Malaysia : 2020 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Malaysia
Published February 28, 2020 at 09:00PM Read more at imf.org
Nicaragua : 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nicaragua
Published February 27, 2020 at 08:00AM Read more at imf.org
A Hospital Refused to Provide Medically Necessary Surgery Because I Am Transgender
I was denied healthcare because I am transgender. The justification, according to the hospital, was that religious doctrine permits them to refuse transgender patients, just because of who we are.
The Trump administration agrees: Over the past few years, the government has tried to greenlight sex discrimination under the guise of religious liberty. They’re doing this through a series of policy changes targeting our access to healthcare, workplaces, schools, and other spaces that we belong in, like everybody else. It seems like the administration and discriminatory healthcare providers wish that trans people didn’t even exist, but we do, and we have medical needs just like all other people.
My story is unfortunately one of many cases of sex-based discrimination that the administration is trying to allow against LGBTQ people.
In August 2016, I was in the process of undergoing gender-affirming care through a series of medical treatments. I made an appointment to undergo a treatment at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a hospital in the Dignity Health chain, near Sacramento, California, where I live.
Two days before my appointment date, a nurse called me to go over the details, and I mentioned that I was transgender. The very next day — a day before my procedure was supposed to take place — the hospital called my doctor to inform her that the appointment had been canceled because the procedure was related to my gender transition. When I heard the news, I was so devastated that I collapsed on the floor. Once I was able to pick myself up, I remember just stumbling around the house, blinded by my tears.
I was fortunate to be able to undergo the procedure at a different hospital. But the experience left scars. I had no idea prior to this that my local, community hospital was a Catholic hospital, or that they would argue that religious doctrine permits them to prevent doctors from providing patients with the care they need just because those patients are transgender. It should never be okay to deny transgender people — or anyone else — the care we need just because of who we are.
Dignity Health is the fifth largest health system in the U.S., with billions of dollars in revenue. But according to the Trump administration, I’m a threat to Dignity Health. My life — and the lives of every other transgender American — doesn’t seem to matter to this administration.
In California, however, the law prohibits businesses open to the general public — including hospitals — from discriminating on the basis of gender identity. In 2017, the ACLU and the law firm Covington & Burling LLP filed a lawsuit against Dignity Health on my behalf. Just last fall, a court agreed that I suffered discrimination when the hospital cancelled my surgery. The court also said that Dignity Health does not have a right to violate California’s nondiscrimination law.
While my case has moved through the courts, the Trump administration weighed in. Less than a year after I filed my case, the Department of Health and Human Services issued the Refusal of Care Rule to support religious people and entities in limiting the care they provide to patients. HHS is supposed to protect patients and expand access to healthcare — not allow providers to use religion as a license to discriminate. In justifying their Refusal of Care Rule, the Trump administration cited three court cases that they said showed why this discriminatory rule was necessary. Mine was one of them.
My name is now in the Federal Register. The fact that the Trump administration singled me out truly knocked me down for almost a year. When I try to explain this to people, some folks think I should see this as a badge of honor; that I must be doing something right if the administration is coming after me personally. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. It’s emotionally draining, it’s overwhelming and it’s a huge burden I have to carry. The truth of the matter is that I’m still trying to process it.
The impact of the Refusal of Care Rule will reach far beyond trans people. It will profoundly impact access to reproductive health care, particularly for the millions of patients — who are disproportionately Black and Latinx — seeking options counseling and a referral for abortion in the Title X program. It’s also part of the administration’s larger goal of erasing trans people and greenlighting religious-based discrimination.
Today, I’m speaking truth to power in Congress and defending my right and my community’s right to access healthcare. Despite the repeated efforts of the Trump administration, trans people will not be erased.
Published February 27, 2020 at 09:00PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/32E0cLh
A Hospital Refused to Provide Medically Necessary Surgery Because I Am Transgender
I was denied healthcare because I am transgender. The justification, according to the hospital, was that religious doctrine permits them to refuse transgender patients, just because of who we are.
The Trump administration agrees: Over the past few years, the government has tried to greenlight sex discrimination under the guise of religious liberty. They’re doing this through a series of policy changes targeting our access to healthcare, workplaces, schools, and other spaces that we belong in, like everybody else. It seems like the administration and discriminatory healthcare providers wish that trans people didn’t even exist, but we do, and we have medical needs just like all other people.
My story is unfortunately one of many cases of sex-based discrimination that the administration is trying to allow against LGBTQ people.
