Advising Latinx-Owned Small Businesses

In recent years, the Firm has worked closely with Start Small Think Big (“SSTB”), a nonprofit focused on advancing equity and inclusion in entrepreneurship by connecting small businesses with pro bono legal services. Hundreds of Gibson Dunn attorneys have advised SSTB businesses on a broad array of corporate and transactional matters, from lease and contract reviews to entity formation work, and from employment advice to counseling on doing business online.

SSTB initially focused on serving small businesses in the Bronx, then expanded to all five boroughs. Next, SSTB opened offices in California and, more recently, began working with small businesses across the country. Most of the small business owners who work with SSTB are women or persons of color—and many of the small businesses reflect their owners’ diverse backgrounds and cultures. Gibson Dunn is proud to have taken on several Latinx-owned small businesses as pro bono clients through our partnership with SSTB.

New York Healthy Food Business

This year, a team of Gibson Dunn attorneys began working with Ms. T, the owner of a culinary and nutrition education program that educates youth in the Bronx to prepare and consume healthy foods. Ms. T’s mission is to provide food education and encourage low-income communities to consume nutritious food options by sharing the culture, history, and traditions of Latin cuisine from Spain to Puerto Rico. Ms. T hosts private cooking classes and corporate experiences and sells kitchenware and other goods on an online shop. She also co-hosts a podcast featuring Latinx artists, entrepreneurs, writers, and entertainers. When Ms. T needed help with her website, SSTB referred her to the Firm. Yair Galil and Ruby Lang, with supervision from Daniel Angel, reviewed her website policies and helped her implement appropriate updates.

California Bottled Salsa Business

Another Gibson Dunn team has been working with Ms. N, the owner of an e-commerce business selling a versatile bottled salsa with a spicy and crunchy flavor. Ms. N, who grew up in Mexico and now lives in California, began making her salsas at home during the pandemic as a way to reconnect with her Mexican culture and to bring some of the best flavors of her Mexican hometown into homes across the United States. After receiving a referral from SSTB earlier this year, Tukeni Obasi, Steven Wright, and Joseph Orien began providing Ms. N corporate governance advice, including regarding business registration and corporate compliance requirements.

LatinoJustice Amicus

Gibson Dunn recently represented LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a national civil rights organization dedicated to advancing justice and equity for Latinx communities in the United States, in filing an amicus brief in support of a challenge to Florida’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act. Florida enacted the Stop W.O.K.E. Act in April 2022, prohibiting the teaching of certain concepts relating to race and sex, including that unconscious racial bias continues to exist in society. Plaintiffs challenged the law on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds later that year.

In the underlying litigation, the plaintiffs argued that the Stop W.O.K.E. Act was unconstitutionally vague and violated the First Amendment through viewpoint discrimination. A district court in Florida issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the law, which was then appealed to the Eleventh Circuit. Gibson Dunn filed an amicus brief before the Eleventh Circuit, arguing that the Stop W.O.K.E. Act would throttle academic freedom in higher education and prevent scholars and students from fully engaging in the study of Latinx culture and history.

The brief presented the voices and experiences of two students and four professors of Latinx culture and history in Florida, as they explained how the Stop W.O.K.E. Act would negatively impact their scholarship and ability to learn. The brief then analyzed how these students’ and professors’ experiences make clear that the Stop W.O.K.E. Act violates the free speech rights guaranteed to universities and professors in regulating higher education curriculum under binding Eleventh Circuit law. For example, the professors had canceled classes out of fear that they could no longer be taught, and they already had observed a chilling effect among students and faculty alike. And the students felt the quality of their education suffered as professors censored themselves to avoid running afoul of the law and students downplayed their Latinidad—leading them to consider completing their education out of state rather than in Florida under the Stop W.O.K.E. Act’s restrictions.

Enforcement of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act currently is enjoined while the case is pending before the Eleventh Circuit. The Gibson Dunn team included Peter Seley, Mark Cherry, Tawkir Chowdhury, Katarina Delgado, Beshoy Shokralla, and Apratim Vidyarthi.

Immigration

Each year, the Firm dedicates tens of thousands of pro bono hours to work on behalf of the immigrant community, including many immigrants from Latin America. Last year, hundreds of Gibson Dunn attorneys devoted nearly 40,000 total hours to pro bono matters defending the rights of the immigrant community and advocating on behalf of individual immigrant and refugee clients.

Immigration has remained a focus of our pro bono efforts in 2023. For example, attorneys across the Firm have worked on a large-scale project to help Venezuelan families in New York apply for asylum. After approximately 75 attorneys screened families for eligibility, the Firm took on dozens of individual clients to help them apply for asylum. These cases are ongoing, and we are hopeful they will result in positive outcomes for these families. At the same time, attorneys in our New York office have volunteered to staff the New York City Asylum Application Help Center, an innovative initiative by the City of New York. The Asylum Application Help Center provides an avenue for the thousands of refugees who are coming to (or being brought to) New York to complete their asylum applications with pro bono assistance. In recent weeks, our attorneys have staffed the Help Center, meeting with asylum-seekers and (with training and supervision from experienced immigration attorneys) helping them complete the necessary paperwork to apply for asylum and continue their journey to lawfully live and work in the United States.

A few of our recent immigration victories are spotlighted below. Of course, these represent only a fraction of the Firm’s overall immigration work. Thank you to everyone who has played a role in these cases, whether you have represented a client in their immigration proceedings, volunteered for a limited-scope immigration clinic, or provided interpretation and translation help!

