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.
By Brian Stull, ACLU Capital Punishment Project at 3:54pm
Georgia: On Monday, the State of Georgia stands ready to strap Warren Hill to a gurney, place IV lines in his arms, and pump his body with poison until he dies. Warren Hill has an IQ of 70, and is intellectually disabled (mentally retarded). That was the finding of a Georgia trial judge who held a hearing and looked at the relevant evidence – applying United States Supreme Court precedent barring execution of the intellectually disabled under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the court ruled that Hill could not be executed.
The ACLU of Georgia recently released a comprehensive report on conditions of detention for immigrants in Georgia, three of which are operated by for-profit corporations and one of which, the Stewart Detention Center, is the largest immigration detention facility in the country.
For purposes of this documentation project, the ACLU of Georgia interviewed 68 individuals who were detained at the Georgia immigration detention facilities, as well as detainees' family members and immigration attorneys. We also toured the detention centers and reviewed documents obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies. The findings in “Prisoners of Profit: Immigrants and Detention in Georgia” raise serious concerns about violations of detainees’ due process rights, inadequate living conditions, inadequate medical and mental health care, and abuse of power by those in charge.
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it's ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we've spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.
This year, both Georgia and Oklahoma took up criminal justice reform, but ended up in two quite different places.
In Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill this week that takes a smart approach to criminal justice. The new law creates less severe penalties for drug crimes, expands drug courts, and provides alternatives to incarceration for low-level, non-violent offenses. The package is projected to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years by reducing the prison population.
By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:19pm
Today we let federal lawmakers know that Arizona’s racial profiling law, S.B. 1070, is about much more than just the state of Arizona and its immigrants. It’s about how we see ourselves as a nation.
Just when it seemed that Georgia was coming to grips with the damage caused by H.B. 87, the state's Arizona-inspired anti-immigrant law, some lawmakers are again attempting to rush through new measures that would further marginalize and exclude immigrants from our community.
Skyrocketing corrections budgets have fixed state lawmakers' attention on the problem of mass incarceration, and smart reform — reducing prison populations and spending while keeping communities safe — is starting to happen. Nonetheless, some states have been slow to respond. In the early months of 2012, a number of states' chief justices told their legislators to wake up to the growing problem and suggested reforms that would be good for both budgets and public safety.