In August 2016, I was in the process of undergoing gender-affirming care through a series of medical treatments. I made an appointment to undergo a treatment at Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a hospital in the Dignity Health chain, near Sacramento, California, where I live.
Two days before my appointment date, a nurse called me to go over the details, and I mentioned that I was transgender. The very next day — a day before my procedure was supposed to take place — the hospital called my doctor to inform her that the appointment had been canceled because the procedure was related to my gender transition. When I heard the news, I was so devastated that I collapsed on the floor. Once I was able to pick myself up, I remember just stumbling around the house, blinded by my tears.
I was fortunate to be able to undergo the procedure at a different hospital. But the experience left scars. I had no idea prior to this that my local, community hospital was a Catholic hospital, or that they would argue that religious doctrine permits them to prevent doctors from providing patients with the care they need just because those patients are transgender. It should never be okay to deny transgender people — or anyone else — the care we need just because of who we are.
Dignity Health is the fifth largest health system in the U.S., with billions of dollars in revenue. But according to the Trump administration, I’m a threat to Dignity Health. My life — and the lives of every other transgender American — doesn’t seem to matter to this administration.
In California, however, the law prohibits businesses open to the general public — including hospitals — from discriminating on the basis of gender identity. In 2017, the ACLU and the law firm Covington & Burling LLP filed a lawsuit against Dignity Health on my behalf. Just last fall, a court agreed that I suffered discrimination when the hospital cancelled my surgery. The court also said that Dignity Health does not have a right to violate California’s nondiscrimination law.
While my case has moved through the courts, the Trump administration weighed in. Less than a year after I filed my case, the Department of Health and Human Services issued the Refusal of Care Rule to support religious people and entities in limiting the care they provide to patients. HHS is supposed to protect patients and expand access to healthcare — not allow providers to use religion as a license to discriminate. In justifying their Refusal of Care Rule, the Trump administration cited three court cases that they said showed why this discriminatory rule was necessary. Mine was one of them.
My name is now in the Federal Register. The fact that the Trump administration singled me out truly knocked me down for almost a year. When I try to explain this to people, some folks think I should see this as a badge of honor; that I must be doing something right if the administration is coming after me personally. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. It’s emotionally draining, it’s overwhelming and it’s a huge burden I have to carry. The truth of the matter is that I’m still trying to process it.
The impact of the Refusal of Care Rule will reach far beyond trans people. It will profoundly impact access to reproductive health care, particularly for the millions of patients — who are disproportionately Black and Latinx — seeking options counseling and a referral for abortion in the Title X program. It’s also part of the administration’s larger goal of erasing trans people and greenlighting religious-based discrimination.
Today, I’m speaking truth to power in Congress and defending my right and my community’s right to access healthcare. Despite the repeated efforts of the Trump administration, trans people will not be erased.
Published February 28, 2020 at 02:30AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/32E0cLh
Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a number of cases this term that will have a crucial impact on civil rights and civil liberties — from LGBTQ equality to reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights. Earlier in the term, the ACLU had two cases asking whether workers can be fired for being gay or transgender. On March 2, we will be arguing a case on immigrants’ rights, and we have filed or will file friend-of-the-court briefs in major cases involving reproductive freedom, contraceptive access, and religious freedom.
We sat down with David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, to discuss what’s in store for the ACLU next week, and what’s at stake for civil liberties this SCOTUS term.
Q: The ACLU is going to the Supreme Court next week. What is the case and what’s at stake?
We will be arguing Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam on Monday, March 2. It asks whether the Constitution guarantees judicial review of deportation orders. This is a fundamental question for every immigrant, and it’s all the more important because President Trump is seeking to deport as many people as quickly as he can, often with as little process as possible. To that end, the administration has expanded a program called “expedited removal,” which allows the government to order the deportation of foreign nationals while denying them the right to have their case reviewed in court.
We’re defending Thuraissigiam, who is a Tamil, an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka. He fled to the United States seeking asylum after being abducted and tortured by government agents. He applied for asylum, but the asylum officer found that he did not present a “credible fear of persecution at home,” even though the violent treatment he suffered fits precisely the pattern of government abuse of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
We argue that Thuraissigiam has a constitutional right to have a court review whether the deportation was legal or not through “habeas corpus,” a writ allowing any person facing detention to challenge its legality before a judge. The government argues that the Constitution does not protect immigrants, like Thuraissigiam, who challenge the legality of their removal from this country. In so arguing, it asks the court to depart from over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent. At the end of the day, if immigrants can be deported without judicial review, regardless of the legality of their deportation, then the rule of law in immigration proceedings will mean nothing. Under the government’s view, our client would have no judicial recourse, even if the Department of Homeland Security denied his request for asylum because he is dark-skinned.
