American Civil Liberties Union

(Also posted on Daily Kos and Feministing.)

Are restraining orders just pieces of paper, or must the police take action when they are violated? This is the question raised by Valdez v. City of New York, a case challenging the failure of New York City police to enforce a domestic violence order of protection.

In 2005, Congress declared: “Women and families across the country are being discriminated against, denied access to, and even evicted from public and subsidized housing because of their status as victims of domestic violence.” This was the experience of our clients Tiffani Alvera, Aaronica Warren, Quinn Bouley, “T. J.,” and Tanica Lewis, all of whom faced eviction in private, public, and subsidized housing because they had been subjected to domestic violence. Some were punished by “zero tolerance for crime” policies, even though they were the victims, and not the perpetrators, of violence. Others were blamed for the property damage caused by their abusers. In effect, these women were doubly victimized: first by the violence, then by housing discrimination.

When a child is born to an unmarried U.S. citizen living abroad, the parent's ability to transmit U.S. citizenship to the child turns on this question: was the child born to a U.S. citizen father, or mother?

If the child's mother is a U.S. citizen, the child will automatically be a U.S. citizen at birth, so long as the mother previously had lived in the U.S. for one year, at any age.