THE TORCH: CONTENTS

By Mahnoor Hussain, SAALT policy associate
JUNE 15, 2018

Since its colonization of indigenous lands, the United States has built its immigration policies on principles of racial exclusion and exploitation. The immigration struggles that our communities face today are not unique to the Trump administration but are the culmination of a series of discriminatory policies on which this country was built.

• The Naturalization Act of 1790 established citizenship for “free white persons,” excluding millions of enslaved African Americans who were forced to give their lives and freedom to build America.
• The Immigration Act of 1882 allowed screening of arriving passengers to bar the entry of those deemed a “convict, lunatic, idiot, or person who may become a public charge.”
• The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suspended immigration of Chinese laborers and set a precedent for the establishment of discriminatory race- and class-based immigration laws in the U.S.
• In 1996, the Clinton administration implemented the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which laid the groundwork for the immigrant criminalization and deportation policies we have today.
• In 2002, the Bush administration launched the Secure Communities program and began 287(g) agreements, essentially deputizing local police officers with immigration enforcement power, which paved the way for current anti-sanctuary legislation in states across the country.

Under the Clinton administration, 12 million deportations occurred between 1993 and 2000; under the Bush administration, over 10 million deportations occurred between 2001 and 2008; and under the Obama administration, 5 million deportations occurred between 2009 and 2016. President Trump is exploiting the tools and infrastructure set in place by previous administrations to (1) expand the definition of who should be banned and deported and (2) militarize federal agencies and build up the deportation machine.

By terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, rescinding temporary protected status (TPS) for people from certain countries, issuing the Muslim ban, and banning certain refugees, the current administration has made clear that its agenda is to bar entry of immigrants and deport both documented and undocumented individuals. Our immigration struggles are linked to this larger agenda of exclusion and expulsion.

In January 2017, President Trump signed an executive order essentially prohibiting people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S., a policy now referred to by many as the Muslim ban. As a result of legal challenges brought against it, Trump has issued three different iterations of the ban, the third of which is awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court. Refugees who are racialized as Black and/or Muslim have also been barred from entering the country. In the first three months of 2018, 5,225 refugees have been resettled in the United States, a 65.8 percent drop from the first three months of 2016. Only 11 Syrian refugees have been granted entry into the U.S. in 2018. In June 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the U.S. Department of Justice established a “zero tolerance policy” to criminally prosecute asylum-seekers as they enter the U.S. This administration has not only made it impossible for immigrants of color to enter the U.S., but has forced our communities to live in constant fear of deportation.

Individuals from countries on the Muslim ban list, such as Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, are also facing the rescission of temporary protected status (TPS). TPS enables nationals of designated countries who are in the U.S. to live and work here if their country is facing war, disease, or natural disaster. Often these conditions are a result of previous U.S. intervention in these countries and result in long-term, endemic challenges that require decades of recovery.

Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), based in New York City, coproduced (with MoveOn and United We Dream) a video that connects the fight to protect DACAmented and undocumented folks with the fight against the Muslim registry. DRUM is also addressing an additional concern about personal information provided by both TPS and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients being at risk of cross-agency data sharing. There is no guarantee that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) information on current and former recipients of TPS, DACA, and their undocumented family members is not accessible by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Undocumented immigrants and temporary visa–holders registered for these programs in confidence that their personal information would not be used to deport them, and now their trust and safety may be violated.

This administration has drawn a wedge between recipients of DACA and H1-B and H-4 visa–holders. Some H-4 visa recipients feel that their struggle has been overlooked by the “noise” on the DREAM Act. This administration uses divisive tactics to make it harder for immigrants to stay in the U.S., whether they are H1-B and H-4 visa–holders or TPS or DACA recipients. If and when these groups lose their status, they become part of the ever-expanding population that’s particularly vulnerable to being deported. This is an opportunity to confront the larger white supremacist deportation agenda led by this administration, which has failed to create meaningful pathways to permanent residence and citizenship for all immigrant communities.

As part of this administration’s ongoing deportation agenda, the last six months alone have seen the largest workplace raids under the Trump administration. Nearly 200 individuals were arrested and detained in Tennessee and Ohio, and one-hundred 7-Eleven stores were raided across the country.

