Immigration Detention

03/26/2012

On the Agenda: March 26-30, 2012

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 10:20am

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court this week, as the justices hear a case that challenges President Obama's health care law. As we explain below, the Court will devote three days to the case.

As we've pointed out repeatedly, more oversight is needed of the TSA, so we'll be watching a hearing on the agency's effectiveness on Monday as well. The rest of the week rounds out with immigration, reproductive rights and lots of cybersecurity hearings.

02/02/2012

Immigration Detention

Urgent: Citizens and Immigrants with Mental Disabilities Need Congress's Attention

By Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:01pm

Mark Lyttle, a native-born U.S. citizen of Puerto Rican descent with mental disabilities, was deported after an immigration court hearing in 2008 at which he had no lawyer. Despite the fact that he spoke no Spanish and was known to have spent time in a psychiatric hospital, he endured more than four months of living on the streets and in the shelters and prisons of Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.

12/14/2011

Secure Communities

One Too Many: New York Times Highlights American Citizens Detained Under S-Comm

By Sandhya Bathija, Washington Legislative Office at 3:31pm

The New York Times today exposed a persistent problem with the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement programs: American citizens are being unlawfully detained for extended periods.

In the report, the Times told the story of Antonio Montejano, an American citizen born in Los Angeles who was arrested while holiday shopping with his family, including his young children. “After his young daughter begged for a $10 bottle of cologne,” he inadvertently dropped it into a bag of items he had already purchased. When he left the store, he was arrested for shoplifting.

12/05/2011

Prison Rape Elimination Act

New York Times Highlights Urgent Need to Protect Immigration Detainees from Sexual Abuse

By Will Matthews, ACLU of Northern California at 2:57pm

It is critical the Obama administration ensures that the bipartisan Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) applies to immigration detention facilities.

11/02/2011

End ICE Abuse

Ending Immigration Detention in America

By Molly Lauterback, Immigrants' Rights Project at 2:58pm

Why is it we are locking up record numbers of immigrants, at tremendous cost to families, communities and taxpayers, with little gain to public safety?

11/01/2011

Private Prisons

The Big Business of Inhumane Detention of Immigrants

By Will Matthews, ACLU of Northern California at 5:13pm

The inhumane and abusive immigration detention system is good business for one particular special interest group — the private prison industry.

10/31/2011

Prison Rape Elimination Act

Trauma Compounded: The Plight of LGBT Immigration Detainees

By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:00pm

While it is true that physical and sexual abuse is one of the most serious problems for LGBT detainees, it is by no means the only concern facing them.

10/28/2011

Immigration Detention

This Week in Civil Liberties (10/28/11)

By Rekha Arulanantham, ACLU at 6:29pm

In which states did ACLU lawsuits put a halt to suspicionless, mandatory drug testing?

Which Senators are working to show that the Patriot Act has a secret interpretation that violates the rights of American citizens?

What can be done to protect immigration detainees vulnerable to being sexually abused while in detention?

Victories in Florida and Missouri: No Illegal Drug Testing
On Monday we got some great news in Florida: following an ACLU lawsuit, the state will no longer be allowed to make people applying for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) take a drug test in order to get the assistance they need. And in Missouri on Tuesday, a federal judge ruled a policy at Linn State Technical College that would have mandated students pass a drug test as a condition of enrollment is clearly unconstitutional.

10/28/2011

End ICE Abuse

Expanded Immigration Detention: Locking Up Those Yearning to Breathe Free

By Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:11pm

If Rep. Lamar Smith's (R-Texas) bill passes, has his way, a massive expansion of the immigration detention system will take place.

10/28/2011

Immigration Detention

Voices from Inside Detention

By Molly Lauterback, Immigrants' Rights Project at 11:00am

"We may be immigrants but we are still human beings. This is an experience I don't want anyone to go [through]."

This is just one excerpt from the hundreds of letters we receive at the Immigrants' Rights Project. Immigration detainees across the country have sent us their stories for years. We have letters from individuals who first wrote us in 2007 and again, three years later, still sitting behind bars while their immigration cases slowly move through the system.

American Civil Liberties Union