Blog of Rights
09/14/2012
Immigration Detention

Immigration Detainees Have the Right to Due Process, Too

By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 2:12pm

Alejandro Rodriguez’s parents brought him from Mexico when he was a baby. Prior to his detention, Alejandro earned his green card and lived near his extended family in Los Angeles, working as a dental assistant to support his two U.S. citizen children. The two convictions that gave rise to his detention and deportation case were minor and non-violent— joyriding when he was 19, and a misdemeanor drug possession when he was 24. Alejandro posed no flight risk or danger to the community and yet, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) locked Alejandro up for more than three years without a bond hearing. Bond hearings are a basic and guaranteed principle of due process in the American judicial system, but thousands of immigrants like Alejandro are denied this fundamental right on a daily basis.

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09/06/2012
S.B. 1070

SB 1070: The Fight Continues

By Alessandra Soler, ACLU of Arizona at 2:41pm

For 19-year-old Hugo Carrillo Escobedo, SB1070 is about more than just “showing your papers.”  After “squealing” his tires, Hugo wound up in immigration detention for eight hours. Hugo’s story is particularly compelling because he was initially just given a citation for the traffic violation and immediately released.  But the police officer later showed up at his house, saying: “Do you know about SB1070? If I don’t report you, I could lose my job.” 

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08/22/2012
License Plate Scanners

License Location Data Sharing Marches Forward

By Kade Crockford, Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project at 3:36pm

Yesterday Andy Greenberg of Forbes published some shocking information, courtesy of a FOIA project done by our friends over at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC): US Customs and Border Protection is sharing our license plate information with private insurance companies, without any public debate or even forthright public disclosure.

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08/21/2012
Anti-Immigrant Laws

ACLU Lens: Federal Court Ruled Alabama Can’t Check Students' Immigration Status

By Vesna Jaksic, ACLU at 11:18am

Alabama’s outrageous attempt to deny some immigrant children their right to education is among the provisions that was rejected Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The Atlanta-based court also blocked other harmful parts of Alabama and Georgia’s anti-immigrant laws, including those that attempted to criminalize everyday actions with undocumented immigrants.

But the court left room for narrow implementation of certain ‘show me your papers’ provisions, which the ACLU and a civil rights coalition will continue to fight against.

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08/16/2012
Anti-Immigrant Laws

9500 Liberty: Documenting the Debate around a “Show Me Your Papers” Policy

By Mariel Villarreal, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project at 2:26pm

In the summer of 2007, the Prince William County, Virginia Board of Supervisors passed a first-of-its-kind anti-immigrant resolution with a “show me your papers” clause. It required police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they had probable cause to believe was an undocumented immigrant. A pair of documentarians, Annabel Park and Eric Byler recorded—in real time—the heated debate that transpired surrounding the passage of the resolution, documenting the division it created in the community of Prince William County.

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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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08/06/2012
Racial Profiling

Waiting for the Court to Rule: What’s Next for Sheriff Arpaio?

By Cecillia Wang, ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project at 4:25pm

After seven days of trial testimony from both the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and the Latino residents of the county who have suffered under a pattern and practice of racial profiling, the civil trial against Sheriff Joe Arpaio came to an end last week. The U.S. District Court will now decide whether Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America, has targeted Latinos for discriminatory traffic stops and illegal detentions.

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08/02/2012
Freedom of Expression

English as a First Language

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:40pm

Sigh. As if we don’t have enough divisiveness in this country, a familiar subset of Congressional Republicans are trotting out yet another discriminatory bill papered over with hollow rhetoric about “unity,” “commonality” and shared national vision, which will be the subject of a hearing in the House Constitution Subcommittee today. (Here’s the ACLU’s statement, which focuses mainly on the civil rights and immigration issues in the bill; I’m just covering the First Amendment in this post.)

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07/27/2012
Civil Liberties in the Digital Age

Friday Links Roundup

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 2:52pm

A few links that have caught our eye this past week:

Earlier this month in response to the Pauls’ Internet Manifesto I pointed out that the internet “was created by the government.” Monday Gordon Crovitz wrote a column arguing that this was an “urban legend,” and that the internet “reaffirms the basic free market critique of large government.” Since his column went to print, it has been thoroughly debunked by many experts, including Vint Cerf, Robert Metcalfe, Tim Berners-Lee, and even internet history expert Michael Hilzik, whom Crovitz quotes in his column. Media Matters, summing it up, asks whether the WSJ will issue a correction lest a nation full of Journal readers be left with a falsehood.

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07/23/2012
Secure Communities

TRUST Act: California Could Set National Model for Correcting the Damage Done by S-Comm

By Danielle Riendeau, ACLU of Northern California at 1:27pm

Juana Reyes is a food vendor and mother of two who was arrested, and detained in immigration jail for two weeks (while her children were taken away and placed in foster care) - all because she was selling tamales in front of a Sacramento Walmart. 

In fact, she had been a food vendor for years, with no incidents.  The trouble only came when a new security guard tried to remove her from the premises, and local police filed trespassing and “interfering with business” charges at her. Just like that, Juana was locked away, even though the state criminal charges were minor and eventually dropped by the local prosecutor. 

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