By Michael Tan, Staff Attorney, Immigrants' Rights Project, ACLU at 9:37am
One year ago, the immigrant youth movement won the most important immigrants' rights victory in recent memory: the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which grants young immigrants who came to the U.S. as children—or Dreamers—the ability to live and work in the country legally. As of this May, about 365,000 young immigrants have been granted DACA, and are working hard, going to school, and giving back to their communities—a preview of the benefits all of us stand to gain should Congress pass immigration reform this year.
Every movement needs a face – someone whose story transcends traditional dividing lines and has the capacity to change hearts and minds. For immigration reform, it's not just one story, but rather the collective stories of DREAMers, undocumented youth who came to the U.S. as children. By sharing their powerful stories of how they are American in all but paperwork, DREAMers have shifted public opinion in a way that wouldn't have seemed possible a few short years ago: A poll released yesterday found that there is overwhelming bipartisan support for immigration reform (up to 78 percent support in some states).
By Michael Macleod-Ball, Chief of Staff, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:57pm
The full U. S. Senate took up the potentially historic bill to overhaul the country's immigration system last week.
At the top of the week, things looked rosy. S. 744 flew through initial procedural hurdles to allowing the chamber to take up the bill, with rare flying colors. This might have led to a surge in optimism about the bill, especially given the heady tone of the markup sessions in the Senate Judiciary Committee just two weeks earlier.
On Thursday, the ACLU of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights will join the Programa de Defensa e Incidencia Binacional (Bi-national Defense and Advocacy Program, PBID), a delegation of Mexican non-governmental organizations, as they travel to Washington, D.C., to present the results of a study that illustrates the abuses experienced by migrants at the hands of authorities in the United States and in Mexico.
Today Maryland and Oregon are celebrating the signing of new laws expanding access to driver's licenses to all residents, including undocumented immigrants. We are part of a movement. Our hope is that our success inspires the passage of bills in more than a dozen other states considering similar measures.
In most states today, it is difficult, if not impossible, for people to go about their daily lives without the ability to drive. Simple but essential tasks such as driving kids to school or to extracurricular activities, picking up groceries, going to the doctor, and traveling to workbecome riddled with hardship. As a result, people without access to driver's licenses are faced with the difficult "choice" of either not meeting their basic needs or driving and risking arrest and other negative repercussions.
By Andre Segura, Immigrants' Rights Project at 10:13am
Plaintiffs have established that the MCSO had sufficient intent to discriminate against Latino occupants of motor vehicles. Further, the Court concludes that the MCSO had and continues to have a facially discriminatory policy of considering Hispanic appearance probative of whether a person is legally present in the country in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The MCSO is thus permanently enjoined from using race, or allowing its deputies and other agents to use race as a criteria in making law enforcement decisions with respect to Latino occupants of vehicles in Maricopa County.
I recently learned about a group of young people who did something extremely brave. They were invited to lunch with Nebraska's Governor, Dave Heineman...
By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:24pm
Leading yesterday’s New York Times op-ed page is a column by Bill Keller, Show Me Your Papers. It supports the faulty claim that we can solve our nation’s immigration woes if we just create a national ID system, and it specifically lauds a 2010 proposal by Sens. Schumer and Graham to create a biometric social security card that would function as a national ID for every American.