Q: The court will also hear arguments on a Center for Reproductive Rights case related to abortion next week. What’s at stake there?
A: In this case, June Medical v. Russo, we filed an amicus brief supporting the abortion providers. The court will hear arguments on March 4. It’s a challenge to a Louisiana state law that requires doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. But what’s at stake is whether the new Supreme Court with two justices appointed by President Trump will give states the green light to push abortion care further and further out of reach.
Four years ago, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute that was identical to the Louisiana law. In that case, the court said there is no medical rationale for requiring doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges in local hospitals. All the law did was make it harder for people to get abortions. Louisiana nonetheless argues that their identical law is constitutional. But to reach that result would likely either formally or as a practical matter overturn Whole Women’s Health, and if the court does that, it will be a very disturbing sign for the future viability of abortion rights.
Q: This is the first reproductive rights case that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hear since being confirmed to the court. How do you think this will affect the decision?
A: That’s the million-dollar question. No one knows for sure. What we do know, is that President Trump promised to put justices on the court to reverse Roe v. Wade. So we know what his intention was, but the question will be whether these justices abide by precedent or feel free to break from it.
Q: Is there a common thread in both these cases?
A: The common thread is that for the court to rule against the position we are advancing would require it to break from precedent. We’re asking the court to hold fast to core principles that have long been decided. The opposing sides, in both cases, are asking the court to ignore precedent and make new law.
I think we’re well-positioned to address these issues, because we’ve been at the forefront of the struggles for immigrants’ rights and reproductive freedom for the last 50 years. We were involved in Roe v. Wade itself, and we’ve been involved in virtually all the court’s major immigrants’ rights and reproductive rights decisions for decades. Reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights are two of the most important issues that we fight for every day, and never have they been more under attack than under the Trump administration.
Q: What is the biggest challenge we face in these two cases?
A: The biggest challenge is that we now have a court that is dominated by very conservative justices. The question will be whether the court decides these cases in a partisan way, or whether it will rise above the partisan divide and act like a court. We rely on Supreme Court justices to apply the law, not to enforce partisan political views. These cases will be a real test of that principle.
Q: The Supreme Court recently announced it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. What is at stake there?
A: This case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involves the City of Philadelphia’s taxpayer-funded foster care program and a nondiscrimination rule. Catholic Social Services, one of the nonprofits who contracted with the city to help carry out the city’s foster care program, refuses to certify same-sex couples as fit foster parents, even if they are otherwise fully qualified. Philadelphia’s law prohibits such discrimination. CSS claims that it has a constitutional right under the Free Exercise Clause to get government money to carry out a government program while violating the terms of the government program and engaging in discrimination with government money.
We represent two Philadelphia nonprofits that work with and for kids and families in the foster care system. We argue, alongside the City of Philadelphia, that if anyone wants to participate in a government program, they have to abide by the nondiscrimination rule and accept all qualified families. We won in the lower courts, but the Supreme Court has agreed to review the decision. This will be one of the most important cases argued next October. Catholic Social Services argues that they have a religious license to discriminate. We vehemently disagree.
Q: What other SCOTUS cases is the ACLU involved with this year?
A: We are involved in many cases, but I’ll just mention a few. We directly represented Aimee Stephens and Don Zarda in two cases that ask whether firing someone because they are LGBTQ is a form of sex discrimination in violation of federal law. The cases were argued in October, and we’re awaiting a decision. We argue that under the plain language of the statute, when you fire a woman for being attracted to women, but wouldn’t fire a man for being attracted to women, you are discriminating on the basis of sex. The same holds true when you fire an employee for coming to work as a woman because she was assigned male at birth. That is also discrimination because of sex.
We also filed an amicus brief challenging President Trump’s revocation of DACA, which provides legal status and work privileges to 700,000 undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. as children. The lower courts held that the revocation was illegal. If the court rules otherwise, all DACA recipients will be in jeopardy of deportation.
