- Her Justice

Fall 2023

Her Justice testified before the City Council in a hearing concerning legal services for asylum seekers. We emphasized the need for robust support for full legal services/representation for undocumented immigrants and the role Her Justice and our pro bono partners play in the City’s legal ecosystem. | October 18, 2023
Her Justice signed on to a letter to President Biden and the White House urging the administration to immediately end all immigration policies that persecute, exclude, and deport Haitian refugees given conditions in Haiti, including socioeconomic challenges, political instability, and gang violence and crime – aggravated by environmental disaster. | October 12, 2023
Her Justice signed on to a letter to members of the U.S. Congress raising concerns that H.R.2601, which would require entities that contract with the National Human Trafficking Hotline to cooperate with State and local law enforcement agencies when receiving tips via the hotline, would not adequately protect survivors’ need for confidentiality. | September 8, 2023

Summer 2023

Her Justice signed on to a letter spearheaded by ASISTA to Governor Kathy Hochul of New York State encouraging her to sign the Fair Courts for Immigrant New Yorkers bill (A.3057 / S. 5826) into law, which would require criminal courts to provide accurate information about the immigration consequences of convictions prior to acceptance of a plea and permit a noncitizen defendant time to assess immigration consequences. | August 21, 2023
Her Justice contributed to an amicus brief that ASISTA and the National Immigration Litigation Alliance submitted in an appeal in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington urging for judicial review of immigration agency decisions in the U nonimmigrant visa adjustment of status process. | June 26, 2023
Her Justice and other legal service providers signed on to a letter in support of Catholic Charities Community Services, which suspended Immigration Court Helpdesk services for the month of June in protest against abusive behavior by the security guards at 26 Federal Plaza towards their staff and stakeholders. | June 6, 2023

Spring 2023

Her Justice prepared a memorandum in support of the N.Y. Access to Representation Act (S.00999/ A.00170), which would create a right to counsel for anyone in New York facing deportation who cannot afford legal representation on their own and provide much needed funding to build the supply of legal representation services, including social services support, to meet the demand throughout New York State. | March 24, 2023
Her Justice along with other women’s rights, gender equity, and reproductive justice organizations, supported a letter to Governor Hochul and Members of the NYS Senate and Assembly advocating for the passage of the Nail Salon Minimum Standards Council Act (S.1800/A.378), an innovative labor policy that would create a sectoral council of workers and small business owners to help set new labor standards in nail salons across NYS. Her Justice supported this measure because poor working conditions in nail salons overwhelmingly impact immigrant women of color, and Her Justice is committed to economic justice for these New Yorkers. | March 22, 2023
Her Justice, along with other organizations that serve survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking, submitted comments in response to the Department of Homeland Security’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit Request Requirements, urging consistent exemption from filing fees for all survivor-based categories to reduce confusion among survivors as well as the service providers that work with them. | March 9, 2023
Her Justice, as a member of I-ARC, signed on to a letter urging an extension of the public comment period related to rulemaking around the Biden administration’s Title 42 border policy. | March 1, 2023

Winter 2023

Her Justice, as a member of I-ARC, joined other civil, human rights, and immigrant rights groups in a letter opposing the Biden administration’s announcement of a plan to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to resurrect Trump-era asylum bans. | January 18, 2023
Her Justice signed on to a letter to the U.S. House of Representatives urging a “no” vote on the “Border Safety and Security Act,” which would seal off all borders and ports of entry to asylum seekers if Department of Homeland Security agents cannot detain or return to Mexico all arriving asylum seekers and migrants. | January 12, 2023
Her Justice, as a member of I-ARC, joined other immigrants’ rights groups in a letter opposing Governor Hochul’s nomination of Justice Hector LaSalle to serve as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. | January 10, 2023

