2022 Grantees Submit Six-Month Reports
All five of the Barbara McDowell Foundation's 2022 grantees were contacted in April in accordance with the Foundation’s requirements and reported with respect to the progress of their case through the second quarter of their grant cycle. A summary of each grantee’s report can be found below, along with a link to each grantee’s full report.
In addition to reporting on their progress, each grantee submitted second quarter timesheets for their case work. The average dollar value in attorney time spent by each grantee on their respective case for the second quarter was $55,404. For the first two quarters combined, the average dollar value in attorney time was $116,409.57.
Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project - ASAP
Between October 2021 and March 2022, the CASA v. Mayorkas preliminary injunction allowed over 70,000 asylum seekers to apply for work authorization. A total of 150,000 asylum seekers have applied for work authorization over the lifetime of the injunction, beginning in September 2020. In addition, these asylum seekers did not have to pay the application’s $85 biometric fee, saving ASAP members a combined $12,750,000. This preliminary injunction continues to afford ASAP members — asylum seekers from over 175 countries — with 30-day processing of work permits despite historic delays in processing immigration-related applications at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
On January 18, 2022, the court held oral argument on the pending motions for summary judgment. Attorneys from ASAP and our co-counsel at IRAP and Gibson Dunn argued the motions. At the hearing, the court indicated that it was likely to rule in Plaintiffs’ favor and planned to issue a final decision shortly.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
Children's Legal Center
The matter is set for a status hearing on April 28, 2022, at 9:00am before the Honorable John Z. Lee. Counsel for the parties met as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) to discuss the preparation of a proposed case schedule, which must be filed before the Court conference. We are currently preparing the draft of that report.
In the next six months, we anticipate that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) will be filing a Motion to Dismiss. We also anticipate entering into settlement discussions with DHS which has indicated that DHS would be open to discussions. We are in the process of drafting a settlement offer which will include limitations on DHS’s ability to keep documents of foreign nationals when released from Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
National Center for Lesbian Rights
Tingley’s initial appellate brief was filed in December 2021. NCLR filed its brief on behalf of Equal Rights Washington on January 14, 2022, and the State of Washington defendants filed their brief on the same day. NCLR and the Washington State parties argue that two earlier Ninth Circuit cases require the Court to uphold the Washington law. They also argue that the subsequent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in NIFLA v. Becerra further demonstrates that states may protect youth from harm by regulating treatment provided by licensed professionals.
On January 21, five amicus curiae parties, including leading national mental health and civil rights organizations, filed briefs asking the Ninth Circuit to uphold the Washington law. Organizations filing briefs included the American Psychological Association; the Trevor Project; the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington; a group of constitutional scholars including Alan E. Brownstein, Erwin Chemerinsky, and Brian Soucek; and the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
National Center for Youth Law
In the initial stages of the case, our team filed a motion for a preliminary injunction and worked with a mediator to reach a proposed resolution of that motion, which the court adopted in June 2021. This preliminary injunction required Defendants to submit a plan detailing how they would cease using hotels and offices for youth housing, limited the circumstances in which youth can be housed in offices overnight, and required Defendants to increase their efforts to find appropriate placements for youth in exceptional placements. The case was certified as a class action in September of 2021.
During the second quarter of the grant, Plaintiffs have engaged in continued negotiations with Washington’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families towards a resolution of the case, with the help of the same mediator with whom the parties worked successfully regarding the preliminary injunction relief. Plaintiffs have met with the Department repeatedly and have spent many hours drafting and editing proposed settlements and researching issues that have arisen over the course of negotiations.
Although Plaintiffs hope to reach a settlement with the Department that meets the needs of foster youth in Washington in order to provide the Plaintiff class with relief expeditiously, it is still possible that the case will go to trial. To prepare for this, Plaintiffs have simultaneously continued with active discovery efforts, including receiving and reviewing thousands of pages of documents. Plaintiffs are continuing to propound additional discovery requests, negotiate search terms for electronic discovery, and plan to take more depositions in the near future. In order to accommodate the robust mediation efforts between the parties, Plaintiffs and Defendants agreed to extend the pretrial schedule and trial date, so that the deadline for completing discovery is July 8th, 2022, and a bench trial is set for December 5th, 2022.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
New Economy Project
In March 2022, we submitted our opening appellate brief with the Appellate Term, First Judicial Department of New York, arguing that the lower state court was wrong to deny Ms. Banks’s motion to vacate Esgro’s default judgment against her, including because the court improperly concluded that she had waived her personal jurisdiction ground for vacating the default judgment. In addition to underscoring well-established state due process jurisprudence requiring the vacatur of judgments entered without personal jurisdiction, we argue that waiver requires an intentional relinquishment of a known right, and that Ms. Banks’s conduct did not demonstrate that she knew of her right to challenge the judgment or intended to relinquish that right (in fact, she began preparing her legal challenge the very day she learned of her right to do so).
During the first quarter of the grant period, we filed a motion with the lower state court to stay enforcement of the default judgment pending the appeal. Unfortunately, in late January 2022, the court denied our motion, stating that we had failed to provide any documentary evidence, factual circumstances, or law to support our request for a stay, despite the extensive facts and legal arguments set forth in our motion brief. Fortunately, after beginning to prepare a motion to reargue the court’s denial, we were able to secure an agreement from Esgro’s counsel to pause the garnishment of Ms. Banks’s wages pending the outcome of the appeal.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.