The nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Maryland is more permanent than the 14-day temporary restraining order issued last month by a federal judge in Seattle. A federal judge in Maryland has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman heard arguments Wednesday over a request by five pregnant undocumented women to block Trump's Day-1 executive order seeking to redefine the meaning of the 14th Amendment to exclude the children of undocumented immigrants from birthright citizenship. "The denial of the precious right to citizenship will cause irreparable harm," Judge Boardman said in handing down her order. "It has been said the right to U.S. citizenship is a right no less precious than life or liberty. If the court does not enjoin enforcement of the executive order, children subject to the order will be denied the rights and benefits of U.S. citizenship and their parents will face instability." "A nationwide injunction is appropriate and necessary because it concerns citizenship," Judge Boardman said. The ruling comes two weeks after a federal judge in Seattle criticized the Department of Justice for attempting to defend what he called a "blatantly unconstitutional" order and issued a temporary restraining order. In her ruling, Judge Boardman said Trump's executive order "conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment." "The U.S. Supreme court has resoundingly rejected the president's interpretation of the citizenship clause," Boardman said. "In fact, no court has endorsed the president's interpretation, and this court will not be the first." She added that the plaintiffs would "very likely" succeed on the merits in their case against Trump's order. During the hearing, plaintiffs' attorney Joseph Mead called the DOJ's argument a "reimagination of the 14th Amendment phrase 'subject jurisdiction.'" "The executive order's departure from settled law is so abrupt ... it is such a departure from what we've been doing for over a century," Mead argued. "Being a citizen is the foundation for so many rights." The five women, along with two nonprofits, filed the lawsuit against the Trump administration last month, arguing that Trump's executive order violated the constitution and multiple federal laws. "If allowed to go into effect, the Executive Order would throw into doubt the citizenship status of thousands of children across the country, including the children of Individual Plaintiffs and Members," the lawsuit said. Lawyers for the Department of Justice have claimed that Trump's executive order attempts to resolve "prior misimpressions" of the 14th Amendment, arguing that birthright citizenship creates a "perverse incentive for illegal immigration." If permitted, Trump's executive order would preclude U.S. citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants or immigrants whose presence in the United States is lawful but temporary. "Text, history, and precedent support what common sense compels: the Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to, inter alia: the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws," DOJ lawyers argued. The executive order had already been put on hold by U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle. "I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind," said Coughenour last month when he issued his temporary restraining order. "Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?" Because Judge Coughenour's order only blocked the executive order temporarily, Judge Boardman had been asked to consider a longer-lasting preliminary injunction against the executive order. With Trump vowing to appeal a ruling that finds his executive order unconstitutional, Wednesday's preliminary injunction could be his first opportunity to appeal to a higher court. Members of the Trump administration spent months crafting this executive order with the understanding that it would inevitably be challenged and potentially blocked by lower courts, according to sources familiar with their planning. While the lawsuit challenging the executive order in Seattle was brought by four state attorneys general, the five pregnant undocumented women who filed the Maryland case argued that they would be uniquely harmed by the order. With individual states and undocumented women suffering different harms under the order, the cases could present different reasons to justify blocking the order. Monica -- a medical doctor from Venezuela with temporary protected status who joined the lawsuit under a pseudonym -- said she joined the suit because she fears her future child will become stateless, with her home country facing an ongoing humanitarian, political and economic crisis. "I'm 12 weeks pregnant. I should be worried about the health of my child. I should be thinking about that primarily, and instead my husband and I are stressed, we're anxious and we're depressed about the reality that my child may not be able to become a U.S. citizen," she said.
0 Comments
One might say that legal services regulation is experiencing a renaissance — albeit a very slow moving and unevenly distributed one.
Over the last decade, a growing number of states have rethought certain aspects of legal regulation — among them, unauthorized-practice-of-law rules. Prohibitions on the unauthorized practice of law are intended to protect the public from unqualified, unauthorized and unscrupulous legal services providers. Nobody disputes that this is a valid and desirable regulatory objective. Yet there are problems with the prevailing unauthorized practice of law framework that purports to meet this objective. By and large, under current state unauthorized practice of law rules, licensed attorneys are the only professionals allowed to deliver legal services. Counter to what one would experience in a modern health care setting, for example, where there are a wide range of service providers with different scopes of practice, in legal services it is attorneys or nothing. This would be less of a problem if attorney providers were meeting the needs of everyone who required legal help, but they are not. For many, attorney help is inaccessible. The high numbers of litigants navigating state court systems without attorneys is well documented. Many self-represented litigants find themselves in this situation because of the costs — perceived or actual — of hiring an attorney. And one's ability to afford an attorney is not as straightforward an issue as it might initially seem. In the context of subsidized legal services, the hard income cutoffs in service eligibility determinations create an arbitrary and false distinction between those who cannot afford attorney services and those who can. The 2022 Legal Services Corp. justice gap study, and others, illustrates how affordability is an issue for those above the federal Poverty Guidelines.[1] Some states are addressing the legal services gap among this so-called missing middle by allowing other types of legal providers, not just attorneys, to offer specific legal services in certain circumstances. While these providers are not licensed attorneys, they are educated, trained and licensed to deliver legal advice in limited circumstances, and in limited case types. Colorado is the most recent state to open the profession in this way, joining Arizona, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Utah and Washington.