Additionally, we are preparing an amicus brief in a Trump v. Pennsylvania, a case challenging a rule that would allow employers to deny insurance coverage to employees for contraception if the employer objects to contraception on religious or moral grounds. It essentially allows employees to impose their religious beliefs on their employees’ private lives. The lower courts ruled that the rule was illegal because the administration lacks the power to give employers the right to inflict their beliefs on their employees.
Q: What is the one key takeaway you want the public to know about the current SCOTUS term?
A: There is really one big thing to watch for this term: We have a new court with two new conservative justices. Are they going to apply the law and be bound by prior constitutional decisions, or are they going to break from those principles and use their majority power to make new law that undermines civil rights and civil liberties? Whatever happens, we can be sure of one thing: The ACLU will be there, advocating for the rights of us all.
Published February 28, 2020 at 02:22AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3cdVeJB
Defending Immigrants’ Rights and Reproductive Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a number of cases this term that will have a crucial impact on civil rights and civil liberties — from LGBTQ equality to reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights. Earlier in the term, the ACLU had two cases asking whether workers can be fired for being gay or transgender. On March 2, we will be arguing a case on immigrants’ rights, and we have filed or will file friend-of-the-court briefs in major cases involving reproductive freedom, contraceptive access, and religious freedom.
We sat down with David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, to discuss what’s in store for the ACLU next week, and what’s at stake for civil liberties this SCOTUS term.
Q: The ACLU is going to the Supreme Court next week. What is the case and what’s at stake?
We will be arguing Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam on Monday, March 2. It asks whether the Constitution guarantees judicial review of deportation orders. This is a fundamental question for every immigrant, and it’s all the more important because President Trump is seeking to deport as many people as quickly as he can, often with as little process as possible. To that end, the administration has expanded a program called “expedited removal,” which allows the government to order the deportation of foreign nationals while denying them the right to have their case reviewed in court.
We’re defending Thuraissigiam, who is a Tamil, an ethnic minority group in Sri Lanka. He fled to the United States seeking asylum after being abducted and tortured by government agents. He applied for asylum, but the asylum officer found that he did not present a “credible fear of persecution at home,” even though the violent treatment he suffered fits precisely the pattern of government abuse of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
We argue that Thuraissigiam has a constitutional right to have a court review whether the deportation was legal or not through “habeas corpus,” a writ allowing any person facing detention to challenge its legality before a judge. The government argues that the Constitution does not protect immigrants, like Thuraiisigiam, who challenge the legality of their removal from this country. In so arguing, it asks the court to depart from over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent. At the end of the day, if immigrants can be deported without judicial review, regardless of the legality of their deportation, then the rule of law in immigration proceedings will mean nothing. Under the government’s view, our client would have no judicial recourse, even if the Department of Homeland Security denied his request for asylum because he is dark-skinned.
Q: The court will also hear arguments on a Center for Reproductive Rights case related to abortion next week. What’s at stake there?
A: In this case, June Medical v. Russo, we filed an amicus brief supporting the abortion providers. The court will hear arguments on March 4. It’s a challenge to a Louisiana state law that requires doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. But what’s at stake is whether the new Supreme Court with two justices appointed by President Trump will give states the green light to push abortion care further and further out of reach.
Four years ago, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute that was identical to the Louisiana law. In that case, the court said there is no medical rationale for requiring doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges in local hospitals. All the law did was make it harder for people to get abortions. Louisiana nonetheless argues that their identical law is constitutional. But to reach that result would likely either formally or as a practical matter overturn Whole Women’s Health, and if the court does that, it will be a very disturbing sign for the future viability of abortion rights.
Q: This is the first reproductive rights case that Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will hear since being confirmed to the court. How do you think this will affect the decision?
A: That’s the million dollar question. No one knows for sure. What we do know, is that President Trump promised to put justices on the court to reverse Roe v. Wade. So we know what his intention was, but the question will be whether these justices abide by precedent or feel free to break from it.
Q: Is there a common thread in both these cases?
A: The common thread is that for the court to rule against the position we are advancing would require it to break from precedent. We’re asking the court to hold fast to core principles that have long been decided. The opposing sides, in both cases, are asking the court to ignore precedent and make new law.
I think we’re well positioned to address these issues, because we’ve been at the forefront of the struggles for immigrants’ rights and reproductive freedom for the last 50 years. We were involved in Roe v. Wade itself, and we’ve been involved in virtually all the court’s major immigrants’ rights and reproductive rights decisions for decades. Reproductive freedom and immigrants’ rights are two of the most important issues that we fight for every day, and never have they been more under attack than under the Trump administration.
