2023 Grantees Submit Third Quarter Case Reports
In accordance with the Foundation’s requirements for grant reporting, the five 2023 grantees submitted their third quarter case updates and timesheets of the grant year. Their case updates appear below.
All grantees are meeting the requirements of their grant. The average amount of hours of attorney time spent by each grantee on their respective case was 194.8 hours with an average dollar value of $96,769.59.
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. In a prior quarter, this case settled with a favorable resolution for Mr. A-J-, whereby the government reopened his deportation case and restored his green card. He is now eligible for United States citizenship. Following the settlement, IDP has continued negotiations with the government over the classes of noncitizens affected by these federal precedents. We have negotiated settlements in multiple cases for restoration of lawful permanent resident status or for remands to the immigration agencies (Board of Immigration Appeals–“BIA”) for further briefing and administrative proceedings. We are now developing a briefing strategy for the two sub-classes of remanded cases: 1) cases where the agency will not give effect to a state court decision eliminating a prior conviction for legal defect and 2) cases where the agency will not reopen a defective immigration order. We currently have four fully briefed cases before the BIA on these issues and are working to file notices of supplemental authorities based on Supreme Court decisions issued this term. At that same time, we have continued to work with these classes of litigants with cases still pending at the Ninth Circuit and are preparing for the next round of briefing in cases within these sub-classes that go forward. Should the BIA issue adverse opinions in the remanded cases, we will follow those for further briefing before the Ninth Circuit.
In P-V- v. Garland, before the Second Circuit IDP seeks to overturn a precedential federal administrative agency decision implemented by former President Trump’s Department of Justice. The precedent discriminates by declining to give effect to sentencing reforms for noncitizens in federal immigration proceedings. In P-V-, the precedent was applied against New York’s misdemeanor sentencing reform law, One Day to Protect New Yorkers. P-V- was argued before the Second Circuit in September 2022. In this last quarter, IDP carefully monitored decisions from the Supreme Court to see if any required notices of supplemental authority to the Second Circuit. Four decisions contained language or holdings potentially relevant to the disposition in P-V-, as P-V- is largely a case about the meaning of a federal statute (the Immigration and Nationality Act) and how it is to be interpreted by a federal agency and a reviewing court. We worked with our litigation team to file a notice of supplemental of authority regarding the rule of lenity, a principle that ambiguities in law must be interpreted leniently where liberty is at stake. This principle is well-recognized by the Supreme Court in criminal and immigration law, and for many years IDP has argued for federal courts to rely more heavily on this lenity principle. One of this term’s Supreme Court cases contained endorsement for application of this principle by a cross-section of justices, including Justice Jackson.
Judge David Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
M.J. v. District of Columbia
In 2018, the Bazelon Center, along with co-counsel Disability Rights DC at University Legal Services, the National Center for Youth Law, and the law firm Schulte, Roth & Zabel, filed a class action on behalf of hundreds of District of Columbia children who are unnecessarily institutionalized or at serious risk of unnecessary institutionalization. As mentioned in an August 2018 Washington Post article, the complaint alleges widespread failures by DC’s children’s mental health system to provide federally required intensive community-based services for children in their own homes, schools, and elsewhere in the community. As a result, the District’s children suffer drastically curtailed life opportunities, cycling in and out of psychiatric hospitals, psychiatric residential treatment facilities that are often hundreds or thousands of miles away from their families, other residential treatment centers, juvenile detention facilities, and group homes. The complaint also alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Medicaid Act. The ADA requires the District to serve its children with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate. For virtually all children, this setting is their own home or another family or foster home. The Medicaid Act requires the District to provide intensive community-based services to all children with mental health disabilities who need them, to help them live in their own homes and communities, and participate fully in family and community life.
Plaintiffs filed their motion for class certification in July 2021. The Washington Post reported on 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 plaintiffs’ 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 the spring, Judge Reyes asked that the class certification motion be refiled and scheduled oral argument for July 10th. At argument, Judge Reyes worked with the parties to refine plaintiffs’ class definition. Although she ordered the Parties to complete supplemental briefing by October 3rd to address narrow questions about the class definition and putative class members, Judge Reyes indicated that she was inclined to certify the class. The next hearing will be October 5th. Judge Reyes also ordered merits’ phase discovery to begin, based on plaintiffs’ representations that the litigation would proceed regardless of the Court’s decision on class certification on behalf of four individual named plaintiffs and organizational plaintiff Disability Rights DC.
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 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.
In February 2023, Judge Cannon adopted in full the Report and Recommendation of Magistrate Judge Reinhart on Defendants’ first Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs filed a Second Amended Complaint to conform with the Report and Recommendation in March 2023. Defendants filed a Second Motion to Dismiss in late March 2023. In April 2023, Plaintiffs opposed Defendants’ Second Motion to Dismiss and sought consolidation with summary judgment briefing. Judge Cannon denied Defendants’ Second Motion to Dismiss, without prejudice to Defendants raising the same arguments in their summary judgment motion. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment in mid-May 2023, with Plaintiffs filing a partial motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs also filed a Daubert motion in mid-May 2023, seeking to disqualify one of Defendant’s testifying experts; Defendants also filed a Daubert motion seeking to disqualify one of the Plaintiffs’ testifying experts. The parties filed oppositions to the pending summary judgment and Daubert motions in mid-June 2023 and filed reply briefs on June 28, 2023. Judge Cannon set oral argument on the summary judgment motions for June 30, 2023. On June 29 and 30, 2023, all of the individual student and parent plaintiffs accepted Offers of Judgment from the Defendants under Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiffs noticed the acceptance of these Offers to the Court on the evening of June 29 and the morning of June 30. Disability Rights Florida (DRF), the sole remaining plaintiff, proceeded with the summary judgment hearing on June 30, at which point Judge Cannon sua sponte questioned DRF’s standing and informed the parties that she would accept the Offers of Judgment shortly.
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Garcia Perez v. USCIS is a lawsuit on behalf of asylum seekers filed in the Western District of Washington in June 2022 by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) and the National Immigration Litigation Alliance (NILA). The lawsuit challenges United.States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s (EOIR) policies and practices that unlawfully deny work authorization for asylum seekers while their claims are pending adjudication beyond six months. Due to USCIS and EOIR’s unlawful practices preventing them from qualifying for a work permit, these individuals seeking asylum are unable to work and find themselves in dire financial straits.
The parties have reached an agreement in principle as to all claims and are working on finalizing the terms of the settlement agreement. USCIS has already implemented two important components of the settlement. First, USCIS agreed to amend their policy to address the asylum 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. Second, EOIR has modified the online case portal website to now include the asylum EAD clock information, so that applicants have notice of how many days they have been credited with, and whether the clock has been stopped.
Since completing the prison tours in October and November of 2022, 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 long delays occurred in obtaining those files. As of late March, we finally received a complete scanned set of those files. Counsel has indexed all the documents provided by IDOC, and despite last minute submission, are well on our way to completing the expert reports in July 2023.
Once these reports are completed, the defendants will, presumably, depose both experts. The defendants will then have an opportunity to disclose any rebuttal experts they intend to call. We suspect that defendant’s experts will be submitting an opinion that solitary confinement or extended isolation does not cause any more harm than the regular conditions in prison.
The schedule for filing exert reports is as follows:
Plaintiffs’ expert reports: July 21, 2023
Deposition of plaintiffs’ experts: August 18, 2023
Defendant’s expert reports: September 1, 2023
Depositions of defendant’s experts: September 22, 2023
Any motions for summary judgment must be filed by September 29, 2023, with responses due October 27, 2023, and replies due November 10, 2023.