LULAC is a shorthand way to refer to League of United Latin American Citizens (“LULAC”) v. INS, a public interest organization which often promotes Latin American interests in court.
LULAC has been involved in many influential and high-profile cases in recent decades. In LULAC v. Perry, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the organization’s challenge to Texas’s congressional redistricting plan. In that case, the Court largely sided with LULAC and found that Texas’s redistricting amount to vote dilution, thereby violating the Voting Rights Act. LULAC also argued alongside other immigration rights groups before the U.S. Supreme Court in Reno v. Catholic Social Services, Inc. There, the organization challenged a Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services regulation which interpreted the “continuous unlawful residence” requirement to becoming a citizen to prohibit unlawful residents from departing the U.S. and reentering with facially valid documentation to immigration authorities. While the Court remanded to determine ripeness, the issue was ultimately resolved in the unlawful residents’ favor by the passage of the LIFE Act in 2000.
[Last updated in November of 2021 by the Wex Definitions Team]