Legal Aid opposes the Trump administration’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of long-term DC residents. This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Ramos v. Nielsen to lift a preliminary injunction that was stalling the Trump administration’s efforts to end TPS for citizens of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Sudan. The case is linked to Bhattarai v. Nielsen which involves TPS recipients from Honduras and Nepal. The decision brings the Trump administration closer to its goal of eliminating TPS for more than 400,000 individuals in the United States. It also threatens to greatly exacerbate family separation as there are more than 270,000 US citizen children whose parents are TPS recipients and fear deportation. Read more →

DC’s Department of Human Services (DHS) has restarted its normal certification procedures for Food Stamps/Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits. These requirements had been waived between March and August 2020 in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. DHS will call and/or send notices to individuals who need to recertify these benefits.

District residents who receive notices to recertify or who DHS calls to complete a phone interview should do so immediately to ensure their benefits do not stop.

Households that receive recertification notices and/or requests for verification documents may submit them to DHS online at or through the DC Access Mobile Phone App, as well as by mail, or in-person at any of the three open DHS Service Centers (Congress Heights, H Street, Taylor Street). If you receive TANF or SNAP (or work with individuals who receive these benefits) and you are unsure about whether you need to recertify, you should contact DHS at 202-727-5355 or download the DC Access Mobile App.  Anyone whose benefits are terminated can contact Legal Aid for assistance.

The D.C. Court of Appeals recently reversed the conviction of a man who had been convicted of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance after the police found 1.76 ounces of marijuana during a traffic stop. This decision interprets an initiative adopted by D.C. voters in 2014 that decriminalized the possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. Despite this law, courts continued to convict individuals found with less than two ounces of marijuana if they were found to have an “intent to distribute,” even if defendants had not actually made the marijuana available for sale. This decision ended that inconsistency, holding that possession of a small amount of marijuana, coupled with the intent to distribute, fell within the class of conduct that the statute decriminalized. Read more →

In the last month, researchers at nine national organizations and institutes have released analyses estimating the devastating wave of evictions facing tenants across the U.S. The National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel and the consulting firm Stout Risius Ross, LLC released a new tool that allows users to easily view relevant Census Bureau data related to eviction by state. According to Stout’s tool, currently 36.6% of Washington, DC’s renting population will be at risk of eviction when the eviction moratorium expires in December, which is equivalent to around 57,000 households. They report that the District’s estimated rent shortfall is currently a staggering $79 million. And these numbers will only go up with time. Read more →

Since May 29, 2020, when some District businesses began to reopen, many jobless workers contacted Legal Aid for advice. These workers’ concerns were two-fold: they feared being required to return to jobs that might not yet be safe, which could risk their health and the health of their household members, and yet they also feared being “reported” by their employers to the unemployment office for refusing work, which could jeopardize the unemployment benefits they needed to survive the pandemic. Black workers, immigrants, and workers with limited English proficiency reported feeling especially vulnerable. Indeed, a recent nationwide survey demonstrated that employers disproportionately retaliated against Black workers for raising safety concerns with their employers. Read more →