Asylum

In July 2023, a Gibson Dunn team secured a grant of asylum for pro bono client Ms. X, who fled to the United States from El Salvador in 2016 to escape targeted gang violence. As a teenager, Ms. X endured death threats and assault at the hands of the 18th Street Gang. Her family was staunchly opposed to the gang’s control of their community and her grandmother, in particular, repeatedly voiced her opposition to the gang. Multiple members of Ms. X’s family also reported the gang’s activities to the police, leading to reprisals by the gang (including the murder of one of her cousins). As Ms. X’s family gained a reputation for opposing the gang and cooperating with the police, the gang’s persecution of the family escalated. Tensions came to a head when Ms. X bravely agreed to meet with the gang’s local leader to try to negotiate an end to the gang’s torment of her family. The leader demanded that Ms. X “be his woman” and assaulted her. Ms. X survived the encounter and fled for the United States shortly thereafter.

Gibson Dunn faced difficult strategic choices along the way. In particular, the team learned that neither of Ms. X’s primary persecutors remained in El Salvador: one was killed by the police and one had traveled to the United States. Further, El Salvador's recent Régimen de Excepción (State of Exception) also raised unexpected challenges. Under the State of Exception, the Salvadoran Government has deployed the military to arrest and detain more than 68,000 purported gang members (roughly 2% of the country's population). These arrests are often made based solely on anonymous tips—which the government encourages through billboard advertisements—and individuals arrested are detained indefinitely without any individualized determination of guilt. In the wake of these mass arrests, the Department of Homeland Security has begun arguing that El Salvador no longer has a gang problem and that asylum seekers who fled gang-based violence, such as Ms. X, should be returned to El Salvador. The opposite, however, is true. Individuals like Ms. X now face two separate persecutors: the gang and the Salvadoran government itself, which has been arresting deportees and individuals previously targeted by gangs for so-called “association” or “collaboration” with the very gangs that persecuted them.

On the day of her hearing, Ms. X provided nearly two-and-a-half hours of powerful direct-examination testimony. Following approximately twenty minutes of cross-examination, Gibson Dunn secured DHS’s stipulation to refrain from challenging Ms. X’s experts’ testimony and, notably, her application for asylum. The court entered an oral grant of asylum from the bench and DHS waived its right to appeal.

Tessa Gellerson was the lead attorney during the individual merits hearing, with supervision by Joe West. Other Gibson Dunn team members (over the many years) include Francesca Broggini and Erika Holmberg, along with several former associates. The team received outstanding support from Ileana Rivera and Sandra Andrade, who provided invaluable assistance with translation, and the D.C. Copy Center team, who saved the day more than once with monumental printing requests.

Special Immigrant Juvenile Status

Last month, the Firm secured guardianship and special findings orders in Brooklyn Family Court on behalf of a 20-year-old Honduran client. With diligent preparation and effective advocacy, the Gibson Dunn team overcame procedural hurdles to secure this important predicate order just one week before the client would have aged out of the Court’s protection. Armed with these orders, the team will now help the client petition USCIS for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a status that allows children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected to apply for lawful permanent residence in the United States.

The team includes Allie Cohen and Alejandra Castañeda—both of whom took testimony for the first time at the hearing (Alejandra did so just one day after being admitted to the New York bar!)—with supervision by Kate Dominguez.

Appellate Advocacy

In July 2023, Gibson Dunn secured a significant victory for pro bono client Mr. S.G. in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The case, which involved (among other issues) whether individuals can seek immigration relief based on persecution for membership in a particular social group of extended family members, has important ramifications for others seeking statutory withholding of removal and asylum. In a 2-1 published decision, the Fourth Circuit reiterated that particular social groups of extended family members are legally cognizable, and it admonished the Board of Immigration Appeals ( “BIA”) for failing to apply the Court’s binding precedent on the issue. The Court also thanked Gibson Dunn—who has been representing Mr. S.G. for many years, through various rounds before the agency, as well as in separate conditions of confinement litigation tied to the COVID-19 pandemic—for its “admirabl[e]” pro bono service.

Mr. S.G. fled to the United States after enduring threats and attacks from the 18th Street Gang and the Salvadoran police. He was only fifteen years old when gang members attempted to abduct his cousin and make her a “gang girlfriend”—a euphemism for women whom gang members rape. After Mr. S.G. intervened to protect his cousin, the gang threatened to kill them both, and they fled to the United States in 2012. When Mr. S.G. returned to El Salvador in 2016, gang members brutally beat him multiple times because they had “unfinished business” with him and “never forget” to settle old scores. Instead of protecting Mr. S.G., police officers employed violence against him and falsely accused him of being a rival gang member. Mr. S.G. again fled to the United States, where he was later detained and placed in removal proceedings.

Mr. S.G. sought withholding of removal and relief under the Convention Against Torture. His removal proceedings wound their way through the administrative review process for over five years, and he endured continuous civil detention for over 1,700 days. An Immigration Judge granted Mr. S.G. relief on three separate occasions, including finding that he had been persecuted in El Salvador on account of his membership in the particular social group of “young male family members of his cousin” and was entitled to statutory withholding of removal. The judge also found that he was entitled to relief under the Convention Against Torture, as it was more likely than not he would be tortured if returned to El Salvador. Nonetheless, the BIA repeatedly reversed the judge and Mr. S.G. was deported. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit held that the BIA erred by not recognizing the cognizability of Mr. S.G.’s particular social group for his statutory withholding of removal claim and ruled that the BIA failed to consider all of the relevant record evidence on his Convention Against Torture claim. The Fourth Circuit remanded the case to the BIA, directing it to resolve the case “promptly” given Mr. S.G.’s continuing danger.

Jessica Wagner argued the appeal. Other Gibson Dunn team members include: David Debold, Naima Farrell, Tommy McCormac, Cate McCaffrey, Sam Whipple, Austin Donohue, and Samuel Roeder.