2023 Grantees Submit Six-Month Reports
All five of the Barbara McDowell Foundation's 2023 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 $67,236.30. For the first two quarters combined, the average dollar value in attorney time was $201,218.45.
Immigrant Defense Project
A-J- v. Garland, a Ninth Circuit case, challenges federal administrative precedents that discriminate against noncitizens by refusing to give effect to certain post-conviction relief and criminal justice reform laws for noncitizens. The case was designated by the Ninth Circuit as the lead case on this issue. Several other cases were held in abeyance pending its resolution. This designation was particularly important for three related reasons: 1) there is a statutory bar to class action in cases of this nature, 2) a precedential decision by the Ninth Circuit would bind all immigration judges and agency adjudications within its vast jurisdiction, and 3) federal rules strictly limit certain access to information about immigration appeals on Public Access to Court Electronic Records, the federal judiciary’s centralized program for making federal court cases accessible to the public.
Consequently, as part of A-J-, we negotiated with government counsel for us to be notified of all pending Ninth Circuit cases presenting these issues. During the prior quarter, the government requested to submit the case to mediation before the Ninth Circuit. In March 2023, mediation resolved in favor of Mr. A-J-, with the government granting him full and complete immigration relief. While this was ongoing, and following this mediation settlement, we have done broad outreach to counsel in the approximately 15 other cases currently pending at the Ninth Circuit, have engaged the court itself, and have continued discussions with government counsel, all to identify cases that will move forward and to arrange for full and fair presentation of these issues before the court.
P-V- v. Garland is a Second Circuit challenge to a Trump-era federal agency precedent that declines to give effect to a New York misdemeanor sentencing reform law in immigration cases. The appeal was argued before a three-judge panel in September 2022 and is awaiting decision. IDP has been monitoring potentially relevant federal court decisions to see if any give rise to post-argument supplemental letter briefing. We also continue to work with and support the criminal defense bar that files resentencing motions for noncitizens in state court, in light of the currently precarious state of the law in the Second Circuit until P-V- is decided.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Plaintiffs filed their motion for class certification in July 2021. The Washington Post reported on the plaintiffs' “overwhelming” evidence that the District’s public mental health system falls short of its legal obligations to children and youth, and that judicial intervention is needed. The District’s opposition to the motion for class certification was filed on October 27, 2021, and the plaintiff’s reply was filed on December 24, 2021. In the last quarter of 2022, we completed supplemental briefing supporting plaintiffs’ class certification motion, adding an additional named plaintiff and class representative who meets the proposed class definition.
In February 2023, the case was transferred to the newest federal judge in the District of Columbia, Judge Ana C. Reyes, the court’s first Latina and openly LGBTQ judge. In April, Judge Reyes asked that the class certification motion be refiled and indicated interest in hearing oral argument on the motion in May. We hope this will hasten a decision granting the motion, which could prompt renewed settlement discussions or litigation on the merits of the class claims.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
National Center for Youth Law
The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) and co-counsel filed D.P. et al v. School Board of Palm Beach County et al. in June 2021. The lawsuit seeks to stop the School District of Palm Beach County (SDPBC) from handcuffing students, especially students with disabilities, who need mental health supports and transporting them for involuntary psychiatric examinations without their parents' consent. The lawsuit seeks implementation and monitoring of more effective mental health supports, as well as modifications to District policy and improved training for District staff. We are also pursuing damages claims for individual families who have brought the case. The case holds significant implications for other jurisdictions where law enforcement is being inappropriately and illegally used when students experience mental health crises.
Since our last report that was submitted in December 2022, our team has concluded fact and expert discovery, including defending our expert depositions. We engaged in an in-person mediation in January 2023. In February 2023, one day before summary judgment briefings were due, Judge Cannon adopted Magistrate Judge Reinhart’s report and recommendation on the motion to dismiss. As a result, we filed a second amended complaint to confirm with the opinion. Defendants responded with a second motion to dismiss. The court has stayed all pretrial deadlines pending a new schedule.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Currently, the case remains stayed as the parties continue to engage in settlement discussions. USCIS has already agreed to amend their policy to address the asylum employment authorization document (EAD) clock for individuals whose cases are remanded after successful appeals and has updated their website accordingly to clarify that these individuals will be credited with the total number of days on appeal toward their 180-day EAD clocks. By regulation, the running of this 180-day waiting period for employment authorization may be suspended only for applicantcaused delays in their immigration cases. Plaintiffs challenge defendants’ recent policies and practices implemented in 2020 of stopping the asylum EAD clock without providing any written notice or an opportunity to challenge any inappropriate decisions stopping the clock.
Plaintiffs’ counsel are optimistic about the parties’ progress and hopeful that the parties will reach a settlement.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.
Uptown People’s Law Center
As noted in Uptown People’s Law Center’s (UPLC) first quarter report, plaintiffs retained Dr. Craig Haney, a nationally- recognized mental health expert who has spent several decades studying the impact of solitary confinement on the mental health of people in prison and Dan Pacholke, the former Director of the Washington State prison system who has served as an expert on corrections generally and solitary specifically in a dozen or so class action cases in states across the United States. In October and November of 2022, UPLC staff accompanied these experts on tours of all of the Illinois prisons with the largest populations of people held in solitary confinement. During those tours, the experts interviewed dozens of prisoners at length and did brief cellfront interviews with over 100 people held in the solitary units of those prisons.
Since completing the tours, plaintiffs have been working with the defendants to obtain the files for the prisoners interviewed by the expert team. This includes both disciplinary files and mental health treatment files. All such files are still maintained only on paper in the Illinois Department of Corrections, so we have been faced with long delays in obtaining those files. As of late March, we finally received a complete scanned set of those files. Counsel is now in the process of indexing those files using the Relativity platform, so that they are usable by the experts.
Click here to read the summary of their grant and their full six-month report.