Our Cases
On January 18th, 2012, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Vartelas v. Holder, a case that raised the question of whether the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which strips lawful permanent residents of the United States of the right to travel abroad briefly and be guaranteed reentry, can be applied retroactively to a green-card holder who pleaded guilty to an offense before 1996 and traveled abroad thereafter.
In an amicus filed in the case Magner v. Gallagher, LatinoJustice joined the Lawyers’ Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Equal Rights Center and several other national civil rights organizations in urging the Supreme Court to find that the Fair Housing Act is properly interpreted to authorize disparate impact claims.
On December 27, 2011 LatinoJustice PRLDEF filed a Complaint-In-Intervention in Favors v. Cuomo on behalf of five Latino voters urging the Brooklyn Federal Court to adopt a redistricting plan that provides Latino voters in New York with equal political representation. to ensure that Latino voting interests are adequately represented.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and Leadership Conference on Race and Human Rights in filing an amicus brief opposing the imposition of life sentences without parole on juvenile offenders in the Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sen. Little’s lawsuit seeks to have the new legislation struck down, the effect of which would require legislative districts – most notably her own, which contains 12,000 incarcerated persons – to include prison populations in their apportionment counts to the detriment of all other districts without prisons.LatinoJustice, as part of a group of organizations representing three nonprofit groups including NAACP NYS Conference, Common Cause of NY, and Voices of Community Activists and Leaders – NY (“VOCAL-NY”) and fifteen voters from both urban and rural districts, has moved to intervene.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF protected your right to vote during this year’s elections. Our attorneys and staff responded to Spanish-language voter concerns from across the East Coast at a national call center, and were on the ground in several counties ensuring that Latino voters received the access and assistance that they are guaranteed by law.
A federal court upheld a ruling that stopped the city of Hazleton, PA from enacting most of the provisions in an anti-immigration law that targeted a growing population of Latinos in the town.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF President and General Counsel Cesar Perales sent a letter to Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, warning him that LatinoJustice PRLDEF is prepared to sue the state or any of its agencies if the Governor authorizes law enforcement agents to conduct investigations into the immigration status of persons they stop or arrest.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF filed an amicus brief with an Arizona Court on behalf of a number of national Latino organizations who oppose Arizona's SB 1070 law.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF, along with Casa de Maryland and Nixon Peabody LLP filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Maryland, alleging that Frederick County Sheriff's officers violated the civil rights of a Latina woman who was doing nothing more than quietly sitting and eating her lunch in a public area.
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced that they have opened a formal investigation into possible discriminatory policies and practices by the Suffolk County Police Department. The investigation comes after LatinoJustice PRLDEF’s demand that the federal agency look into how the Suffolk Police Department was failing to act and protect Latino residents in the county.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF helped Latino tenants in Plainfield, NJ win a major legal victory this past spring, when a Federal judge dismissed a civil racketeering (RICO) claim brought by a well-known anti-immigrant group against a private landlord, charging that its renting of apartments to Latino immigrants constituted “harboring.”
LatinoJustice PRLDEF, joined by the global law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, filed an amicus brief with the California Supreme Court urging the court to dismiss a legal challenge to California AB540 which allows qualified students, including undocumented students, to pay in-state tuition rates at California’s public colleges and universities.
LatinoJustice PRLDEF has filed a civil rights action on behalf of a Latino family alleging that the Prince William County police forcibly entered their home without cause and used excessive force.
Latino voters came out in record numbers to choose our next President in the 2008 elections, but a significant number of those voices were silenced when Spanish-speaking voters did not receive the language assistance they needed and are entitled to by law.