In their continued attack on low-income immigrants and families, the Trump administration is intending to expand the criteria for finding that a person is likely to become a public charge, i.e., likely to become dependent on the government for subsistence. An immigrant found likely to become a “public charge” may be denied a visa or lawful permanent resident status. Under a new proposed rule whose provisions were leaked to the press earlier this year, a person could be found likely to become a public charge if they were unemployed, retired, and/or disabled — or if their U.S. citizen children benefit from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), SNAP (“food stamps”), or if they attend Head Start. Penalizing immigrants for utilizing social services is a calculated policy by this administration to limit legal permanent residence, and it represents a direct attack on the possibility of immigrant families here reuniting with their loved ones abroad who are seeking to immigrate.

Another deliberately anti-immigrant piece of legislation, H.R. 4760, the Securing America’s Future Act (also known as the Goodlatte bill), which will come to a vote any day now and is being framed as a compromise solution for DREAMers, attacks family immigration by cutting entire categories of visas that help families reunite. The Goodlatte bill also would criminalize the undocumented population by making their mere presence a criminal violation. The bill also would separate vulnerable children and families seeking asylum at the border by sending parents to criminal proceedings and inhumanely placing their children in detention centers hundreds of miles away. Despite all these unimaginable enforcement-oriented provisions, the bill provides only temporary second-class protection to DACA recipients.

This administration doesn’t limit its deportation targets only to visa-holders and undocumented immigrants, it is also quietly denaturalizing and deporting naturalized citizens through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Operation Janus. According to USCIS, failure to comply with any eligibility requirement for naturalization is subject to revocation of naturalization. DHS identified about 315,000 cases of “missing” fingerprint data from the centralized digital fingerprint repository. The U.S. Department of Justice filed civil denaturalization complaints against Baljinder Singh of New Jersey, Parvez Manzoor Khan of Florida, and Rashid Mahmood of Connecticut under Operation Janus. In January 2018, Baljinder Singh was denaturalized by the USCIS.

The administration has used an anti-immigrant and xenophobic political framework to promote an intersectional web of negative policies that affect all of our communities, and we must use an intersectional analysis to counter this violence and discrimination.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Josh Rosenthal, NILC staff attorney
JUNE 5, 2018

In a narrow ruling announced yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s citation of a Denver-area bakery, Masterpiece Cakeshop, for having violated Colorado’s public accommodations law by refusing to create a cake for the wedding of a same-sex couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins. In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Court based its reversal of the state commission’s decision on a finding that the commission had shown a bias against the bakery owner’s religious beliefs.

Public accommodations laws provide important protections for LGBT and non-LGBT immigrants

Public accommodations laws are intended to ensure that everyone can participate in the U.S. society and economy, regardless of their membership in a protected group. As the hashtag says, public accommodations laws help ensure that businesses are #OpenToAll. At the federal level, Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000a) prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin by restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and places of entertainment. The Americans with Disabilities Act further provides that people with disabilities have access to a wider range of public accommodations.

In addition to these federal protections, 45 states and the District of Columbia have their own public accommodations laws. These laws provide for equal access to a wider range of businesses and may include protections based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, or other personal characteristics. These protections are inconsistent, however: Only 22 states prohibit sexual orientation–based discrimination in public accommodations, and only 19 prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

In its Masterpiece Cakeshop opinion, the Supreme Court recognizes the importance of public accommodations laws. The Court cites the long “history … of civil rights laws that ensure equal access to goods, services, and public accommodations,” which exist to prevent “community-wide stigma” and ensure that members of protected groups can “acquir[e] whatever products and services they choose on the same terms and conditions as are offered to other members of the public.”

Public accommodations laws thus provide essential protections for the approximately one million immigrants who identify as LGBTQ (including an estimated 10 percent of DACA recipients), as well as for other immigrants who may face bias on the basis of their race, skin color, religious beliefs, or ethnicity.

Religious beliefs are not a license to deny goods or services to a member of a protected class

The Court reaffirmed the longstanding principle that “[religious and philosophical] objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law.” For example, in Newman v. Piggy Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402, n. 5 (1968) (per curiam), the Court rejected the idea that the owner of a barbecue restaurant could avoid complying with public accommodations law because he held a religious objection to racial integration. The Court made clear that similar religious beliefs cannot be used to justify discrimination on other bases either, including against gays and lesbians. Nor should religious beliefs shield discrimination against trans or gender nonconforming individuals.

