Impact Docket – 07/08/26
This week demands action. Here are seven ways you can push back right now:
⚡Quick Actions
Last call: We're delivering our Block Blanche letter to the Senate this week → Sign the open letter
Already signed? Tell other lawyers and call your senator — script and phone numbers here
🏛️ State-Level Advocacy
CA RESIDENTS: Tell your state Senator to stop the social media ban — A.B. 1709 → Send your letter in 2 minutes
📩 Short-Term Engagement — Public Comments
Challenge the OMB proposal threatening federal grant recipients → Sign up for resources and submit a comment by July 13
Deliver our Block Blanche letter in person — sign up to hand it to your senator's office in D.C. or at home → Fill out the interest form
🛠️ Long-Term Engagement
Learn how to challenge ICE detention and file habeas petitions — join L4GG and the National Lawyers Guild for a training on July 15 → Register
🤝 Partner Actions
Kansas: Vote NO on August 4 — keep politics out of the courts → Learn more and volunteer
Justice in Motion bus tour — Ohio event tomorrow → RSVP for Cleveland on 7/9
Whether you have 2 minutes or 2 days, join the fight. Keep reading for more context.
🔴 The Moment We're In: 10,000 in Five Days
Last week, ICE detained more than 10,000 people in five days — roughly 2,000 per day, double the rate from earlier this year. The White House ordered the increase. Officers were told to work seven days a week and put 80% of their resources on arrests. The detention population jumped to more than 63,000 people in ICE custody nationwide. In similar operations earlier this year, two out of three people arrested had no criminal record.
This surge came days after the Supreme Court handed the administration virtually unchecked power to end Temporary Protected Status: stripping protections from 350,000+ Haitian nationals and signaling that the courts will not be the backstop. And it comes one week before Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing on July 15, where the Senate will decide whether the man running the DOJ that enables this enforcement — the man who built a taxpayer-funded slush fund a federal judge is investigating as fraud, who rejected DOJ independence on the record, who moved to erase the judicial record of January 6 — gets the job permanently.
We are delivering our open letter to the Senate this week — and we want lawyers there to hand it over. Over 2,500 attorneys have signed. Sign up to deliver the letter in person in D.C. or at your senator's home-state office. If your name isn't on the letter yet, add it now. If it is, call your senator — it takes 60 seconds. And if you're a lawyer who wants to do something about the 63,000 people sitting in detention right now, L4GG's Bridge to Freedom training on July 15 will teach you how to file habeas petitions to get them out.
⚡ QUICK ACTIONS
📜 Last Call: Sign the Block Blanche Letter — We're Delivering It This Week
📍 L4GG.org/BlockBlanche | L4GG.org/BlockBlancheScript
Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing for Attorney General is July 15 — next week. We are delivering our open letter from America’s lawyers to the Senate this week. Your name needs to be on it.
Blanche is the first person in DOJ history to move directly from defending a president in criminal proceedings to running the institution that prosecuted those cases. He has rejected the principle of prosecutorial independence on the record. Ethics organizations and 101 retired judges have asked the New York bar to investigate him for professional misconduct. Under Blanche, the DOJ moved to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6 — not pardons, an attempt to vacate the courts' own findings of fact.
He is wholly unfit for the job. There are three things you can do right now:
Sign the open letter if you haven't already — we're delivering it this week
Call your senator — it takes 60 seconds. We've put together a script, phone numbers, and everything you need
Forward this to one colleague whose name should be on this letter. Every name we add before delivery makes it harder for a senator to dismiss
🏛️ STATE-LEVEL ADVOCACY
📱 CA RESIDENTS: Tell Your State Senator to Stop the Social Media Ban — A.B. 1709
A.B. 1709 would ban everyone under 16 from social media — and to enforce it, platforms would push age verification on everyone, meaning adults could be forced to hand over a government ID or biometric data just to log in. Courts across the country have already struck down bans like this as unconstitutional. The bill is being fast-tracked through the state Senate this month.As a lawyer, your voice carries real weight: tell your state Senator there's no "kid exception" to the First Amendment — and California shouldn't hand taxpayers the bill for defending a law that's unconstitutional on its face. Send your letter in 2 minutes.
