Jill Applegate (’22), current Fellow with Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, penned a guest essay for The New York Times calling for new funding to address the gap in legal services for immigrants facing deportation following the decriminalization of marijuana (“Their Pot Convictions Were Erased, but They Still Face Deportation,” June 11). “The need for representation in these types of cases far outstrips the number of lawyers taking them. . . . The Legislature wrote its new marijuana laws to ensure that the communities most affected by racially disparate enforcement saw the benefits of decriminalization. For people like Mr. Siriboe and Mr. Pinilla [Jill’s clients] who were convicted under the state’s discriminatory regime, rectifying the harms of those convictions must include addressing the immigration consequences.”