However, the Court did leave open the possibility that individuals may refuse to provide certain expressive services, notwithstanding public accommodations laws, if providing the good or service would require the individual to “exercise the right of his own personal expression for the [customer’s] message, a message he could not express in a way consistent with his religious beliefs.” Because the Court did not resolve this issue, it is not clear what kinds of goods and services, if any, would fit in this category. The question may be resolved by this case on remand to the Colorado court system or by other cases that are being presented to state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

Biased statements by officials are relevant to determining whether an apparently neutral decision is legitimate

The Supreme Court ultimately decided this case by finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to provide the baker with “neutral and respectful consideration” of his religious beliefs. The Court pointed to statements by a commissioner that described the baker’s religious beliefs as “despicable” and other statements that the Court interpreted to be “inappropriate and dismissive comments showing lack of due consideration for [the owner’s] free exercise rights and the dilemma he faced.” The Court also noted that the commission apparently applied a different standard to the baker than it had to other bakers who refused to bake cakes with anti-gay messages.

Several commentators have noted similarities between the “official expressions of hostility” to religious beliefs in this case and the anti-Muslim comments made by President Trump in relation to his Muslim ban executive orders. It remains to be seen whether the Court will take Trump’s comments as seriously, while it considers the constitutionality of the administration’s Muslim ban in the Trump v. Hawaii case. However the Court rules, NILC is committed to fighting for #NoMuslimBanEver.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Ramla Sahid
MAY 8, 2018

Early in the morning late last month, while it was drizzling, cold, and still a little dark, I stood with a dozen others on the steps of this country’s highest court feeling a lot of anxiety and some hope as I waited in line to get a seat for the oral arguments in Trump’s latest Muslim ban.

When we were ushered into the gallery of the Supreme Court of the United States on April 25, 2018, I sat down on an observer bench near the mid-right corner of the audience and felt the weight of that room. Sitting there, apprehensively waiting for the oral arguments in Trump v Hawaii to begin, knowing how consequential the ultimate decision would be, I reminded myself that the fight for justice and freedom is a constant, and that whatever the result, our task is to keep that fight alive. As a former refugee from Somalia, one of the banned Muslim-majority countries, my foremost thought was, “The promise of America should be open to every human being, regardless of how they pray and how they worship.” My fear, though, was that the justices might not be taking that promise into account.

The presidential proclamation being reviewed by the Court that day was Trump’s latest directive on this issue, announced in September 2017, similar to his two previous executive orders that federal courts barred from being implemented because they were clearly intended to express Trump’s unconstitutional hostility to Muslims. Those Muslim bans were discriminatory and illegal because they banned entire populations of people based upon their religion (using national origin as a proxy).

The September proclamation has the effect of indefinitely banning from entering the U.S. people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — all Muslim-majority countries — and this ban is currently in effect. Its results are broken families, deferred dreams, lack of access to life-saving medical treatment, and a perversion of American principles and values. My own family fled the civil war in Somalia when I was five years old, so I know from firsthand experience what these thousands of families, students, academics, and skilled workers are experiencing, and I can imagine what it would mean to be told that the promise of America is no longer open to you.

The Trump administration’s lawyer, Noel Francisco, argued that latest directive was based on a lengthy “worldwide, multi-agency review,” but the president’s own tweets belie that fantasy. Even as the Court was considering whether to hear this case, Trump tweeted, in response to the September 15, 2017, bombing of a London subway, “The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific — but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!” During his campaign for the presidency, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Though given many opportunities to backtrack on that declaration, he never has, and as recently as April 30th reiterated that there was “no reason to apologize.” This statement alone undercuts Francisco’s argument that the president had disavowed his campaign rhetoric. It’s hard to predict the outcome, but I hope that the justices reject this unilateral effort to legislate unfounded fear, discrimination, and bigotry.