[2] Programs of this type are also under consideration in other states. Each state program is unique, but together they represent an opportunity to expand affordable and accessible legal services. Colorado may be the latest state to move toward a more responsive system of regulating legal services, but it will not be the last. More and more states should rethink the century-old assumptions that shape our current regulatory rules — and work to bring this system into the 21st century. Background There is a major flaw in how we traditionally think about one's ability to afford an attorney. First, income is a poor proxy for spending power. Behind income are debts and liabilities, which for many people can be considerable. It is easy to assume that individuals with a higher annual income are able to afford an attorney. But saddled with $200,000 in student loan debt along with housing, child education, senior care and other recurring monthly expenses, one's spending power becomes much more limited. One might — and many do — argue that this hypothetical earner is better positioned than lower-income earners to leverage credit or borrow from another source to hire an attorney. This assumption is really an expectation that the legal profession places on certain consumer segments — mandating the exclusive use of private attorneys to achieve justice, in spite of what a consumer can or will pay. This kind of dictate might make sense if all legal matters were of the same level of complexity, required the same tasks, and demanded the same level of human skill and expertise. But that is simply not the case. To be sure, there are complex legal issues that necessitate sophisticated representation, specialized expertise, and expert litigation skills. There is little debate that these kind of cases and issues require a qualified attorney. Yet there are some legal matters — more straightforward issues and streamlined case types — that professionals who are not attorneys can be educated and trained to handle competently. Just as nurse practitioners can practice medicine within their limited purview, so can new tiers of professionals in the law. To repurpose the claim levied by some opponents: No, you would not seek out a nurse to perform your brain surgery. But you would — and undoubtedly most of us do — seek out a nurse to give you a vaccine. Colorado's Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals Have Entered the Profession States are calling these new providers by a variety of names. In Washington, they are limited licensed legal technicians. In Utah, they are licensed paralegal practitioners. In Arizona, they are legal paraprofessionals. We use the term "allied legal professionals" as a placeholder until stakeholders can coalesce around a uniform national title. Now, in Colorado, licensed legal paraprofessionals, or LLPs, will soon be able to practice law in marital dissolution, parentage and allocation of parental responsibility cases. While Colorado's program is one of the newest to be implemented, the state's exploration of this issue goes back to 2015 when the Colorado Supreme Court charged a subcommittee to study Washington's limited licensed legal technician program and related efforts. The subcommittee work was paused but revived in early 2020 when the court established the Paraprofessionals and Legal Services Subcommittee and tasked it to explore the creation of a regulatory regime for the practice of law by licensed qualified paraprofessionals. From there, the PALS Subcommittee built out a proposal for LLPs operating in family law. Many aspects of the proposal that the subcommittee submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court mimicked programs operating or being considered in other states. For example, among the states that have these allied legal professional programs, family law is the most included case type — specifically divorce and dissolution, child custody and support, domestic violence and paternity. The tasks these providers have been authorized to perform is generally consistent with other state approaches: advising clients on which forms to use; preparing, filing and reviewing opposing party court documents; participating in mediation; etc. Notably, Colorado LLPs are only authorized to provide limited in-court representation. They may stand next to and communicate with clients in court proceedings, but they can only react to questions posed by the court — they may not address the tribunal otherwise. Colorado is not the only state that adopted this kind of reactive representation model, but many states are moving toward authorizing full representation, in recognition of the documented struggles self-represented litigants have in navigating hearings. Leveraging Existing Expertise and Trusted Paralegal Professionals It is not uncommon for attorneys who learn of these new programs to express concern that untrained individuals will end up doing more harm to legal consumers than if the consumer had no legal help. Self-representation is devastating for many who try it, and we know from study after study that outcomes are negatively affected when one does not have legal help. But more importantly, education and training are hallmarks of each and every allied legal professional program that is active or under consideration. In Colorado, prior to sitting for the required examination, LLP applicants must have received either:
Alternatively, under Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 207.8(4), an applicant is not required to meet these educational qualifications if they have worked the equivalent of three full-time years in employment constituting substantive law-related practical experience, which must include the equivalent of one full-time year focused on Colorado family law, during the five years immediately preceding the date of filing the application.[3] Further, to obtain a license, Colorado's LLP will have to complete 1,500 hours of substantive law-related practical experience, including 500 hours of experience in Colorado family law. Colorado's program, and many others, are designed to appeal to paralegals, who already handle a substantial amount of client interaction, often acting as a buffer for attorneys by addressing basic inquiries or soothing agitated clients and even meeting with clients without attorneys present to advance cases and to provide clients with regular — and requested — law firm contact. They perform various essential tasks for which they are well trained, and as their experience grows, attorney oversight is, in reality, often reduced. It is not a leap — or even a baby step — to imagine traditional paralegals with additional training providing limited legal advice in select case types. Given the experience already possessed by many of the paralegals who might pursue licensure under Colorado's LLP program, and the substantial educational and experiential requirements of the program, the claim of attorneys in opposition to this change in regulatory rules — namely, that an unwitting public will be subject to unqualified help — is an increasingly tough sell. Every state with a program in place now or in the near future has seen fit to establish significant standards for practitioners who are not attorneys. How States Can Emulate Colorado's Model State legal regulators can follow the example set by Colorado and others by first exploring the national landscape of these allied legal professional programs, along with the emerging data on how these programs are operating.