Law and Social Movements

#DilleyDispatches: From Hope to Heartbreak in Forty-Eight Hours

December 22, 2016

Ernie Collette is a Government Benefits and Immigration Attorney at MFY Legal Services Feature Image Photo Credit: Claire R. Thomas Wednesday, December 14, 2016. I met with a woman and her young daughter who had a signed order in a request to extend their detention to avoid deportation from Dilley, Texas. Based on testimony that they offered, but was previously was unavailable, I was assigned the task to write a Request…

Dilley Dispatches: Holistic Legal Support to End Family Detention

November 25, 2016

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By Carlos A. Valenzuela, an Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow with the Safe Passage Project; Claire R. Thomas is an attorney with the Safe Passage Project and teaches at New York Law School; Ernie Collette is a Government Benefits and Immigration Attorney at MFY Legal Services; Marilyn E. Alvarado is a first generation college graduate from CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice and paralegal with Safe Passage Project; Michelle Castaneda is a Ph.D….

Calling All Movement Lawyers: We Need To Organize Our Legal Support

November 10, 2016

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Chaumtoli Huq is the Editor of Law@theMargins. Additional thanks to Editorial Law Intern Val Merlina for her edits on this piece. Many of you I know who are committed to social justice are processing the United States presidential election results and the pending Trump presidency, and many of you are doing this in different ways: from gathering with friends, getting on social media, jumping into actions and protests, while others of you…

VIDEO: Tea Workers Protest Creation of Economic Zone Over Their Cultivated Land

November 5, 2016

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Tea workers from Chandpore Tea Estate share about their protest to stop the creation of a special economic zone over land they have cultivated for years to supplement their meager salary from tea plucking. Listen to them talk about their struggle that began in December 2015. While the government has halted on the plan to have a economic zone, after months of protest, there is still not guarantee that they…

Freedom of Speech: It’s All About Race: Oregon Standoff and No DAPL

October 31, 2016

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By Dayna Jones & Val Merlina, Law Interns & Editorial Team with Law@theMargins All oppression is connected, but the glaring blindness of white privilege stands in the way of this critical recognition. As movements across America, from Standing Rock to Don’t Shoot PDX and the Driscoll Farmworker Boycott, engage in the struggle against corporate and governmental entities to realize their human rights, the discrepancy between treatment of peoples cannot be ignored….

#NoDAPL: Fund Native American Organizing

October 9, 2016

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The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies have been locked in a legal and on-the-ground battle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being constructed through sacred, historical cultural sites without consultation. The DAPL also puts the Tribe’s only water source in jeopardy. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is a 1,168-mile long crude oil pipeline that will transport nearly 570,000 barrels of oil each day from North Dakota to…

VIDEO: Native Americans Leading on Environmental Justice

May 22, 2016

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Some selected quotes from the webinar. Dallas Goldtooth: “[W]e know that indigenous peoples tend to be on the forefront of climate change- not just on the receiving end of sea level rising or loss of traditional habitat or impacts to what animals are still around, but we also tend to be on the front lines of extraction, so we wanted to be sure that we are there in that conversation,…

Naree Shongothok: Bangladeshi Women Organizing for Social Change

April 21, 2016

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Law@theMargins Editor Chaumtoli Huq sat down with five (5) community organizers of Bangladeshi descent to speak about the issues confronting the New York/New Jersey Bangladeshi community, the role of women, and the ways in which we can build women’s leadership and an inclusive movement. This interview is part of an on going video project to lift up the issues of women, especially working class women, who are organizing for social…

Lessons Learned from Angela Davis’ Book: Freedom is A Constant Struggle

April 7, 2016

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By Fazeela Siddiqui, currently a Staff Attorney at a large non-profit legal service organization in New York City. For those who stand up to the ills of today and seek language to connect and grow interrelated mass movements, look no further than Angela Davis’ new book, “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, And the Foundations of a Movement”, published by Haymarket Books. The book, a collection of essays and…

Lessons Learned from California’s Paid Leave Law

March 4, 2016

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There has never been a better time to push for a national policy on paid leave. But as we raise our collective voices for paid leave, what are the lessons we can share from California? How can we create a policy that is equitable and really works for all US workers – young, low income, men and women of color, and new immigrants?

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