📩 SHORT-TERM ENGAGEMENT
📬 Deliver the Block Blanche Letter in Person — Sign Up Now
We're delivering our open letter — signed by over 2,500 attorneys — to the Senate ahead of Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing on July 15. We're looking for lawyers who can help deliver it in person to the Hart Senate Building in Washington, D.C. and exploring interest in coordinated deliveries to senators' home-state offices across the country.A hand-delivered letter from local attorneys to a senator's office makes a meaningful impact. Fill out our quick interest form and tell us if you can show up — in D.C. or at your nearest Senate office.
🏛️ Submit a Comment: Challenge the OMB Proposal Threatening Federal Grant Recipients — One Week Left
📍 Follow the steps below | Comment deadline: July 13
The comment window closes in one week on a proposed rule that would give OMB and 41 other federal agencies sweeping new power over every organization that receives federal funding — nonprofits, universities, cities, state agencies, and Tribes. The rule would make it easier to terminate grants, restrict advocacy, and punish organizations for lawful work the administration disagrees with. If you've been meaning to submit a comment, this is the week.
Register to access L4GG and EPN's comment training recording and resources
Draft your comment and submit it via the Federal Register by July 13, 2026
Need more help? Join L4GG and EPN's office hours tomorrow for one-on-one support
Let us know you submitted at L4GG.org/TrackComment
🛠️ LONG-TERM ENGAGEMENT
🌉 Building a Bridge to Freedom: Training on Challenging ICE Detention
📍 L4GG.org/BridgetoFreedom | Wednesday, July 15 | 1:00–2:30 PM ET | Zoom
Since January 2025, over 65,000 people have been detained under the federal administration's mass deportation campaign. The Supreme Court’s recent TPS ruling stripped protections from 350,000+ more immigrants — making this training more urgent than ever. Join L4GG Litigation Director Amy Powell and National Lawyers Guild Director of Mass Defense Xavier T. de Janon for a training on how legal workers can respond — including the current pipelines leading to detention and an introduction to filing habeas petitions to free people from custody.
No immigration experience required. This session will be recorded and shared with all registrants. Register at L4GG.org/BridgetoFreedom
🤝 Partner Actions
⚖️ Kansas: Vote NO on August 4 — Keep Politics Out of the Courts
📍 kuic.org | Volunteer with KUIC
On August 4, Kansas voters will decide whether to replace the state's merit-based system for selecting Supreme Court justices with partisan elections — turning justices into candidates who answer to political parties, special interests, and big donors. The amendment was pushed through the legislature specifically because the Kansas Supreme Court has protected abortion rights, school funding, and voting access. In Wisconsin, a single Supreme Court race drew $90 million in outside spending. That's what's coming to Kansas if this passes.Kansas lawyers: volunteer to canvass with KUIC and help voters understand what's at stake. Everyone else: spread the word — judicial independence is a national fight.
🚍 Justice in Motion Bus Tour — Ohio Events This Week
This week, a coalition of sitting and retired judges, lawyers, and civic leaders are boarding a bus to travel through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan — meeting Americans in diners, coffee shops, and community spaces for direct, unscripted conversations about the rule of law and judicial independence. Organized by Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic, the tour is inspired by jurists in Poland who took to the streets to defend their independent judiciary.There’s still time to join in Cleveland tomorrow!
📍 Cleveland — Thursday, July 9 | 8:45 AM
Press conference and community gathering outside the Carl B. Stokes US Courthouse. RSVP for Cleveland
📅 Save the Date: L4GG's 10th Anniversary Convening — Feb 2027
The attorneys, advocates, and movement-builders who have shaped L4GG's first ten years are coming together — and we want you in the room. Join us in Washington, D.C. for a landmark convening to celebrate our community and build our next chapter. Sign up to be the first to know when registration opens. Your feedback shapes the programming.
We’ll be back next week with more ways to take action—but the work doesn’t stop here.
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