The CUNY Law Review will host a Symposium exploring the role of legal practitioners at the intersection of aggressive federal immigration enforcement and emerging people’s movements for racial, economic, and social justice. Federal legislation in the 1990s dramatically expanded the deportation and criminal enforcement infrastructure in the United States while vastly changing the legal landscape for poor communities of color, often with deadly consequences. More recent expansion of federal, state, and local national security operations have further targeted and surveilled Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities. At the same time, multiracial movements continue to grow, change, and blossom. From #BlackLivesMatter to #Not1More, communities continue to organize, march, and build toward a more just future. Organizing and legal action have reached a fever pitch following executive actions by the Trump administration to expand southern border enforcement, restrict immigration from a number of predominantly Muslim nations, and halt the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. As thousands of Americans take to the streets to combat these racist and xenophobic policies, this Symposium asks how members of the legal community can be part of an alternative vision for the future in which we can all be free. By bringing together legal practitioners and organizers working on the front lines of multiple justice movements, this Symposium will explore what works (and what does not work) in past and current legal interventions. We will also ask how legal practitioners can best work in collaboration with intersectional movements for racial, gender, economic, and social justice towards a transformative and expansive vision for immigrant defense. Programming will include a plenary session with advocates and organizers at the forefront of their fields, panel discussions, and a keynote address. The Symposium is free and open to the public. Lunch and a concluding reception will be provided.

Registration:
For more information and to register, click here.