Article Title
Growing the Resistance: A Call to Action for Transactional Lawyers in the Era of Trump
Abstract
New Yorkers woke to a dreary, drizzly day on November 9, 2016. The weather matched the mood of many of the city’s inhabitants. Tears streamed down my face as I sat in the subway waiting for my stop. One by one, as my colleagues in the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center came into the office that morning, we shared expressions of shock, anger, fear, and sadness. We feared for what Trump’s election meant for our clients, for ourselves and our families, for our country, and for our world. In the days and weeks that followed, we coalesced around a resolve to continue our work in support of grassroots and community-based groups that organized for power within the city’s low-income immigrant communities and communities of color. Our model of partnership with these groups, wherein they take the lead in determining the priorities and goals for our work, would be especially critical in the times ahead. We knew we needed to keep doing what we had been doing. For me, that meant advising non-profit organizations and working with low-wage immigrant workers, many undocumented, to create safe, dignified jobs free from workplace abuses.
As fear and panic washed over immigrant communities following Trump’s election, immigrants’ rights advocates undertook several efforts to provide support to individuals and to challenge the administration’s actions. Immigration attorneys mobilized at airports to file habeas petitions on behalf of travelers detained under a new executive order that banned entry into the country by people from several predominantly Muslim countries. Litigators brought lawsuits challenging the ban itself. Immigration attorneys screened immigrants to determine what type, if any, of relief was available to them, and they quickly disseminated information about one’s rights and how to protect one’s self in the event of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest.
Many transactional attorneys, however, felt helpless and at a loss for how to use their legal skills to join these efforts of “resistance” to Trump and his administration. Yet, transactional attorneys with previous experience representing immigrant groups and businesses were well positioned to counsel on matters pertinent to undocumented immigrants.
Myself and other transactional attorneys fielded calls from nonprofit organizations and their attorneys on options for workers that may lose work authorization status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act (DACA). We collaborated with immigration attorneys to present on what to do in the event of immigration raids at work sites and nonprofit organizations. Other transactional attorneys led workshops for noncitizen immigrants on protecting financial assets in case of deportation. By expanding our knowledge beyond traditional corporate areas into ones that touched on issues affecting undocumented immigrants, we provided unique services to undocumented immigrant workers and bolstered the movement of resistance against the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant actions.
This essay is a call to action for transactional lawyers looking to support vulnerable immigrants through non-litigation means. By providing a snapshot of an especially precarious time in history for immigrants in the U.S.—the period immediately after the 2016 presidential election—the essay illustrates future areas of opportunity for transactional attorneys.
Part two describes the undocumented immigrant workforce in the U.S. and recounts the impact of Trump’s election on immigrant communities. Part three discusses various sanctuarymovements led by advocates to create safe spaces for undocumented immigrants. It focuses on the Sanctuary Workplace campaign, an initiative centered on worker cooperatives as safe workspaces for immigrant workers. Part four highlights what I term sanctuary lawyering—the efforts of transactional lawyers to protect undocumented workers by combining their transactional lawyering knowledge and skills with areas of law germane to undocumented immigrants. Part five details critical issues that emerged for organizers and attorneys in effectuating the Sanctuary Workplace Campaign. The essay concludes by urging transactional lawyers to draw from the lawyering and advocacy examples to grow the resistance.