But there is hope. Hope because I was able to be there to bear witness to this historic moment with my community of Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and African activists from all over the country, as well as allies supporting our communities’ call for religious freedom and fairness. Our presence was felt inside and outside. And the rally held outside the Supreme Court that morning replenished my energy.

Yes, we are being threatened in bold ways, and our communities are under constant assault. But this hasn’t happened spontaneously. In fact, this is the reality of America for far too many of its citizens and residents. So we do what we have always done in this country. We resist. We continue to educate and politicize our people and allies, we organize, and we build a more connected and accountable multiracial movement.

Ramla Sahid is executive director of Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Ignacia Rodriguez, NILC immigration policy advocate
MAY 4, 2018

On May 1, 2018, Texas and six other states filed a lawsuit against the federal government challenging the legality of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. They filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where it ended up being assigned to Judge Andrew Hanen. He’s the same judge who in 2014 issued an injunction that blocked the Obama administration’s expansion of the DACA program and the related Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, program.

Naturally, Texas’s latest lawsuit has created confusion and concerns about what it means for immigrant youth and the fight to protect immigrant families across the country.

Here are three important points to know about the Texas lawsuit:

1. Judge Hanen in Texas cannot undo the California and New York injunctions (currently in place) that protect DACA recipients from President Trump’s unlawful actions. Both court orders require U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to accept DACA renewal applications. Only the circuit courts of appeal corresponding to those states and the U.S. Supreme Court have the authority to undo either injunction. No case related to DACA is expected to go before the Supreme Court until after this summer. The Texas lawsuit does not change that situation.

2. USCIS is still accepting DACA renewal applications. If you are eligible to renew your DACA, we recommend that you apply to do so at this time. Here’s the reality: We don’t know what will happen next, so having DACA for an additional two years may provide some peace of mind for you and your family as all these DACA-related court cases make their ways through the courts.

3. Your voice and efforts are making a real difference. The states that filed the latest lawsuit in Texas are among the same states that sued to block the Obama administration’s expansion of DACA to protect additional immigrant youth as well as its creation of DAPA. DAPA would have allowed certain parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to apply for and receive temporary protection from deportation as well as work permits. That first lawsuit, which was filed in the same federal court district as the present one, became known as U.S. v. Texas after the Obama administration appealed Judge Hanen’s nationwide injunction blocking DAPA and expanded DACA.

The U.S. v Texas lawsuit against DAPA and DACA+ included 26 plaintiff states. The letter from some of these states threatening to sue the federal government if DACA were not terminated bore the signatures of state officials from only 9 states. The latest lawsuit was filed by only 7 of the 26 states that sued in U.S. v. Texas.

The progress we’ve made is clear. As support for protecting Dreamers and their families continues to grow, many states and localities are hearing our voices. In fact, state officials should keep in mind that the vast majority of Americans support DACA. This indisputable fact is a testament to the work of immigrant youth and their allies. Together we must continue highlighting the importance of the DACA program and pushing for congressional action to protect immigrant youth and their families. We need the Dream Act now!

RELATED
FAQ: USCIS Is Accepting DACA Renewal Applications
VIDEO: How Does a Case Make it to the U.S. Supreme Court?

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Esther Sung, NILC staff attorney
APRIL 25, 2018

Today, after two executive orders, one presidential proclamation, and fifteen months of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court finally heard oral arguments on the legality of President Trump’s Muslim ban.

The current version of the ban blocks from entering the U.S. most travelers and immigrants from six Muslim-majority countries — Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — although Chad was recently removed from this list after improving its “identity-management and information sharing practices.” The ban also blocks travelers and immigrants from North Korea and certain Venezuelan government officials and their families.

Despite having itself been blocked by two U.S. district courts, the ban has been in place since December 4, 2017, when the Supreme Court allowed it to go into effect while it was being litigated. The U.S. State Department recently reported that in the first month of the ban, only two out of 8,406 visa applicants directly impacted by the ban were granted waivers allowing them to enter the U.S.