Fall 2022

Her Justice joined the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors and other immigrant survivors’ rights organizations in a letter urging the U.S. Attorney General to overturn certain precedents and expand access to post-conviction and sentencing relief for noncitizen survivors to eliminate oppressive structures that erect barriers to justice and cause further harm to survivors of violence. | December 2, 2022
Her Justice joined other immigrants’ rights organizations in a letter urging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to immediately release written guidance that clarifies the process by which undocumented workers, guestworkers, and others with precarious immigration status who are victims or witnesses of labor exploitation may seek prosecutorial discretion. | November 17, 2022
Her Justice joined other immigrant survivors’ rights organizations in a letter urging President Biden to fulfill the promises the Administration made to immigrant survivors in the National Action Plan to Combat Trafficking and extend the pardon for federal marijuana possession convictions to that group and all immigrants. | November 14, 2022
Her Justice signed on to a letter led by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild urging President Biden to extend the pardon for federal marijuana possession convictions to undocumented immigrants, refugees, asylees, and others in view of the serious and harmful immigration consequences that flow from marijuana convictions. | November 4, 2022
Her Justice joined a group of immigration advocacy organizations to support the Working for Immigrant Safety and Empowerment (“WISE”) Bill being proposed by Rep. Jayapal. The bill would remove barriers to legal status for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other crimes that may be eligible under the Violence Against Act of 1994 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. | October 19, 2022
Her Justice prepared a memorandum in support of the proposed Court Notifications Bill (S.2903A (Kavanagh) /A.9877 (Cruz)), which would increase protections for immigrants facing charges in criminal court by fortifying the court’s obligation to notify people of immigration consequences. The legislation passed both houses of the legislature and is awaiting signature by the Governor. | October 18, 2022
Her Justice, as a member of the steering committee of I-ARC, endorsed the Welcoming New York campaign, which includes work at the federal, state and local levels to ensure that every asylum seeker who makes it to New York has the services, shelter, and care that they need. | October 17, 2022
Her Justice joined the Alliance of Immigrant Survivors and others in a letter urging USCIS to eliminate the one-year employment authorization limit for U-nonimmigrant status-based adjustment of status applicants (which includes Her Justice clients), positing that the lengthy application times for this relief expose survivors of crime to a gap in work authorization documentation and increased instability at work. | October 6, 2022

Summer 2022

Her Justice, as a member of the I-ARC Steering Committee, signed on to a letter led by African immigrant and Black-led community organizations to the federal administration urging Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas to review country conditions and provide an initial 18-month designation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Mali. | August 15, 2022
Her Justice, as a member of the I-ARC Steering Committee, signed on to a letter with other organizations urging the U.S. Senate to vote against any amendment to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that would harm immigrant communities. | August 2, 2022
Her Justice signed on to a letter with other legal services providers and advocates urging the Governor to allocate $3 million from the Empire State Economic Development Fund Program to support legal services for resettled Afghans, as well as tax incentives for employers who hire resettled Afghans within a year of their arrival in New York, through the Empire State Development Program. | August 1, 2022
Her Justice signed on to a letter led by ASISTA, the National Immigration Project, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, and other organizations to the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary addressing the impact of the Dobbs decision on immigrants. | July 19, 2022

Spring 2022

Her Justice partnered with Esperanza United, the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, and ASISTA in meetings with federal Congressional representatives on enhanced appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security to ensure expeditious processing of immigration applications for survivors of gender-based violence, among other priorities.
Her Justice participated in the preparation of public comments relating to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the Prohibition on Inclusion of Adverse Information in Consumer Reporting in Cases of Human Trafficking. The comments, which were submitted in partnership with other advocates working with trafficking survivors and in consumer law issues, including the Center for Survivor Agency and Justice, urged the CFPB to, among other things, prevent credit reporting agencies from reporting information in tenant or background checks, including expunged or sealed criminal records, that would harm survivors seeking stability; to accept a wide array of documentation to prove eligibility as a trafficking survivor under the rules; and to generally address the issue of coerced debt affecting survivors of other coercive and abusive familial relationships. | May 9, 2022
Her Justice signed on to comments drafted by the Alliance of Immigrant Survivors as to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding Inadmissibility on Public Charge supporting the proposed rule which would reverse the broad interpretation of “public charge” under the Trump administration in 2019 that had a harmful chilling effect on survivors (and all low-income immigrants). | April 25, 2022
Her Justice signed on to a letter with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to exert pressure on the Biden Administration to end the use of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that purported to use the law to advance public health/anti-COVID practices but excludes asylees at the southern border. | April 25, 2022
Her Justice participated in a lobby day spearheaded by the New York Immigration Coalition to bring attention to the New York for All Act, state legislation that would prohibit all local law enforcement and state agencies from conspiring with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. Her Justice has previously supported this legislation. | April 21, 2022
Her Justice, along with national and statewide organizations that work with survivors of gender-based violence, signed on to a letter to U.S. House and Senate members of the Appropriations Committee highlighting the harmful delays in applications for relief under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), and urging consideration of the needs of immigrant survivors in formulating the Department of Homeland Security fiscal year appropriations budget. | March 31, 2022
Her Justice and other allies signed on to a letter to Governor Hochul urging the State to adopt the $64.5 Million AAPI Equity Budget to fund, among other things, community-based organizations providing services to Asian American Pacific Islander communities. | March 30, 2022
Her Justice submitted testimony for a hearing held by the New York City Council’s Committee on Immigration relating to the needs of immigrant survivors of gender-based violence and domestic violence/intimate partner violence. | March 14, 2022
Her Justice signed on to a letter, along with other legal and social services providers, applauding the decision of the Department of Homeland Security to designate Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status for 18 months and urging the administration to offer the same protection to other immigrants facing similarly extreme conditions in their countries of birth. | March 7, 2022