[4] The experiences of other states are an invaluable starting point. Modifying state regulatory rules to authorize these programs takes leadership, from the bench and bar — and this leadership signals to the public a willingness to modernize the practice of law to better serve consumers. These programs also require a longer-term commitment by state legal regulators. Introducing a new tier of providers into a historically closed-off profession will take time. New service delivery models do not take hold overnight. The good news is that there is a first-tier audience for these new provider roles: paralegals. Many currently practicing paralegals would consider the expansion and potential of their roles and could transition almost immediately if already qualified through their educational and experiential backgrounds. Looking to the future and the evolution of these programs, instead of limiting allied legal professionals to family law cases, housing issues and debt collection, states could expand their scope to other areas of law, such as estate planning and probate. A recent survey from Caring.com echoes what previous studies have shown — approximately 67% of Americans do not have an estate plan, and yet each of us is going to need one someday.[5] States might consider imposing regulatory requirements such as additional education and experience, as referenced above. Other safeguards might include requiring allied legal professionals to acquire credentials and training similar to that of attorneys, such as periodic CLE courses including ethics, and assessments for character and fitness. Washington, Arizona and Utah have all instituted a licensure exam. In states where allied legal professional programs have been approved, it would be beneficial to also have judicial education programs on the role of the new professionals so that the permissions and parameters of the representation are understood by all. Ultimately, expanding the pool of legal professionals who can help meet people's urgent legal needs will increase access to justice by providing a new, more affordable tier of legal services. Americans often feel priced out of legal counsel and the only legitimate alternative for average earners who do not qualify for legal aid has been to represent themselves. Millions are in need of services that complement the work of attorneys, and states can accomplish this by opening the profession to new tiers of practitioners. Natalie Anne Knowlton is a regulatory innovation adviser and Janet Drobinske is a senior legal assistant at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver. "Perspectives" is a regular feature written by guest authors on access to justice issues. To pitch article ideas, email [email protected]. The Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation (OSU-COM at Cherokee Nation) achieved a historic milestone on May 16, 2024, as its inaugural class of 46 medical students graduated. This marks the first graduating class from a tribally affiliated medical school in the United States.
The commencement ceremony, held at the Mabee Center in Tulsa, celebrated graduates from both OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine and its Cherokee Nation affiliate. Dr. Kayse Shrum, president of Oklahoma State University, spoke at the ceremony, highlighting the program's dual purpose: improving health outcomes in rural Oklahoma and expanding the medical school. The graduating class reflects a significant increase in Native American representation in the medical field. Approximately 20% of the OSU-COM graduates identify as Native American, a substantial number compared to the national average of less than 1%. Notably, 35% of graduates from OSU-COM at Cherokee Nation matched with residency programs in rural or tribal settings. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. emphasized the importance of this achievement, recognizing both the resilience of Cherokee ancestors and the promise these new doctors hold. "Their dedication addresses the critical shortage of rural doctors while increasing Native representation in our healthcare system," Hoskin said in a statement. "This ensures culturally competent care for generations to come." Training physicians to serve rural and underserved communities is a key mission of the OSU Center for Health Sciences, particularly considering Oklahoma's low national health outcome rankings. "These graduates …. embody the values of service, compassion, and excellence shared by both the Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma State University," Dr. Johnny Stephens, president of OSU-CHS, said in a statement. The nine Native American graduates in this first class represent a significant increase over the national average. There are currently only about 2,500 Native American physicians serving a population of nearly 850,000 doctors nationwide. This translates to just 0.3% representation, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Some specialties like endocrinology, neonatal medicine, and vascular surgery have zero Native American representation. This inaugural class is just the beginning. Future classes at OSU-COM at Cherokee Nation are projected to have between 16% and 30% of students coming from tribal backgrounds. Native medical students represent 11 different tribes and hail from 46 Oklahoma counties, Natasha Bray, the medical school’s dean told STAT. Additionally, the graduating class at OSU's main campus in Tulsa includes 15 more Indigenous doctors. This collective effort signifies a crucial step towards diversifying the medical workforce and addressing the critical need for physicians in rural and tribal communities. For Cobb County Sheriff Craig Owens, helping veterans housed in his jail is more than an official duty.
“For 30-plus years, serving this country and knowing what the men and women put on the line every day for this country, it just means so much to me to be able to give them some support,” said Owens, who served a combined 36 years in the U.S. Army and later the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard. “It’s the right thing for me to do.” The sheriff’s office launched “Operation Holiday Honor” this month, aimed at providing resources for incarcerated veterans to prepare them for success upon release. Among the resources being offered through community partners are three months of paid rent upon release through the Get to Work Foundation, a national nonprofit that helps homeless veterans find jobs; a backpack full of clothes, food and other items through the sheriff’s office; and mentorship and other resources through the Cobb County Veterans Accountability and Treatment Court and The Warrior Alliance, a Georgia nonprofit that helps military veterans and their families. According to the Council on Criminal Justice, research suggests that those who recently served in the military are twice as likely as nonveterans to face incarceration, while veterans from previous eras were half as likely as nonveterans to be incarcerated. Owens didn’t rule out, if the program proves to be successful, assisting nonveteran detainees in similar ways as they transition from jail to civilian life. A variety of factors before, during and after military service contribute to veteran incarceration, such as living conditions before enlisting, combat exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, readjustment to civilian life, health care issues and homelessness, according to the CCJ. Owens, who left the Army Reserve in 2020 as a command sergeant major, said he has seen a lot of veterans struggle when they leave the military. “I feel that everyone or anyone that’s going to give their life for their country and serve their country should always have some support when they return home,” he said. “It’s kind of disheartening to see those men and women get in these bad situations because some of them, they need help. Not only from financial help; they need mental health care.” The sheriff’s office partnered last year with the veterans court to create a dorm designated for veterans within the jail’s so-called compliance dorm. Inmates can request placement in the compliance room if they meet behavioral requirements within their first 30 days. The compliance dorm gives detainees access to workforce development programs, counseling and mental health services and allows veterans to be with fellow veterans. The idea for the program was brought up to Owens by Deputy Nedra Handia, who saw Owens speaking at an event about veterans. Veterans who get arrested should identify themselves as such during the booking process, Handia said, and officials will check to confirm veteran status. One of the mentor programs offered to veterans in Cobb County is through the veterans court, where Vietnam veteran Dan Hydrick has helped veterans for more than a decade. He said it’s rewarding to help veterans get back on track after they may have lost their way due to drugs, alcohol and crime. He said he plans to mentor for the rest of his life. “‘We got their 6,’ is what people understand,” he said, referring to a term used by military personnel for watching someone’s back, “But you don’t understand the 3 and the 9 coming from the flanks. All we ask them is take the 12 and go straight ahead. We got it.” Hydrick applauded Owens and the sheriff’s office for taking initiative in helping veterans held at the jail. Other agencies have also launched programs in the past couple of years to help veterans, including Gwinnett County, which opened a housing unit just for veterans in 2019 and a Veteran and Family Services Center in Lawrenceville in 2023 to provide health and social services to veterans and their families. The Cobb County Police Department signed a partnership agreement with the U.S. Army last year to provide employment opportunities for soldiers and veterans. In Columbus, the get to work Sheriff’s Office established a jail dormitory offering mental health counseling to veterans in 2012. Owens encouraged sheriffs nationwide to reach out to his office for advice on how they can help the veterans housed in their jails. “Give these veterans a chance to show you their skill set,” Owens said. “Most veterans have the discipline; they have integrity.” Nevada Judge Stops Nevada Cops From Using a Loophole To Get Around Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform2/4/2025 In the first decision of its kind in Nevada, a judge ruled last week that state law enforcement can't evade stricter requirements for seizing cash and property by partnering with the federal government.
The plaintiff in that lawsuit, a Marine veteran named Stephen Lara, had nearly $90,000 in cash seized from him in 2021 by two Nevada Highway Patrol officers. The cops admitted to Lara that there was nothing illegal about carrying large amounts of cash. But they decided that Lara's money was likely drug proceeds, and they coordinated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to forfeit it through a process called civil asset forfeiture. The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm, sued the NHP and DEA on Lara's behalf in 2021, arguing not only that should Lara get his money back—the DEA agreed to return it shortly after the suit was filed—but that the NHP exceeded its legal authority to hand the case over to the feds rather than following Nevada's stricter asset forfeiture laws. This was the first time Nevada courts had considered police participation in the Justice Department's Equitable Sharing Program, in which federal law enforcement "adopts" civil forfeiture cases from local police. The local department gets up to 80 percent of the forfeiture proceeds, and the rest goes into a Justice Department pool that is doled out to other participating departments around the country. Nevada Second Judicial District Judge Connie J. Steinheimer held that forfeiture laws are required to be strictly interpreted, and that there was no way to do that while allowing the NHP to unilaterally undercut them. "Without a clear dictate from the Nevada Legislature," she wrote, "NHP cannot undermine this bedrock policy and effectively circumvent Nevada's civil asset forfeiture statutes by electing to participate in the federal equitable sharing program." Steinheimer ruled that just because the federal government has the authority to adopt forfeiture cases doesn't mean state police have the authority to accept the offer. In a press release, Ben Field, an Institute for Justice attorney, called the ruling "a big step toward ending the abuse of civil forfeiture nationwide." Under typical civil asset forfeiture laws, police can seize property suspected of being connected to illegal activity even if the owner isn't charged with a crime. Law enforcement groups say the practice is a critical tool to disrupt drug trafficking and other organized crime. But media investigations and civil liberties groups have documented for years how innocent owners like Lara bear the burden of going to court to prove their innocence after their property is seized on flimsy suspicions. In response, more than half of all states have passed some form of civil asset forfeiture reform. But local and state police have often gotten around those laws by participating in the equitable sharing program. For example, North Carolina effectively abolished civil forfeiture and now requires all proceeds to fund schools, but in 2023 a sex crime victim was denied a $69,000 court-ordered settlement from her abuser because local police seized the cash first and then allowed the federal government to adopt the forfeiture case. Cases like these have led to calls to pass legislation to close the equitable sharing loophole, as its critics call it. Bipartisan members of Congress have repeatedly introduced the FAIR Act in recent years. The legislation includes several major reforms to civil asset forfeiture at the federal level, including eliminating the equitable sharing fund. The NHP argued in its motions opposing Lara's suit that it would be absurd to require the legislature to expressly permit it to accept standing offers from the federal government. The NHP did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Young, urban and poor women in Puerto Rico are highly vulnerable to substance dependency and suffer most in the opioid crisis. Limited government data invisibilizes their experiences. Before OxyContin hit the U.S. mainland market, the drug’s creator, Purdue Pharma, owned by the infamous Sackler family, tested the painkiller in Puerto Rico in 1989. The test subjects were 90 Puerto Rican women who consented to participate in the clinical trials while hospitalized and recovering from abdominal and gynecological surgery. The larger story of OxyContin — its highly addictive