Indeed, of particular concern to Justices Breyer and Sotomayor in today’s argument was the possibility that the ban’s waiver provisions are merely “window dressing.” Justice Breyer pointed out that a significant number of people seeking visas probably fit within the exemplars expressly identified in the presidential proclamation as potentially eligible for an exemption from the ban. Although both justices pressed the government to explain what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the ban’s promise that waivers are available “is, in fact, a real waiver process,” the government was unable to provide substantive information about the availability of waivers. The government was only able to represent that approximately 400 individuals have received waivers — but, as Justice Breyer pointed out, 400 is paltry in comparison to the 150 million people the proclamation bans from entering the U.S.

Instead, the government focused on defending the ban before the Court as the product of a “multi-agency worldwide review that applied neutral criteria.” Throughout its argument, the government took pains to distance the ban not only from its predecessor executive orders, but also from President Trump and the many anti-Muslim statements he has made throughout his candidacy and presidency.

Neal Katyal, representing the ban’s challengers, argued that if the Court adopts the expansive view of executive power advanced by the government, the Court will be giving the president the power to line-item veto any provision of the country’s immigration laws that he wants to override. He argued that the ban countermands Congress’s finely reticulated immigration scheme, violates the Immigration and Nationality Act’s prohibition against nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas, and denigrates Islam in violation of the First Amendment.

It was clear that the government’s strategy depended on stripping the ban of its history and context so that the government could divorce the ban from President Trump’s many anti-Muslim statements and thereby argue that the ban is a permissible exercise of executive power. But by doing so, the government could only duck and weave around the overwhelming evidence of the president’s anti-Muslim animus, rather than confronting it head-on.

Among those present for today’s argument were Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii; Karen Korematsu, the daughter of Fred Korematsu, the named plaintiff in Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in World War II; and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the musical “Hamilton.” Friend-of-the-court briefs calling on the court to strike down the ban had been filed by retired government officials and military officers; various states and major cities and counties; Amazon, Facebook, and over a hundred other companies; Catholic bishops and numerous other clergy of several different religions; universities and other institutions of higher learning; and Karen Korematsu and other children of Japanese-Americans who were held in internment camps during World War II.

A recording of today’s argument is available here; a transcript of it is available here.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Ibraham Qatabi, Center for Constitutional Rights
APRIL 25, 2018

Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a legal challenge to President Trump’s travel ban, which bars nationals of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Countless lives lie in the balance of this decision.

In this post, I focus on the ban’s impact particularly on Yemeni-Americans and their families, as Yemen is one of the countries listed in the executive orders that initiated the ban. The ban denies U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents of Yemeni descent who are in the U.S. the right to be with their children, spouses, and other close relatives, many of whom are stranded in third countries as they transit out of the war in Yemen.

Yemenis in America: Who we are

Yemeni-Americans have been part of the American fabric for many generations. For more than a century, they have worked on railroads and in the steel and the automobile industry stretching from Buffalo and Lackawanna, New York, to Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. Today they run small and midsize successful businesses from New York City in the east to Oakland, San Francisco, and Bakersfield, California, in the west. Yemeni-Americans have also historically maintained close ties with both the U.S. and Yemen, with families often going back and forth between the two countries.

The ban’s implementation

Since December 2017, the Center for Constitutional Rights and many other organizations have received reports that hundreds of U.S. citizens’ spouses and children were called to come to the U.S. embassy in Djibouti, where their passports were returned, along with a document stating that they’d been denied a U.S. visa and were not eligible for a waiver. The document also stated that this decision was “final.”

Yet Muslim Ban 3.0, the latest version of the Muslim ban, which is currently in effect and which was initiated by a presidential proclamation instead of an executive order, contains a provision for granting a waiver to certain people affected by the ban. A waiver would exempt from the ban the people to whom it is granted. To qualify for it, they would have to show that they would experience undue hardship if they were denied a visa, that their entry into the U.S. would be in the national interest, and that it would not pose a threat to national security or public safety.

The proclamation lists several examples of situations in which a waiver would be appropriate and assumes that consular officers will examine whether people are eligible for the waiver on a case-by-case basis. It is striking to me how many members of Yemeni-American families would seem to qualify for the waiver, based on the proclamation’s plain language. The Yemenis who have been denied visas are overwhelmingly immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. And due to the war in Yemen, most if not all of them experience hardship when denied reunification with their U.S.-based parents, children, or siblings. According to the United Nations, Yemen is considered “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster” in half a century.

