Brian Lehrer Show
Mohamed Attia, director of the Urban Justice Center's Street Vendor Project, talks about their work on behalf of the many undocumented street vendors cut off from government assistance during the pandemic.Today, the Urban Justice Center’s Domestic Violence Project (DVP) released internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) records revealing the rushed implementation and devastating impact of USCIS’s “no-blanks” policy, which purports to empower USCIS to reject U-visa petitions, among other immigration applications, solely because they contain blank answer fields.... Over the past nine months, USCIS has utilized the no-blanks policy to reject properly-filed U-visa petitions for trivial and nonsensical reasons, such as when the “middle name” field in a U-visa petition is left blank because the crime victim has no middle name.
The City
Harassment “has really heightened throughout the pandemic since the court system has not been an avenue that has been accessible,” said Marika Dias, tenant attorney and director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center.The Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center condemns the arrest and detainment of sex workers, including individuals potentially experiencing trafficking, as part of Operation Autumn Hope.
Law 360
"You've lost your case simply by virtue of the fact that you didn't file an answer," said Marika Dias, attorney and director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center. "That's not irreversible, but that's not a strong position to be in. You have to show both that your case has merit and that you have an excusable reason for the default."Law 360
Outside of New York City, said Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center attorney Marika Dias, most tenants do not. The available defenses "are very complicated and are going to be difficult for tenants to argue," she said.Law 360
Marika Dias, attorney and director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York City, noted that evictions in the state typically take longer than four months to resolve, likely pushing pandemic-related disputes past the Dec. 31 threshold.NY Daily News
The Urban Justice Center, which is focused on helping people secure public benefits, found that more than 50% of calls to the city Human Resources Administration were dropped and 20% had wait times of more than eight minutes.Curbed NY
Marika Dias, the managing director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, stresses it’s a small but critical change that gives those tenants a last-ditch effort to defend their homes, but it’s still a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. “That’s a much better situation than what we were going to see unfold,” says Dias. “That said, people are not going to suddenly have their job or their health restored come October 1. The situation demands a political solution.”The City
Meanwhile, the 30 people living in the hotel rooms meet every Tuesday evening with organizers from the Urban Justice Center and other groups to strategize, by consensus, their proposals to DHS.© 2024 Urban Justice Center | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