qualities, the communities decimated by opioids and the endless stream of lawsuits related to the drug — is far better known than the pre-history involving the Puerto Rican women who were used to bring OxyContin to market. The 1989 clinical trials were only possible because of the colonial status of Puerto Rico and the racist, patriarchal and classist system it finds itself in, which has long contributed to broader conditions on the island, including current rates of opioid use disorder (OUD). The Oxy trial wasn't the first time the bodies of women in Puerto Rico were exploited under colonial rule. A 1930s sterilization program that spanned four decades — well into the 1970s — was, in part, an effort by the U.S. government to improve the economy by eliminating what was seen as an unfit class of people. In the mid-1950s, women in Puerto Rico were also infamously recruited for and coerced into birth control pill clinical trials. Under colonialism, the bodies of women in Puerto Rico are subject to cycles of abuse and discard. Little is known how they fare in the end because the colonial government they live under has historically failed to maintain records or collect and analyze data regarding outcomes. As of 2020, Puerto Rico is home to 28,000 people who inject drugs, a statistic that is also linked to nearly half of the island’s HIV/AIDS cases and its status as having one of the most hepatitis C virus-vulnerable populations in the U.S. When it comes to Puerto Rico’s opioid crisis, the effects on women are ignored and neglected. Studies dedicated to the subject are relatively new and only just beginning to be conducted. More broadly, it remains difficult to estimate the true scale of the problem in Puerto Rico due to the lack of local governmental overdose surveillance. Local advocacy groups and researchers agree that additional monitoring efforts are needed to better address the opioid epidemic in Puerto Rico. The lack of research and study isn’t a coincidence; it is an intentional effort by the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments to keep the public in the dark. Colonized bodies are not important, unless they need to be used. Without accurate data on the opioid crisis and its specific impact on women, advocates like Yorelys Rivera Amador say Puerto Rico is ill-equipped to address the overlapping public health crises that stem from opioid dependency or meet the specific needs of women who use drugs, including those who are pregnant, unhoused, living with HIV/AIDS or who engage in sex work. Rivera Amador is the executive director of Iniciativa Comunitaria, a nonprofit in Puerto Rico focused on health and rehabilitation services. Rivera Amador relayed a recent interaction she had while performing outreach with her organization as an example of the kinds of multifaceted services women need. A 34-year-old woman approached her in need of a syphilis test. She was a sex worker and an intravenous drug user in an abusive relationship. Rivera Amador said that while such circumstances are not uncommon for women she encounters, the government makes little effort to understand or respond to the specific needs of women in Puerto Rico who use drugs. “One of the things that I find most shocking is that sometimes data is brought from the United States (to Puerto Rico), and it's interpreted as if substance users behave the same here,” Rivera Amador said. Rafael Torruella, the executive director of the harm reduction NGO Intercambios, intercambios in the town of Fajardo, echoed Rivera Amador’s frustration. “Puerto Rico could be showcasing many more strategies, tactics and ways to approach drug use that could be much more humane (and) patient-centered,” Torruella said. “The reason why we're not doing it is because at its core, we don't care about people who use drugs at the governmental level.” palabra contacted the Puerto Rico Department of Health with questions about the type of opioid use information the agency tracks, and whether the agency has any plans to conduct research or perform outreach to the growing number of women in Puerto Rico who inject drugs. An official with the agency said they did not have authorization to discuss these issues with the media. Understanding the intersectional inequities of women in Puerto Rico affected by the opioid crisis is crucial because the issues that commonly lead women to use drugs — poverty, child abuse and sexual and domestic violence — are also in dire need of attention. Traditionally, women in Puerto Rico are their families’ caregivers. When they experience substance dependency, not only do they face stigma, but also a systemic lack of care that causes ripple effects in their families and communities. With few places to turn for help or understanding, the ramifications of their drug use are particularly dire. The State of Women in Puerto Rico Drugs such as heroin are commonly used by injection in Puerto Rico. However, without more extensive government data, we don’t have a full statistical picture of each gender’s usage patterns. Most existing research is focused on men in Puerto Rico who use drugs. Advocates say it’s becoming more common to see women with opioid use disorder. Torruella’s organization has encountered women with opioid use disorder accessing services, but he noted that the organization is likely only seeing a fraction of the women in need. There’s still a lot of “patriarchal” stigma these women face, Torruella said — including the belief that the street is for men and women should be at home. “Many times, women fall into the hands of their male partners, so men tend to be the ones using more and then introducing that to women partners,” Torruella explained. Given the limited information available about opioid prescribing practices in Puerto Rico, researchers set out to identify opioid distribution trends from 1999 to 2013. Their findings warned that if opioid distribution on the island continued to increase, Puerto Rico would soon face a crisis. Eight years before OxyContin was approved in 1995, a 1987 study of 912 Puerto Rican men and women ages 17 to 68 found that 4.8% of women surveyed had a history of using drugs and 0.4% were dependent and lifetime users of drugs that included cocaine and heroin. A 2002 study in Puerto Rico of 4,332 men and women ages 15 to 64 found that women’s lifetime use of opiates was 2.2%. For cocaine, lifetime use was 2.3% and 0.8% for heroin. While the sample size was larger than the 1987 study, it’s clear that drug use among women was on the rise. One of the most comprehensive overviews of women’s drug use in Puerto Rico doesn’t come by way of a quantitative study, but rather a doctoral dissertation published in 2007. While it doesn’t provide statistical data, the study outlined the conditions that informed women’s drug use, much of which is arguably a consequence of more than 500 years of colonialism. The 15 women drug users who informed the study are referred to by the author as a “hidden population.” The women were between the ages of 18 and 35, and 10 of them were mothers who shared a collective history of dysfunctional family dynamics that included domestic violence, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse. Some of the women were raised by too-lenient grandparents or had parents or other family members who used drugs or alcohol. The majority came from low-income households where the unstable and unsafe communities