Following the start of the war in Yemen, the U.S. embassy in San’aa, Yemen, was closed and all Yemeni visa petitions were transferred to U.S. consulates and embassies in other countries. As a result, these Yemeni relatives of Americans must travel to another country, usually Djibouti, to complete processing of their visa petitions. So not only are they stuck in limbo, they are often waiting for the bad news in third countries, far from their homes.

Thus, although the proclamation states that waivers are to be issued on a case-by-case basis and though it prohibits consular and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from issuing waivers to groups or categories of applicants, the U.S. embassy in Djibouti has done exactly the opposite. It has issued en masse visa denials — to children, mothers, fathers, spouses, and other relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents seeking to reunite with their families in the U.S.

My own organization heard of more than a hundred visa denials. Some Yemenis had tales of bringing their children who needed immediate medical attention to the consular interviews; others came with a detailed waiver petition to demonstrate their qualifications for a waiver. Most, however, were not even given a chance to seek a waiver, as their interviews had taken place months prior to the decision. Some had been told that their visas were approved only to learn later that they’d been denied. In several cases we reviewed, some siblings had obtained a visa prior to the ban’s implementation, while others had not.

Nobody received a waiver.

The ban’s impact

To assess the impact of Trump’s ban and force some transparency into its seemingly arbitrary implementation, last month the Center for Constitutional Rights and a team from Yale Law School met with approximately 50 families in Djibouti — all U.S. citizens or their children, parents, or spouses. We hope to release our findings once we are able to process more thoroughly the information we gathered, including placing this recent crisis into the context of a much longer history of anti-Yemeni and anti-Muslim discrimination. For now, ahead of the Supreme Court argument, I feel it’s important to provide a few of the stories that stuck with me most, as a reminder of what’s at stake.

In one case, a three-year-old child had to be separated from his parents, who stayed behind in Djibouti while he was sent to the U.S. to be with extended family thousands of miles away. His mother was denied a visa.

In another case, a father had to choose between keeping his job in the U.S. or joining his stranded wife and children in Djibouti. When he was forced to choose the former, his children, who couldn’t understand, told him they felt abandoned by him.

And many families had to decide to return to war-torn Yemen after receiving rejections.

Trump’s ban has not only distressed Yemeni-Americans by separating families, it has created huge financial burdens. Many individuals were forced to leave their jobs or studies in the U.S. so they could support their spouses and children stranded in Djibouti, Egypt, and Malaysia. They were expecting to be in Djibouti for a few weeks and ended up being stranded for months, or in some cases a year. Life in Djibouti is expensive. The average monthly expense spending per family is about $3,000-5,000.

An uncertain future

Yemeni-Americans, like so many other impacted communities, are waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision. In Djibouti, everyone I met with wanted to know: If the Court strikes down the Muslim ban in its entirety, is the Court going to force the government to reopen the hundreds of cases that were denied because of the executive orders and presidential proclamation? Will they need to reapply and again wait an indefinite amount of time to reunite with their families? And if the Court upholds the ban, will they ever be able to reunite with their families?

Many of those I met with in Djibouti had high hopes that the Supreme Court justices will uphold the values of the U.S. Constitution, as lower courts across the nation have in these Muslim ban cases. They’ve closely followed the litigation as it has made its way up and down our judicial system, with their lives hanging in the balance. They strongly believe that, surely, although the president may have the power to make policies, he certainly does not have the power to discriminate. The detail and attention with which they’ve followed the courts’ decisions in these cases are remarkable, and they serve as a reminder to me: Regardless of what the justices ultimately decide, the fight for justice and equality will be a long one — one in which Yemeni-Americans must be fully engaged along with our fellow Americans.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy NILC staff
APRIL 23, 2018

Two weeks ago, we sued the Trump administration over its decision to separate a Dreamer from his loving husband. Marco Villada is a DACA recipient who grew up in California and knows no other place as home. In 2014, he married the love of his life, Israel Serrato, and they built a vibrant life together. Despite following all the rules for adjusting Marco’s status to lawful permanent residence, Marco and Israel have been unjustly separated from each other by a consular official’s mistaken decision.

