Thursday, December 10, 2015 | news
This week, xenophobic hate speech reached a fever pitch amid an international refugee crisis and following a tragic mass shooting in the United States. Elected officials have openly vowed to refuse Syrian refugees in violation of constitutional principles and international law. Others have used the San Bernadino massacre to unleash irresponsible and dangerous vitriol against […]
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 | news
The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) condemns an Executive Order issued yesterday by President Donald Trump that seeks to sharply curtail the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans. The order requires individuals to show documents proving their citizenship in order to register to vote – permitting only a narrow set of documents, such as […]
Thursday, May 1, 2025 | news
Yesterday, the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services advanced a bill meant to further the Trump administration’s harmful policy priorities by shrinking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding, which comes directly from the Federal Reserve. By limiting the independent agency’s access to these funds, the proposed legislation would expose the agency to political influence […]
Monday, September 23, 2024 | news
Read a PDF of our statement here. Recently, multiple public officials, including Portage County, Ohio Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski, unleashed a deluge of hateful language aimed at immigrants of color and asylum seekers. In response, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson made the following statement: “The recent onslaught of hateful language aimed at immigrants […]
Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | news
Today, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced a five-point plan that includes deploying 1,000 members of the U.S. National Guard and New York State police throughout New York City’s transit system. Hochul’s plan includes legislation that would expand judges’ authority to ban people from the transit system upon certain kinds of convictions, allow prosecutors […]
Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | post
Read a PDF of our statement here. Today, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced a five-point plan that includes deploying 1,000 members of the U.S. National Guard and New York State police throughout New York City’s transit system. Hochul’s plan includes legislation that would expand judges’ authority to ban people from the transit system […]
Friday, March 22, 2024 | news
The state of Georgia executed Willie James Pye via lethal injection late Wednesday evening after the Georgia Parole Board denied his request for clemency based on his intellectual disability and the gross ineffectiveness of his trial counsel. Prior to Mr. Pye’s execution, Georgia had not executed anyone in four years. In response, the Legal Defense […]
Friday, June 13, 2025 | news
Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson issued the following statement in response to the forced removal and handcuffing of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla at a Department of Homeland Security press conference on June 12, 2025. “We are outraged by the aggressive and unjustified mistreatment of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, who was forcibly […]
Wednesday, January 7, 2026 | news
Today, following an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis involving 2,000 federal agents, which an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official claimed was their largest operation “ever,” an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a 37 year-old legal observer and resident of the Twin Cities. Minneapolis is home to a large Somali and Somali American […]
Friday, January 12, 2024 | news
Today, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it will be seeking the death penalty in the event of a conviction of Payton Gendron, the then 18-year-old white supremacist that shot and killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York at the Tops supermarket. In response, the Legal Defense Fund’s (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai S. […]