where they lived increased their risk of becoming substance dependent. Many of the women were introduced to drugs by their friends or intimate partners. For many women who use opioids, their status as mothers who bear the bulk of responsibility for their children worsens the ramifications they experience from drug use. One of the 2007 study’s participants, Jessenia, said her drug use affected the duties she was able to carry out as a parent. Another woman, Mara, described how women are penalized more severely for their drug use. “A man can be completely messed up, but they won’t take away his kids, like they will a mother,” Mara said. “(T)hey don’t have the same difficult journey, the same problems that a mother has when (the authorities) are going to take away her kids.” Mónica, another woman from Puerto Rico who participated in the study, also detailed how women who use drugs suffer much more than their male counterparts. “A man leaves the house — he’s gone and that’s that, he has nothing more to do with anything, he doesn’t care about anything,” Mónica said. “But a woman loses her children, loses the house, loses her dignity. Because a woman will get to the point where she sells herself… when you sell yourself, you lose everything, your self-esteem — a woman is a disaster when she hits bottom.” Nearly two decades after the publication of the dissertation, Rivera Amador says these same conditions persist for women drug users in Puerto Rico. While each woman’s story is different, she says, the commonalities are clear: Many have a history of familial or intimate partner violence — and this violence shaped their lives. “In the home, when they were minors, they lived a cycle of violence and abuse and they ran away from that home, fleeing from the violence and they ended up on the streets,” Rivera Amador said. A lack of empirical data relegates Rivera Amador’s insights to anecdotes, a major hurdle to addressing the needs of the very women rendered invisible. “We suffer from the lack of updated data,” Rivera Amador acknowledged, noting that when writing proposals for the federal government, she’s forced to cite data that in some cases is more than a decade old. The COVID pandemic renewed interest in filling “considerable” gaps in knowledge regarding the needs of vulnerable populations, including drug users in Puerto Rico. Using data from 2020-2022 gathered by the Puerto Rico Administration of Mental Health and Anti-Addiction Services, a subdivision of the Public Health Department, researchers identified opioid use and overdose patterns in Puerto Rico, finding that there was a marked increase in the number of women dying from overdoses. COVID-19 also appeared to escalate the opioid crisis on the island. The study of 1,310 men and women found that women’s overdose rates increased from 6.5% in 2020 to 10.8% in 2021. The age group that saw the most overdoses collectively were 35 to 44, followed by 25 to 34. Most resided in the towns of Vega Baja, Caguas and San Juan. According to researchers, Puerto Rico’s vulnerability to natural disasters only worsens adverse (and deeply complicated) political and socioeconomic conditions on the island, coalescing to form an exceptionally unstable public health environment. “We (Puerto Rico) have been through earthquakes, pandemics, hurricanes, (an) economic situation, (a) political situation, wars, mental health. So, human beings sometimes resort to methods that are not the best — and a lot of people go to fentanyl, opioids, heroin, all those elements,” explained Dr. Grisel Burgos-Barreto, one of the principals of the opioid overdose study and an assistant professor in the Clinical Skills and Community Engagement Department and researcher at San Juan Bautista School of Medicine. Rivera Amador says she has encountered more regular use of fentanyl over the last decade or so. Fentanyl appears to have arrived large-scale in Puerto Rico just prior to Hurricane Maria. In 2017, there were reportedly more than 600 overdoses related to fentanyl in Puerto Rico and 60 reported deaths, compared to 208 overdoses in 2016. Just like on the U.S. mainland, drug dealers in Puerto Rico replace heroin with fentanyl because it is cheaper, easier to transport, and more profitable than heroin. Rivera Amador said that among the populations her organization helps, all test positive for fentanyl — and some aren’t even aware they’ve consumed the drug. “Sometimes the participants indicate that they don't consume it, but when they are subjected to the doping test, it turns out to be positive,” Rivera Amador said. “There are some that do know that they are consuming it. All of the heroin, cocaine, everything is adulterated with fentanyl.” Young, Urban and Poor Urban and poor women in Puerto Rico are suffering today from an additional unique form of oppression: the opioid crisis. Due to their socio-economic status and a lack of robust treatment systems that take into account the specific needs of women, the same conditions have persisted for women drug users on the island for decades. The limited data that exists regarding drug use in Puerto Rico confirms that men use drugs and overdose in far greater numbers. But the lack of research on young women leaves significant gaps in data that is desperately needed, in large part because of the unique ways drug use permeates their lives and has the potential to impact future generations. According to Dr. Burgos-Barreto’s study, it’s adults ages 35 to 44, followed by adults ages 25 to 34, who experience substance dependency at the highest rates in Puerto Rico. The professor said these are people who would otherwise be at their most productive times of life. Instead, they are stuck in patterns of drug use. Arguably, women’s progress is particularly stunted by opioid use disorder, in part because they become dependent more quickly. Women are prone to develop dependence on opioids, leading to health effects that include disruption to their menstrual cycles and damage to their reproductive and cardiovascular systems. And because many women who develop opioid use disorder are already economically disadvantaged, they are more likely to do sex work, for example, or remain in abusive relationships because they are dependent on their partner for financial resources and access to drugs. The patriarchal and colonial system of Puerto Rico that reinforces machista culture and keeps people economically disenfranchised also contributes to the distinct marginalization women face. One 2018 study of 90 Puerto Rican women who inject drugs found a direct correlation between sexual violence and substance use. The women, who ranged in age from 23 to 63, were recruited from treatment centers to participate in the study between July 2013 and February 2014 — a timeline that also roughly marked the beginning of the third wave of the opioid crisis. A majority of the women lived in the San Juan metropolitan area, were unemployed, and earned less than $1,000 a month. More than a quarter began to inject drugs between the ages of 16 and 20, illustrating that young, urban and poor women in Puerto Rico were most vulnerable to substance dependency. The most frequent drug used by the women was heroin mixed with other unknown drugs. The second most common drug was cocaine, followed by ketamine, crack, dissociative anesthetics, prescription stimulants, sedatives and alcohol. “Living on the streets begins with the problematic