Marco is currently blocked from coming home to Los Angeles. He went to Mexico to finish the process of obtaining a visa through his marriage to Israel, trusting the adjustment process and fully believing he would be able to return. Despite assurances by immigration officials that Marco would be allowed back into the U.S., U.S. consular officials in Juarez barred him from returning.

As he has with many Dreamers, President Trump failed Marco when he cruelly terminated the DACA program. Congress failed Marco again by failing to pass the Dream Act. Now, finally, the Trump administration has failed Marco yet again by barring him from coming home and thus separating him from his husband, family, friends, and life here in the U.S.

If you stand with Marco and Israel, here are four things you can do to help #BringMarcoBack:

1. Sign the petition urging President Trump and his administration to stop hurting Dreamers and #BringMarcoBack.
2. After you sign the petition, spread the word! Share the petition and the video with your friends on Twitter and Facebook.
3. Write Marco and Israel a letter of support. Separation from loved ones isn’t easy. Fighting injustice in front of the world isn’t easy, either. Let Marco and Israel know you admire their courage in standing up for themselves and for what is right. Write your letter and send it to [email protected] with the subject line “Letter of Support for Marco.”
4. Contact your senators and representatives in Congress, share Marco’s story, and demand they pass the Dream Act now. If Congress had done its job a long time ago, Marco would not be in this situation. We can’t let this kind of thing happen to any more Dreamers. You can reach out in three ways:
   – Write your senators and representative a letter telling them about Marco and Israel and asking them to talk about this injustice on social media, in floor speeches, and with their colleagues.
   – Call your senators and representative in Congress, share Marco’s story, and ask them to make sure all Dreamers are protected. Call 202-224-3121 and tell them to pass the Dream Act now.
   – Tweet at your senators and representative! Share Marco’s story with them on social media via Twitter and Facebook.

We hope you will join us in demanding justice for Marco and Israel. Thank you for lifting your voice and spreading the word to help us #BringMarcoBack.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Elica Vafaie
APRIL 17, 2018

Since January 27, 2017, we have been fighting the Muslim ban in the courts and on the streets. As an Iranian-American lawyer, with family, friends, and clients coming through San Francisco International Airport during Muslim Ban 1.0, I remember how thousands of community members and our allies came out to the airport in protest. That resistance and solidarity kept a national spotlight on the Muslim ban and kept us going in securing the release of individuals wrongfully detained at the airports.

Fast forward to March 30, 2018. Hundreds of civil rights organizations representing individuals impacted by this third iteration of the Muslim ban, members of the Japanese-American community, immigration and constitutional law experts, LGBTQIA leaders, business and labor organizations, states, elected officials, and national security experts filed amicus (friend-of-the-court) briefs in opposition to the Muslim ban. Amicus briefs will provide perspectives and expertise to the Supreme Court on legal issues as it prepares to hear oral arguments on the case on April 25, 2018.

I am personally moved by the amicus brief of Karen Korematsu, Jay Hirabayashi, and Holly Yasui  —  the children of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Minoru Yasui. They see the disturbing relevance of the Supreme Court’s decisions in their fathers’ infamous cases challenging the mass removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Their amicus brief outlines the parallels between the two cases as the U.S. government is once again asking the Court to blindly justify blanket action against an entire group.

It is also critical that the amicus briefs capture the impact Muslim Ban 3.0 has had on our communities. Since December 4, 2017, when the Supreme Court allowed Muslim Ban 3.0 to go into full effect while lower courts heard challenges to the case, we have been inundated with cases involving mass visa denials for children, spouses, parents, and grandparents, including Iranian, Yemeni, Somali, Syrian, Libyan U.S. citizens and green card–holders, students, and people with urgent medical issues.

While the text of Muslim Ban 3.0 claims to have a “waiver process,” by which if a waiver is granted the ban will no longer prevent the applicant from obtaining a visa, the reality on the ground is chaos, because there is no process, and waivers are not being granted. The amicus briefs of the Pars Equality Center and immigration law scholars capture the devastation and hardship I have been witnessing and fighting against for the last year as well as the legal limbo and whiplash of a year of litigation over three versions of the Muslim ban. All versions have been found to violate federal law by lower courts.