Q: What is the biggest challenge we face in these two cases?
A: The biggest challenge is that we now have a court that is dominated by very conservative justices. The question will be whether the court decides these cases in a partisan way, or whether it will rise above the partisan divide and act like a court. We rely on Supreme Court justices to apply the law, not to enforce partisan political views. These cases will be a real test of that principle.
Q: The Supreme Court recently announced it will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. What is at stake there?
A: This case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involves the City of Philadelphia’s taxpayer-funded foster care program and a nondiscrimination rule. Catholic Social Services, one of the nonprofits who contracted with the city to help carry out the city’s foster care program, refuses to certify same-sex couples as fit foster parents, even if they are otherwise fully qualified. Philadelphia’s law prohibits such discrimination. CSS claims that it has a constitutional right under the Free Exercise Clause to get government money to carry out a government program, while violating the terms of the government program and engaging in discrimination with government money.
We represent two Philadelphia nonprofits that work with and for kids and families in the foster care system. We argue, alongside the City of Philadelphia, that if anyone wants to participate in a government program, they have to abide by the nondiscrimination rule and accept all qualified families. We won in the lower courts, but the Supreme Court has agreed to review the decision. This will be one of the most important cases argued next October. Catholic Social Services argues that they have a religious license to discriminate. We vehemently disagree.
Q: What other SCOTUS cases is the ACLU involved with this year?
A: We are involved in many cases, but I’ll just mention a few. We directly represented Aimee Stephens and Don Zarda in two cases that ask whether firing someone because they are LGBTQ is a form of sex discrimination in violation of federal law. The cases were argued in October, and we’re awaiting a decision. We argue that under the plain language of the statute, when you fire a woman for being attracted to women, but wouldn’t fire a man for being attracted to women, you are discriminating on the basis of sex. The same holds true when you fire an employee for coming to work as a woman because she was assigned male at birth. That is also discrimination because of sex.
We also filed an amicus brief challenging President Trump’s revocation of DACA, which provides legal status and work privileges to 700,000 undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. as children. The lower courts held that the revocation was illegal. If the court rules otherwise, all DACA recipients will be in jeopardy of deportation.
Additionally, we are preparing an amicus brief in a Trump v. Pennsylvania, a case challenging a rule that would allow employers to deny insurance coverage to employees for contraception if the employer objects to contraception on religious or moral grounds. It essentially allows employees to impose their religious beliefs on their employees’ private lives. The lower courts ruled that the rule was illegal because the administration lacks the power to give employers the right to inflict their beliefs on their employees.
Q: What is the one key takeaway you want the public to know about the current SCOTUS term?
A: There is really one big thing to watch for this term: We have a new court with two new conservative justices. Are they going to apply the law and be bound by prior constitutional decisions, or are they going to break from those principles and use their majority power to make new law that undermines civil rights and civil liberties? Whatever happens, we can be sure of one thing: The ACLU will be there, advocating for the rights of us all.
Published February 27, 2020 at 08:52PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3cdVeJB
“Do Not Kill in My Name” – How Colorado Finally Repealed the Death Penalty
For more than twenty years, an evolving coalition of victims’ family members, corrections officers, defense attorneys, prosecutors, faith leaders, and civil liberties champions have worked relentlessly to end the death penalty in Colorado. In 2019, following a democratic sweep of both the legislature and the Governor’s office, many thought repeal was inevitable. Unfortunately, the state senate could not bring the bill across the finish line. In response, the ACLU of Colorado launched an ambitious, multifaceted, bipartisan, and community-driven campaign to finally end the broken death penalty.
For death penalty repeal to pass, we needed a broad swath of Coloradans to take action. In order to engage these diverse groups of Coloradans in the death penalty debate, we planned a wide variety of initiatives, starting with a commitment to conversation. First, we launched our efforts with a community conversation in Aurora, where the majority of death penalty cases are pursued. We brought together more than 100 people in the community to discuss how they’re effected by this unjust policy, and how we could abolish the death penalty once and for all. People with lived experience with the death penalty system sat at each table and were central to these conversations.
Following the first community conversation, we held six postcard parties and three community conversations across the state. In Wheat Ridge, Coloradans wrote letters to the editor, practiced asking questions of legislators at town halls, and gained tools to advocate for the change they wanted to see at the capitol. In Fort Collins and Golden, Coloradans learned more about the death penalty alongside their neighbors at discussion tables. Hollis Whitson, a defense attorney who has worked on numerous death penalty trials, broke down the staggering costs of each case. Ndume Olatushani testified to the flaws of the death penalty by sharing his experience as an innocent man who spent almost 20 years on death row.
