require nonprofits to report income streams separately, an agency official said.”
- Also in Washington DC, “Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) …introduced a bill to provide the District of Columbia Courts and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia with the same authority that federal courts and federal agencies have to offer voluntary separation incentive payments, or buyouts, to their employees.”
Pro Bono Publico
- In Tennessee, “[t]he Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission has released its annual report detailing the pro bono legal service reported by attorneys, bar associations, law firms, law schools, legal service providers, mediators and other organizations.”
- Law.com reported that “[t]he increase of lawyers who spend 50% or more of their time on pro bono work has been driven in part by law firms’ willingness to treat pro bono work the same way they do billable work.”
Access to Justice – Civil
- In Austin TX, “[t]he American Bar Association has passed a resolution that encourages states to consider regulatory changes that could increase low and middle-income Americans’ access to affordable legal services.”
- In Long Beach CA, “[a] new pilot program will bring free representation to low-income renters facing evictions[.]”
- In Alberta, “a group of prominent lawyers sa[id] in an open letter to Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer [that] Alberta’s legal system is in a crisis that may become irreversible if the right steps to fix it aren’t taken.”
- In San Francisco, Open Door Legal, a non-profit “committed to building the nation’s first system of universal access to legal help, has opened two new offices in the Excelsior and Fillmore-Western Addition neighborhoods. ODL was able to open the new legal aid centers thanks to a surge in funding by the City of San Francisco and is now halfway to achieving its vision in the city.”
Access to Justice – Criminal
- In Hays County TX, the County Commissioner’s Court “approved a grant from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC) to participate in a study examining potential benefits of [legal representation at a first appearance before a magistrate for arrestees].”
- In Minnesota, the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder reviewed the ongoing controversy surrounding the abrupt suspension of the Hennepin County Chief Public Defender by the Minnesota Board of Public Defense.
- In Indiana, “[l]egislation headed to the governor’s desk will require judges in all 92 counties to consider the same criteria when determining whether a person lacks sufficient financial resources to hire a private attorney to represent them.”
Criminal Justice Reform
- In Houston TX, “[c]riminal justice advocacy groups…protested the Harris County District Attorney’s Office for using pro bono civil litigation attorneys to help prosecute misdemeanor cases in the Justice of the Peace courts.”
- In Los Angeles CA, “[t]he…County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously…to eliminate many county-imposed criminal justice fees and forgive related debt.”
- In Orlando FL, “[o]ne of Florida’s biggest court jurisdictions plans to start a fund to help low-income people charged with nonviolent offenses pay for bail. The chief prosecutor and the public defender for metro Orlando’s court jurisdiction joined with a prominent law firm on Thursday to create the Community Bail Fund.”