use of substances,” Rivera Amador said, noting that poverty and education are also factors. Among the women she’s encountered, it’s not uncommon to drop out of school and, because they are then ineligible for many jobs, turn to sex work. The 2018 study of 90 women who use drugs also found that 56% of them experienced sexual assault. While the total number of women in Puerto Rico who are dependent on heroin, opioids or fentanyl is unknown, what’s clear is that more resources and options for care are desperately needed by women. Their steady rise as lifetime users and survivors of overdose shows us that. Without these interventions, already marginalized young, urban, and poor women in Puerto Rico will continue to suffer and the cycle will replicate itself across generations. But solutions under colonial rule can be hard to come by. Torruella proposes decriminalizing drug users, regulating soft drugs such as cannabis and psychedelics, and scaling up harm reduction services while also applying harm reduction principles to drug treatment services. Rivera Amador suggests making services for drug treatment more accessible by limiting requirements and bureaucracy. The services available are also in desperate need of overhaul. Rather than the constant cycle of penalization women drug users experience, Rivera Amador said family therapy and counseling should be integrated into current services, along with mechanisms for women to regain custody of their children. According to Dr. Burgos-Barreto, the best way to make these kinds of policies a reality is to conduct more research focused specifically on women drug users, allowing them to have a voice in shaping the services they need while also allowing researchers to work with the government to establish public policies. According to experts, new research must also prioritize data collection on risk factors, drug use patterns, and treatment barriers women in Puerto Rico face. Change doesn’t happen overnight — especially in Puerto Rico, where resources are lacking, political and socioeconomic conditions are complex and the colonial government women drug users live under appears unmotivated to address the opioid crisis. But all hope is not lost, according to Rivera Amador. “I am a woman who believes in possibilities and every day I think that it is possible to develop new services for women,” Rivera Amador said. “The knowledge is on the island, the resources are there for the services. Sadly, because of bureaucracy and the colonialism that we live in, the services are fragmented and that help is diluted and does not arrive in the appropriate way, but I think it is possible (to overcome this).” Damaly Gonzalez is a Brooklynite, Williamsburg-native of Puerto Rican descent. She is a freelance identity and culture journalist who writes about music, art and social justice issues through a critical and analytical lens. Her work mainly focuses on latinidad, memory and displacement. She has been published in Rolling Stone, ARTNews, The Latinx Project, Nonprofit Quarterly and others. @damalywrites
Michelle Perez is an illustrator and designer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Raised across both coasts of the United States, she grounds herself in the stories she’s carried with her along the way. Her art seeks to elevate meaningful narratives through bold linework and thoughtful compositions, bridging traditional and digital means of making. @michiperezart Tina Vasquez is a movement journalist with more than 15 years of experience reporting on immigration, reproductive injustice, food, labor and culture. Currently, she is the features editor at the nonprofit newsroom Prism. Tina serves on the board of Press On, a Southern journalism collective that strengthens and expands the practice of journalism in service of liberation. She was born and raised in southeast Los Angeles and currently calls North Carolina home. @thetinavasquez The second Trump administration is expected to implement sweeping immigration policies, including what could be the largest mass detention and deportation program in U.S. history. These policies are likely to target immigrant families and communities, increase enforcement measures, and weaken protections for non-citizens. Immigrants should prepare for significant challenges, such as:
Regardless of your immigration status, you have guaranteed rights under the US Constitution. Understanding your rights and preparing for potential changes are critical steps towards protecting yourself and your community. Your rights include protections against unlawful searches and seizures, the right to remain silent, the right to speak to an attorney, and due process guarantees if detained or facing removal proceedings. Whether at home, in the workplace, or in public, knowing these rights and how to assert them is vital. What to Expect under the Trump Administration During the second Trump administration, significant shifts in immigration policy are expected. These changes may include reinstatement of a travel ban targeting countries previously listed under the first Trump administration, such as Iran, Nigeria, and Yemen. We may also see travel bans expanded to include other countries like China and India. Asylum protections are likely to face further restrictions, and programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) may be eliminated. Mass deportations are anticipated to focus on individuals with final deportation orders or criminal records, though legal challenges may delay these efforts. Protections for unaccompanied minors and families may be undermined, emphasizing the need for family safety planning and for individuals to be thoughtful about the documentation they carry. International students and workers should prepare for increased visa delays and background checks, and those traveling from affected regions are advised to return to the U.S. before the semester begins. Furthermore, policies that have historically limited some enforcement actions in protected areas and/or during protected activities may be revoked, despite the strong public policy reasons behind these policies. These include reducing trauma for children, enabling access to healthcare, and respecting the right to worship. The Path Forward: Preparation and Community Power Despite these challenges, there is hope and power in preparation. Legal organizations, mutual aid groups, and advocacy networks are more active than ever, offering resources to help immigrants navigate these uncertain times. Building a family emergency plan, connecting with rapid response networks, and staying informed about legal developments are key strategies. Agencies and workplaces, too, can support preparation by training staff, creating action plans, and clarifying policies and processes for employees and service recipients. The looming threats are real, but so is our power and resilience. Public outcry and grassroots organizing have proven to be effective in challenging harmful policies, as demonstrated by the reversal of the family separation policy. Together, we can confront this moment. We can defend our values. We can assert our power. We can protect our community. Knowing Your Rights Understanding your rights as an immigrant in everyday settings—on the street, at home, or at school—can help you stay calm and advocate for yourself if approached by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or police.