Beyond our efforts to build a statewide conversation, we knew that the death penalty would only end by changing hearts and minds with facts, data, and the real life experience of directly-impacted Coloradans. Our campaign culminated with an extensive collection of stories and statistics in the ACLU of Colorado report, “Ending A Broken System: Colorado’s Expensive, Ineffective and Unjust Death Penalty.”
The report highlights the many flaws of the death penalty, including its expense, racism, mistakes, and inherent violence. Most importantly, we uplifted the experiences of 22 victims’ families whose loved ones were murdered and shared why, even in the face of such tragedy, they are firmly against the death penalty. Despite enduring unimaginable grief, Colorado victims’ families spent months urging lawmakers to end a system that only causes additional harm by sharing their stories in videos, at a press conference, and during testimony at the capitol.
In episodes on the ACLU of Colorado’s podcast, the Purple State Report, people like Dean Sanderford, who witnessed the horribly botched execution of his client, Clayton Lockett, shared the personal toll of the death penalty system. “It is not sound public policy to respond to violence with publicly sanctioned torture that causes more trauma for everyone involved,” he said.
Faith leaders also played an important role in the death penalty debate. Leading death penalty repeal activist Sister Helen Prejean joined our podcast to share her inspiring solidarity with death row inmates. Catholic priests participated in our community events, and more than 165 faith leaders signed a letter condemning the immorality of the death penalty. It was the strong presence of faith leaders that gave comfort to some of our wavering legislators.
After months spent gathering stories, studying Colorado’s death penalty and engaging Coloradans throughout the state, we held an End the Death Penalty Lobby Day at the beginning of the legislative session. Johnny Ross, who spent seven years on death row before he was exonerated, joined more than 100 Coloradans to deliver the report and thousands of postcards to legislators urging them to end a system that risks making irreversible mistakes.
“We cannot trust a system that makes mistakes with the power to decide who lives and who dies,” said Ross.
In coordination with coalition organizations including Equal Justice USA, we released several sign-on letters during the Senate debate on the death penalty to show the overwhelming support for repeal. Nineteen corrections officers joined a sign-on letter urging legislators to end the death penalty based on the harm it causes public servants tasked with performing executions. Thirty-eight Colorado prosecutors joined a sign-on letter explaining that using executions as a bargaining chip increases the risk that innocent people will plead guilty to a crime they did not commit. Victims’ family members drafted a letter with 170 signatures explaining how the death penalty process forced them to relive the trauma of murder over decades, undermining the healing process.
At the end of January, the bipartisan legislation to end the death penalty, Senate Bill 100, passed out of the state Senate. This month it passed out of the House, and it’s now on its way to the Governor’s desk. Colorado is poised to become the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty thanks to a community-driven campaign that uplifted stories of people directly impacted by this legislation. We dug into Colorado-specific facts on the costs and inequities of the system and coordinated a network of activists to hold legislators accountable.
Across Colorado, people made their voices heard: “Do not kill in my name.” This time, Colorado’s legislators were listening. As Colorado moves closer to repeal, we look to states across the country who are standing up to say that in a society that aspires for fairness and justice, there is no room for the death penalty.
Published February 27, 2020 at 09:15PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2T4eamB
How do you stop a virus that spreads easily and is often asymptomatic? Answer: you don’t. In the most useful piece anyone’s written about current Coronavirus epidemic the Atlantic‘s, James Hamblin explains why COVID-19 could become everyone’s new normal, and why our energy is better spent on long-term responses than short-term panic.
Despite the apparent ineffectiveness of such measures—relative to their inordinate social and economic cost, at least—the crackdown continues to escalate. Under political pressure to “stop” the virus, last Thursday the Chinese government announced that officials in Hubei province would be going door-to-door, testing people for fevers and looking for signs of illness, then sending all potential cases to quarantine camps. But even with the ideal containment, the virus’s spread may have been inevitable. Testing people who are already extremely sick is an imperfect strategy if people can spread the virus without even feeling bad enough to stay home from work.
Lipsitch predicts that within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, he clarifies emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said. As with influenza, which is often life-threatening to people with chronic health conditions and of older age, most cases pass without medical care. (Overall, about 14 percent of people with influenza have no symptoms.)
