Open Letter to Biden/Harris Transition Team

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) sent an open letter to the Biden-Harris Transition team identifying urgent legal and policy issues that are currently affecting people of color and immigrants across the country. The letter identifies seven critical areas for immediate executive action, and urges the new Administration to prioritize the following:

1. Police reform to protect people of color, particularly Black men and women such as Minneapolis’ George Floyd and Boston’s Terrance Coleman; 

2. Fair Housing, including ensuring that HUD does not create barriers for victims of housing discriminationseeking judicial relief;

3. Immigration, including the restoration of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants fleeing conflict and environmental catastrophes;

4. Education, including prohibition of information sharing between public schools and law enforcement, including immigration officials as we have seen in Boston;

5. Voting rights, including the full restoration of all remedies available under the federal Voting Rights Act;

6. Relief for small businesses, including automatic forgiveness for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans under $150,000; and  

7. Census 2020, including counting all people regardless of immigration status as part of the congressional apportionment base. 

Over the past four years, in response to discriminatory and harmful executive action, LCR has filed groundbreaking precedent-setting cases on behalf of people of color and immigrants across a wide-range of areas, including the first lawsuits in the country against the Trump Administration to protect sanctuary cities; to save humanitarian protections on behalf of Honduran, Salvadoran, and Liberian immigrants; and to block immigration arrests in courthouses. At the beginning of the pandemic, the organization also filed Savino v. Souza, the first successful coronavirus class action against immigration officials. Most recently, LCR secured a nationwide injunction blocking HUD’s efforts to dismantle anti-discrimination protections enshrined in the federal Fair Housing Act. 

“It’s time to rebuild and repair,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, LCR’s executive director, noting that “the open letter identifies key opportunities for policy development and advocacy on behalf of people of color and immigrants. Progress on each of these fronts is desperately needed to make all families and communities safe.”  

The letter is available here:

Biden-Harris-Transition-Letter-FINAL