The Muslim ban is only one of many attacks on immigrant communities we are fighting. Hundreds of immigrants’ rights organizations, practitioners, and professors  —  including the Immigration Law Clinic at my alma mater, the University of California, Davis  —  that are fighting the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program as well as the detention and deportation of immigrant community members, submitted amicus briefs outlining how the Muslim ban clearly violates the Immigration and Nationality Act.

These amicus briefs highlight key points for the Supreme Court to consider as it hears the case. And I hope they will push the Court to rule in our favor.

Join us in rallying on Wednesday, April 25, to say #NoMuslimBanEver.

Elica Vafaie is a staff attorney at Advancing Justice  –  Asian Law Caucus and program manager of its National Security and Civil Rights Program.

THE TORCH: CONTENTSBy Subha Varadarajan, Muslim Ban Campaign Legal & Outreach Fellow
APRIL 2, 2018

On April 25, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether one of the latest versions of Trump’s Muslim ban exceeds the authority of the president under federal immigration law and whether it violates the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against a certain religious group. Unlike prior versions of the ban, this iteration is permanent and was allowed to go into full effect until the Supreme Court issues a final ruling.

A Muslim ban is definitely in effect. Every day it’s separating loved ones.

After a prior version of the Muslim ban failed to make it to the Supreme Court because it expired, a later version, Muslim Ban 3.0 — which indefinitely bans most nationals from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. — has faced new challenges. After the ban was largely blocked by federal district courts, the Trump administration appealed these cases to the Ninth and Fourth Circuit Courts of Appeal.

On December 4, 2017, before the circuit courts heard the case, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing the Muslim Ban 3.0 to go into full effect until it issues a final ruling on the case, regardless of how the circuit courts ruled. This means that for nearly four months, we have had a full version of a Muslim ban in place for the first time since January 27, 2017, when Muslim Ban 1.0 was implemented. In that time, countless families have been separated because of a clearly discriminatory policy.

While the Supreme Court did not comment or rule on the legality of the ban, its decision to allow the ban to go forward for the time being confirmed the fears of Muslims here in the U.S. and around the world, and reinforced a feeling of uncertainty for those unable to make plans that many of us take for granted.

The lower courts rejected this latest Muslim ban. Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide.

On December 22, 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Hawaii v. Trump, affirmed that the latest version of the Muslim ban is still illegal, because it “once again exceeds the scope of [the president’s] delegated authority.” The Ninth Circuit issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the policy from being applied to those who have a “bona fide relationship” with people or institutions in the U.S. The Trump administration appealed this decision to the Supreme Court. The court announced its decision to hear the case on January 19, 2018, and later set a hearing date for April 25, 2018.

On February 14, 2018, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard several challenges to this version of the Muslim Ban, including IRAP v. Trump and Zakzok v. Trump, also rejected the ban and also issued a preliminary injunction, ruling that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. The Fourth Circuit found that the policy is “unconstitutionally tainted with animus toward Islam” and that “an objective observer could conclude that the President’s repeated statements convey the primary purpose of the Proclamation — to exclude Muslims from the United States.”

While the Supreme Court has not yet decided if it will join this case with the Hawaii case and hear both of them at the same time, it has said that it wants to hear arguments on both the statutory claims — whether the ban violates the president’s authority under federal law — and the constitutional ones — whether the ban violates the Establishment Clause because it discriminates against a particular religious group.

Unfortunately, despite these two circuit court opinions rejecting large parts of the ban, the Supreme Court’s prior order still allows the ban to remain in effect until it issues a final decision.

Need a reminder of what all the different Muslim Bans are and whom they impact? Check out our explainer that gives you an at-a-glance overview.

---

More on the Trump administration’s discrimination against people from Muslim-majority countries:

• Supreme Court Allows Discriminatory Muslim Ban to Stand
• Government’s Supreme Court Argument Tries to Divorce from Trump’s Own Words and Record His Ban on Travel from Muslim-majority Countries
• Trump’s Ban As Experienced by Yemeni-Americans
• A Year in Review: Reflections on Resistance against the Muslim Ban
• Muslim Ban 3.0 (and 4.0): How We’re Fighting in the Courts, in Congress and in Our Communities
• Trump’s Muslim Ban (on our Immigration Enforcement Issues webpage)