Lipsitch is far from alone in his belief that this virus will continue to spread widely. The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease—a fifth “endemic” coronavirus. With the other four, people are not known to develop long-lasting immunity. If this one follows suit, and if the disease continues to be as severe as it is now, “cold and flu season” could become “cold and flu and COVID-19 season.”
“Do Not Kill in My Name” – How Colorado Finally Repealed the Death Penalty
For more than twenty years, an evolving coalition of victims’ family members, corrections officers, defense attorneys, prosecutors, faith leaders, and civil liberties champions have worked relentlessly to end the death penalty in Colorado. In 2019, following a democratic sweep of both the legislature and the Governor’s office, many thought repeal was inevitable. Unfortunately, the state senate could not bring the bill across the finish line. In response, the ACLU of Colorado launched an ambitious, multifaceted, bipartisan, and community-driven campaign to finally end the broken death penalty.
For death penalty repeal to pass, we needed a broad swath of Coloradans to take action. In order to engage these diverse groups of Coloradans in the death penalty debate, we planned a wide variety of initiatives, starting with a commitment to conversation. First, we launched our efforts with a community conversation in Aurora, where the majority of death penalty cases are pursued. We brought together more than 100 people in the community to discuss how they’re effected by this unjust policy, and how we could abolish the death penalty once and for all. People with lived experience with the death penalty system sat at each table and were central to these conversations.
Following the first community conversation, we held six postcard parties and three community conversations across the state. In Wheat Ridge, Coloradans wrote letters to the editor, practiced asking questions of legislators at town halls, and gained tools to advocate for the change they wanted to see at the capitol. In Fort Collins and Golden, Coloradans learned more about the death penalty alongside their neighbors at discussion tables. Hollis Whitson, a defense attorney who has worked on numerous death penalty trials, broke down the staggering costs of each case. Ndume Olatushani testified to the flaws of the death penalty by sharing his experience as an innocent man who spent almost 20 years on death row.
Beyond our efforts to build a statewide conversation, we knew that the death penalty would only end by changing hearts and minds with facts, data, and the real life experience of directly-impacted Coloradans. Our campaign culminated with an extensive collection of stories and statistics in the ACLU of Colorado report, “Ending A Broken System: Colorado’s Expensive, Ineffective and Unjust Death Penalty.”
The report highlights the many flaws of the death penalty, including its expense, racism, mistakes, and inherent violence. Most importantly, we uplifted the experiences of 22 victims’ families whose loved ones were murdered and shared why, even in the face of such tragedy, they are firmly against the death penalty. Despite enduring unimaginable grief, Colorado victims’ families spent months urging lawmakers to end a system that only causes additional harm by sharing their stories in videos, at a press conference, and during testimony at the capitol.
In episodes on the ACLU of Colorado’s podcast, the Purple State Report, people like Dean Sanderford, who witnessed the horribly botched execution of his client, Clayton Lockett, shared the personal toll of the death penalty system. “It is not sound public policy to respond to violence with publicly sanctioned torture that causes more trauma for everyone involved,” he said.
Faith leaders also played an important role in the death penalty debate. Leading death penalty repeal activist Sister Helen Prejean joined our podcast to share her inspiring solidarity with death row inmates. Catholic priests participated in our community events, and more than 165 faith leaders signed a letter condemning the immorality of the death penalty. It was the strong presence of faith leaders that gave comfort to some of our wavering legislators.
After months spent gathering stories, studying Colorado’s death penalty and engaging Coloradans throughout the state, we held an End the Death Penalty Lobby Day at the beginning of the legislative session. Johnny Ross, who spent seven years on death row before he was exonerated, joined more than 100 Coloradans to deliver the report and thousands of postcards to legislators urging them to end a system that risks making irreversible mistakes.
“We cannot trust a system that makes mistakes with the power to decide who lives and who dies,” said Ross.
In coordination with coalition organizations including Equal Justice USA, we released several sign-on letters during the Senate debate on the death penalty to show the overwhelming support for repeal. Nineteen corrections officers joined a sign-on letter urging legislators to end the death penalty based on the harm it causes public servants tasked with performing executions. Thirty-eight Colorado prosecutors joined a sign-on letter explaining that using executions as a bargaining chip increases the risk that innocent people will plead guilty to a crime they did not commit. Victims’ family members drafted a letter with 170 signatures explaining how the death penalty process forced them to relive the trauma of murder over decades, undermining the healing process.
