With your support, we have scored more wins, pushed back against threats to democracy and progress, and amplified the voices of a broad cross section of Americans in government policymaking. Here’s the latest.
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A Path to Permanent Residence Restored for Tens of Thousands of People: Many recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the U.S. have lived in the country for decades, establishing families, businesses, and strong community ties. In 2019, a longstanding pathway to permanent residence for TPS recipients was revoked by Ken Cuccinelli, who was unlawfully appointed by the Trump administration to run the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We sued on behalf of seven individuals and the Central American Resource Center. Last month, in response to our suit, USCIS agreed to restore the path to permanent residence, which will impact thousands of TPS recipients.
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Opposing Attempts to Weaken Worker Layoff Protections: The federal WARN Act ensures that working people have a right to be notified ahead of a mass layoff. Yet, efforts to weaken the Act’s protections are moving through the courts. A court in Florida rejected a misinterpretation of the Act that would harm workers laid off due to economic downturns caused by COVID-19, just as we argued in our brief on behalf of a coalition of unions and workers’ rights advocates.
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Protecting Tenants and Communities: San Francisco’s Expedited Conversion Program (ECP), which permits landlords to voluntarily convert their buildings into valuable condominiums, protects tenants from eviction following condo conversion. This program is being attacked in the courts. Representing a broad coalition, we filed a brief urging the court to reject claims against ECP. Our brief explains that not only is allowing property owners to convert buildings to condos voluntary and legal, but also that attacks on the program seriously threaten cities’ ability to protect tenants from displacement.
- Supporting Diversity on Corporate Boards: In December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a rule proposed by NASDAQ that requires the boards of Nasdaq-listed companies to include at least one self-identified female and at least one underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+ person or disclose to investors why they don’t. The SEC’s approval of NASDAQ’s rule has been challenged by special interests. Read the brief we filed alongside Lambda Legal on behalf of academic experts in business, management, and economics underscoring the strong evidence linking board diversity and corporate performance.
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Defending Health Equity Measures and Exposing Misleading Claims of “Reverse Racism”: We represented a coalition of nearly 20 major medical and public health organizations, including the National Medical Association and the American Medical Association, in defending guidance issued by New York City and New York State permitting medical professionals to consider race or ethnicity in evaluating COVID-19 treatment needs. This guidance was attacked in court by right-leaning legal groups as “reverse racism” when, in reality, it seeks to address structural and systemic inequities that have contributed to BIPOC people experiencing higher rates of severe illness and death during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a setback to the far-right’s harmful and divisive agenda, courts have dismissed two of these suits.
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Investigating Use of Taxpayer Dollars to Prop Up Right-Wing Media: DirecTV announced on Jan. 14 it plans to drop OAN, a far-right outlet that has been criticized for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. In March, Republican attorneys general in six states sent a letter to DirecTV, urging the satellite-TV provider to reverse its decision to drop One America News Network citing “viewpoint discrimination.” We’ve sent public records requests to all six states seeking to uncover their communications with OAN and other conservative media outlets on this and other matters.
- Ensuring Safe & Equitable Access to Air Travel: Unfortunately, air travel remains inequitable, challenging, and dangerous for many people with disabilities. On behalf of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, we petitioned the U.S. Department of Transportation to take action to ensure safe & equitable access to air travel for all people.
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Preventing Unjust Convictions: Some forensic techniques used in criminal investigations and trials are simply not rooted in sound scientific principles. On behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, we submitted a comment letter in support of proposed changes to the Federal Rules of Evidence that would ensure minimum standards of reliability for forensic evidence in criminal cases. These standards are essential to preventing the unjust conviction of innocent people.
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Combating Human Trafficking Through a Racial Equity Lens: Each year, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 minors are at risk of trafficking from and within the United States. Black people make up 40 percent of trafficking victims, and Latinx people make up 24 percent. Indigenous peoples, people of color, immigrants, and people who identify as LGBTQ+ are more likely to experience the risks that make people vulnerable to human trafficking. To help address this glaring disparity, the U.S. Department of State sought information on how best to incorporate a racial equity lens into federal anti-trafficking efforts. Democracy Forward provided support to a coalition of 36 organizations as they shared their expertise and urged the agency to center victims, incorporate considerations of racism in anti-trafficking efforts and prioritize holding sex buyers accountable.
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Strengthening Community Health Through Technology: On behalf of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), we submitted a comment to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy describing the overwhelming research that dispensing mifepristone, a medication used for medication abortion and medical management of early pregnancy loss, via telehealth is safe and effective. Eliminating unnecessary restrictions on access to mifepristone promotes equity.
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Democracy Forward experts Samara Spence and Robin Thurston explain how the regulatory process needs to include all voices in a new piece published by The Regulatory Review.
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Daily Kos wrote about the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) beneficiaries who had been blocked from a path to legal status and will once again be able to access permanent residency thanks to our lawsuit.