A U.S. judge has sided with the Trump administration and thrown out a lawsuit filed by an American journalist who believes he was placed on the U.S. kill list. The journalist, Bilal Abdul Kareem, filed the lawsuit after claiming he was nearly killed in five U.S. drone and missile strikes in Syria. The judge allowed the Trump administration to invoke its state secrets privilege to block the release of information about its kill list. Abdul Kareem’s attorney Tara Plochocki said, “For the first time ever, a United States federal court ruled that the government may kill one of its citizens without providing him the information necessary to prove that he is being wrongly targeted and does not deserve to die.”
The Day of the Dead is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. The multi-day holiday involves family and friends gathering to pay respects and remember friends and family members who have died
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) today released its second — and final — report following a three-year investigation into the “traumatic and violent” legacy of Indian Boarding Schools that the U.S. government operated for a century and a half. The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) today released its second — and final — report following a three-year investigation into the “traumatic and violent” legacy of Indian Boarding Schools that the U.S. government operated for a century and a half.
The 105-page report, penned by Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community), builds on the first volume of the Interior’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, published May 11, 2022. The initial report detailed for the first time an official list of Federal Indian boarding schools across to the United States, explained the policy justification the government used to establish those institutions, and detailed institutional conditions and the intergenerational impacts schools had on Indigenous People. Today’s second volume of the investigation adds to previously-reported figures to paint an increasingly clearer picture of the Indian boarding school system: Between 1871 and 1969, the federal government paid more than $23.3 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to fund the federal Indian boarding school system as well as other similar institutions. Of the 417 boarding schools across 37 states identified in the investigation, about half were run by a religious institution, and most “used the manual labor of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children to compensate for the poor conditions of school facilities and lack of financial support from the U.S. Government.” At those schools, the investigation identified at least 18,624 students entered the system, and at least 973 students died while at school. The investigation also found that at least 74 school burial sites were associated with these institutions, though DOI expects that the number of students, student deaths, burial sites, and funds spent on the schools to be “far greater." The DOI also identified more than 1,000 federal and non-federal institutions that didn’t fall under its definition of “federal Indian boarding school” but advanced the policy of assimilation. Those institutions — including Indian day schools, sanitariums, asylums, orphanages, and stand-alone dormitories — worked similarly to assimilate Native youth into white society. “Make no mistake, this was a concerted attempt to eradicate 'the Indian problem,' — to either assimilate or destroy Native peoples altogether,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Thankfully, the federal government failed. It failed to annihilate our languages, our traditions, our life ways. It failed to destroy us, because we are still here." During the press briefing, Haaland said she expects President Biden will read the investigative report, and believes that the Department of the Interior “will have conversations with the White House moving forward.” The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative was launched by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) in June 2021, with the goals of identifying boarding school locations, burial sites, and the names and tribal affiliations of children interred at each location. The same month, Haaland announced the Road to Healing tour, a yearlong commitment to travel across Indian Country to collect oral histories from boarding school survivors and their descendants—a task that concluded in November 2023, and took her and her staff to 12 communities. Much of that testimony was incorporated into Newland’s most recent report, where he drew themes from survivors’ testimonies, including the weaponization of food, the generational impacts across families, and the loss of language and culture leading to a spiritual wounding. “One of the most prominent shared experiences of survivors across the country was the grief and trauma that resulted from Native languages loss from the Federal Indian boarding school system,” the report reads. “The punishments for speaking Native languages instead of English, even when children could not understand or speak English, commonly involved their mouths being washed with lye soap or varying types of corporal punishment that ranged in severity.” According to the DOI, the federal Indian boarding school investigations “lay the groundwork for the continued work of the Interior Department to address the intergenerational trauma created by historical federal Indian boarding school policies.” To complete the full investigation, DOI staff and contractors reviewed approximately 103 million pages of U.S. Government records. In his final report, Newland made eight recommendations for steps forward, including: for the U.S. government to formally apologize for the legacy of Indian boarding schools; federal investment in the present-day harms caused by boarding schools; the erection of a national monument to commemorate boarding school survivors, and those who lost their lives; to identify and repatriate children who never came home from boarding school; and for the government to strengthen international relationships with nations who have similar histories with their Indigenous Peoples. In his opening letter to Haaland, Newland acknowledges that Indian Country has seen a change in America’s understanding of Indian Boarding schools in the last three years. “Survivors and leaders have begun efforts to explain the legacy and impacts of Indian boarding schools on local communities across Indian country,” he wrote. “Universities and other institutions have begun their own actions to redress for [sic] their role in the Federal Indian boarding school system. Popular books, television shows, and films have discussed these institutions, and humanized this history for wide audiences. Courts and members of Congress have engaged in a dialogue on the policies and laws advanced by this system.” Newland wrote that he hopes the report does not mark the end of the U.S. Government’s work to acknowledge, understand, and heal from the impacts of these boarding schools. “Instead, our shared work should mark the beginning of a long effort to heal our nation – after all, these schools were used to pursue a policy of forced assimilation over a century and a half,” he wrote. “Our work has occurred over just three years.” |
Categories |