More than 300 organizations signed an amicus brief in US v Texas, the legal challenge to President Obama’s immigration executive actions, urging the Supreme Court to lift the injunction that prevented those actions, which would provide relief from the fear of deportation for millions of undocumented persons.  Among those supporting the brief: grantees the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Immigration Law Center and the Advancement Project. Center for Community Change and United We Dream were among the grantees who held a press conference with Sen. Menendez to speak to the stakes of the case—described by CCC’s Kica Matos as “the basic dignity and the rights of immigrants to live lives free from fear and family separation.”

Univision sponsored the Democrats’ 8th debate, held in Miami Wednesday night, addressing the audience in Spanish and urging the audience to vote—a call consonant with the network’s recently announced initiative to help register three million new Latino voters this election year. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders decried the racially disparaging rhetoric of the opposition party’s frontrunner, and spoke out against deportations and in favor of uniting immigrant families, even as they sparred over their past records on immigration reform. Afterwards some reports tweaked Clinton for promising more than she could deliver by going well beyond current administration policy on deportation restrictions and family reunification pledges.

The debate came a day after Sanders’ surprising win in Michigan, a loss Clinton will seek to avenge next Tuesday, when Florida and Ohio are among the states heading to the polls.

Despite strong pressure from a number of grantees, the Homeland Security Department has continued to carry out deportations of migrants from Central America, arresting nearly 350 since late January.

A new Wall Street Journal poll found that a majority of those surveyed disapprove of the Republicans’ refusal to hold hearings on President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Scalia. A Democratic superPAC launched attacks over the issue on Republican senators up for re-election this fall, starting with New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte.  Sen. Feinstein wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle describing the long-term consequences of the Senate’s failure to act in a timely manner to fill the seat; a group of corporate general counsel wrote to GOP leaders expressing concern about ill effects on the business community from a prolonged vacancy and urging the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty.  Grantee the Brennan Center invoked the specter of Alexander Hamilton, suddenly enjoying a resurgent popularity thanks to the smash Broadway musical, in pushing for Senate action on the seat.

Grantees ACLU and the Center for Democracy and Technology were among the organizations pushing the administration to ensure privacy advocates had a seat at the table for some quiet conversations federal law enforcement officials have been having with technology companies over how they might collaborate better to battle extremism.

Among other grantee activities:

--National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia, speaking at an NCLR awards dinner, blasted the “nativism” of Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and told the crowd that “hate won’t make America great again.”

--The Center for American Progress’s ThinkProgress posted an article publicizing a new Rand Corporation report, which documents 46 new immigration-related laws or resolutions passed at the state level, as states move to fill the void left by federal inaction. The measures are a mixed bag; while some require local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration statutes, others allow undocumented persons to obtain drivers’ licenses and in-state tuition benefits.

--A coalition including the National Domestic Workers Alliance took advantage of International Women’s Day to launch a new website aimed at the estimated 5.2 million undocumented women living in the US. The site, entitled Step Forward, provides resources and information about rights, services, and important legal developments.

--America’s Voice and other advocates shared a New York Times editorial entitled “Migrant Children Deserve a Voice in Court.”

--OSPC grantee Human Rights First continued its campaign of pressure on the Obama administration to move faster in resettling Syrian refugees, noting that it has fallen behind pace to honor its pledge to resettle 10,000 owing to staff backlogs and other bottlenecks.

--Muslim Advocates cheered an MTA ruling allowing humorous ads by Muslim comedians to be posted in the New York City subway system. The decision reversed a previous finding that such ads ran afoul of restrictions on “disputed political speech.” The ads are aimed at combating Islamophobia.

--MPOWERChange pushed a social media campaign aimed at bolstering Muslim voices in the 2016 election cycle, declaring that the campaign will no longer be #AboutUsWithoutUs.  

--Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that a group it supports, Let’s Encrypt, had succeeded in distributing 1 million free digital certificates in the last three months, thereby helping to promote wider use of encryption around the Web.