Blog of Rights
03/05/2012
Pregnancy Discrimination

UPS Hearts Logistics. Pregnant Employees, Not So Much.

By Ariela Migdal, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 12:25pm

Peggy Young asked if she could be put on "light duty" at her UPS job during her pregnancy. UPS refused and put her on unpaid medical leave instead.

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11/16/2011
E-Verify

Oversharing Is Never a Good Thing, Especially When it’s With DHS

By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:55pm

Sometimes sharing is bad. Don’t worry. We don’t plan to rush into kindergartens across America and break the news to all the 5-year-olds, but it’s true. Especially when it comes to national security and your privacy, it may be necessary to collect and use certain information, but wrong to share it.

When a federal government advisory committee recently revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (which contains both the Secret Service and the TSA) is in the “process of creating a policy framework and technology architecture for enhancing DHS's information-sharing capabilities,” it immediately raised these types of concerns and today we sent a letter to DHS outlining those concerns.

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10/20/2011
Three Faces of Racial Profiling

Three Faces of Racial Profiling: Immigrants are the Latest Victims

By Georgeanne M. Usova, Washington Legislative Office & Joanne Lin, Washington Legislative Office at 3:31pm

The Obama administration's federal immigration enforcement system includes two programs that are fraught with civil rights problems.

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02/05/2010

Criminalizing Immigrants: Unlawful and Harmful to the Public

By Caroline Cincotta, Immigrants' Rights Project at 5:33pm

The ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project has released an issue brief on the criminalization of undocumented immigrants. In recent years, states and localities around the country have increasingly attempted to use state and local laws to impose criminal penalties on undocumented immigrants, and the federal government has increasingly chosen to criminally prosecute individuals who violate federal immigration laws rather than rely on the extensive federal civil enforcement scheme.

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11/29/2012
Immigration Detention

President Obama: Close the 10 Worst Immigration Detention Facilities

By Tyler Ray, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:07am

The post-election immigration policy focus has rightly been on the pressing need to establish a path for aspiring Americans to become full members of their communities.

However, one of the most dire aspects of the immigration system is the ongoing crisis in mass immigration detention. Detained immigrants face widespread abuse and denial of basic rights, at enormous taxpayers’ expense. The number of detainees is unnecessarily high and must be drastically reduced.

As part of Detention Watch Network’s Expose and Close campaign calling for the immediate closure of the10 worst Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, the ACLU and its allies have sent a letter to President Obama  urging him to take these vital first steps toward reforming a detention system where immigrants suffer in deplorable conditions.

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08/10/2012
Immigrants' Children

Victory! New Jersey Cannot Discriminate Against Students who are Children of Immigrants

By Alexander Shalom, ACLU of New Jersey at 3:36pm
Before opening the envelope, A.Z. was a typical all American, high achieving high school senior, getting ready for college. But after she read the letter inside, A. Z. felt like a second-class citizen watching her dreams of college crumble.
 
That letter changed her life. Despite the fact that she was born in New York and had been a Jersey girl since the age of four, the Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (HESAA) told her that she did not qualify for the financial aid she applied for. The reason? “Your parents are not legal New Jersey residents.” Although she appealed, the response essentially said the same thing: because your mother is not a legal resident, we will treat you like you have lived in Guatemala for the past 14 years, even though you actually lived in New Jersey the entire time.
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07/19/2010

No More Intimidation Tactics: A Wake-Up Call for Utah

By Karen McCreary, ACLU of Utah at 2:14pm

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

Utah may be diving head-first into a "race to the bottom" with Arizona to make the state as frightening as possible for people who look or sound "foreign."

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06/22/2012
DREAM Act

DREAMers Living the American Dream

By Johanna Calle, ACLU at 4:53pm

The love of a parent is immeasurable and immigrant parents are no different than any other parent. Families will do anything for their children and they often move to another country to give them better lives. My family migrated from Ecuador in 1996 while I was in fifth grade. Though the transition was rough, I found hope when my ESL teacher told me about the American Dream and the benefit of a good education.

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05/17/2012
Prison Rape Elimination Act

The Shameful Index of Prison Rape - Action on PREA Can End the Violence

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project & Jennifer Wedekind, National Prison Project at 4:29pm

Today the Department of Justice released the long-awaited Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) regulations, representing the first time that the federal government has issued national standards to help end sexual abuse in correctional facilities. The regulations are two years late and a lot of harm has been done in their absence, but now that they’ve finally been released they can help us protect important constitutional and human rights and ensure safe and fair correctional facilities that assist prisoners in rehabilitation rather than needlessly brutalizing them. The ACLU supports the Department’s efforts to protect and prevent sexual abuse in places of detention, although we regret that immigration facilities are not yet included in these standards.  

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06/16/2011

Deportation to Haiti Is Still a Death Sentence

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 1:15pm

Earlier this week, our government deported yet another 26 individuals to Haiti — even though for many, deportation to Haiti remains a likely death sentence. Wildrick T. Guerrier, a man on the first deportation flight in January, died of cholera just nine days after his arrival in Haiti. Mr. Guerrier, a 34-year-old lawful permanent U.S. resident, had lived in the United States for 17 years and left behind his fiancée and her young son, whom he was raising as his own.

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