The National Lawyers’ Guild of Chicago stands with all immigrants and for immigrant rights.
We stand in solidarity with over 800,000 DACA recipients in the United States in calling for the Trump administration and our congress to withdraw all threats to remove the current protections afforded these young people and instead to move forward in developing an immediate path to citizenship for these Americans. Under the current “phase out” of the DACA protections, anyone whose status expires by March 5, 2018, has until October 5, 2017 to apply for a new permit. This means that almost a quarter of all DACA recipients must reapply.
As lawsuits across the US have stated, including the one joined by the Illinois Attorney General filed on September 7, 2017, the DACA phase-out demonstrates a racial animus. It violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution as well as the Due Process Clause. Devoid of any attempt to create a better and more sustainable way forward for all DACA recipients, the phase-out puts hundreds of thousands of people in danger. This action yet again demonstrates the structural racism and pervasive inequality that dehumanizes, threatens, and degrades members of our community. This inhumane, racist, and illegal action is just one in a long line of recent actions by the administration against immigrants. As movement lawyers, we cannot and will not watch these actions tear apart our communities.
Due to the impossible timeline and obscene expense placed on thousands of DACA recipients to renew their DACA card in the coming weeks, the NLG urges our membership to act now. Please consider volunteering with The Resurrection Project, the National Immigrant Justice Center, or the ICIRR, or donating to You Caring – an organization that helps people pay the $495 filing fee required by the US government.
Finally, NLG urges you to consider joining the NLG Legal Observers. Our Legal Observers, by documenting arrests made at protests, support those protesting this administration’s ongoing war on marginalized communities.