Over the last several weeks, our members and staff have worked around the clock to provide legal support to Chicagoans resisting ICE. Since Trump’s invasion of our state began, we have supported more than 225 people taken into custody. We are reaching out to ask for your financial support as we approach the holiday giving season.
Throughout the last year, our members have gone above and beyond to support Chicago’s social justice movements in the streets and in the courts:
- NLG Legal Observers were dispatched to more than 200 protests!
- Our Mass Defense Committee coordinated free representation for more than 160 people arrested at protests.
- We have operated an emergency response hotline that dispatched attorneys to meet with dozens of people in police custody and worked with our members to locate community members disappeared by federal agents while documenting ICE activity in their neighborhoods.
- Our chapter has also hosted numerous Know Your Rights Trainings throughout the city and offered multiple CLEs to train up more attorneys in movement lawyering.
Your financial support is critical to sustaining and growing these programs. Our work fighting federal repression comes on the heels of mobilizing to support DNC and RNC protesters and meet the demand of sustained protests for Palestinian liberation. The unrelenting pace and violence of the federal government’s attacks on our communities is taking a real toll on our volunteers. We also have new expenses due to this fascist onslaught including additional hours for our part-time staff, food, water, rideshares, and the creation of restorative spaces for volunteers.