At the end of January, the bipartisan legislation to end the death penalty, Senate Bill 100, passed out of the state Senate. This month it passed out of the House, and it’s now on its way to the Governor’s desk. Colorado is poised to become the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty thanks to a community-driven campaign that uplifted stories of people directly impacted by this legislation. We dug into Colorado-specific facts on the costs and inequities of the system and coordinated a network of activists to hold legislators accountable.
Across Colorado, people made their voices heard: “Do not kill in my name.” This time, Colorado’s legislators were listening. As Colorado moves closer to repeal, we look to states across the country who are standing up to say that in a society that aspires for fairness and justice, there is no room for the death penalty.
Published February 27, 2020 at 03:45PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2T4eamB
Stopping the Anti-Abortion Ordinances of East Texas
Waskom. Naples. Joaquin. Tenaha. Rusk. Gary. Wells. These names might sound unfamiliar now, but you’ll be hearing more about them soon enough.
They are seven cities in East Texas that, within the last several months, each passed so-called “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinances — moves that are blatantly unconstitutional.
Waskom, Texas was the first municipality to pass such an ordinance in July 2019. Soon after, other east Texas cities followed suit. The ordinances attempt to ban abortion within the cities if Roe v. Wade is overturned, and some of them even try to ban emergency contraception.
The ordinances also declare organizations working to protect the right to abortion, including our clients Lilith Fund and Texas Equal Access Fund (TEA Fund), as “criminal organizations,” even though they have done absolutely nothing wrong. The ordinances function to silence abortion advocates, preventing them from operating and even speaking about abortion access within the city limits.
These ordinances constitute an outright attack on abortion and free speech, which is why today we filed a lawsuit against these seven cities.
The laws that claim abortion will be illegal if Roe is overturned have a dangerous chilling effect. They confuse residents about their rights and increase stigma against people who have abortions — even though abortion remains legal in Texas and everywhere in the country. And at the same time, the ordinances prevent any attempts to clear up that confusion, banning the kind of speech that could educate people about their rights and access to abortion in the cities.
Under these local laws, our clients cannot speak up about abortion rights, recruit volunteers to help them do their important work, or congregate to share informational materials in these cities without worrying about getting sued. The laws intentionally and unconstitutionally obstruct our plaintiffs’ ability to do their jobs, impeding the advocacy work that is integral to their mission.
In contrast, anti-abortion organizations face no such restrictions, remaining free to undermine access to reproductive health care without legal ramifications. It’s this targeted and discriminatory suppression of speech and assembly that violates our clients’ First Amendment rights — and exactly what we are challenging in our lawsuit.
Like most Americans, the majority of Texans believe that abortion should remain legal. Regardless of the efforts of anti-abortion extremists who are trying their best to spread their ideology across Texas — in some cases, going so far as to pressure town leadership to pass copycat anti-abortion ordinances — abortion remains a right.
So, we’ll see the cities of Waskom, Naples, Joaquin, Tenaha, Rusk, Gary, and Wells in court. Abortion is health care, and the organizations that advocate for it should not be silenced.
Published February 26, 2020 at 10:21PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3a0mwRQ
Stopping the Anti-Abortion Ordinances of East Texas
Waskom. Naples. Joaquin. Tenaha. Rusk. Gary. Wells. These names might sound unfamiliar now, but you’ll be hearing more about them soon enough.
They are seven cities in East Texas that, within the last several months, each passed so-called “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinances — moves that are blatantly unconstitutional.
Waskom, Texas was the first municipality to pass such an ordinance in July 2019. Soon after, other east Texas cities followed suit. The ordinances attempt to ban abortion within the cities if Roe v. Wade is overturned, and some of them even try to ban emergency contraception.
The ordinances also declare organizations working to protect the right to abortion, including our clients Lilith Fund and Texas Equal Access Fund (TEA Fund), as “criminal organizations,” even though they have done absolutely nothing wrong. The ordinances function to silence abortion advocates, preventing them from operating and even speaking about abortion access within the city limits.
These ordinances constitute an outright attack on abortion and free speech, which is why today we filed a lawsuit against these seven cities.
The laws that claim abortion will be illegal if Roe is overturned have a dangerous chilling effect. They confuse residents about their rights and increase stigma against people who have abortions — even though abortion remains legal in Texas and everywhere in the country. And at the same time, the ordinances prevent any attempts to clear up that confusion, banning the kind of speech that could educate people about their rights and access to abortion in the cities.
Under these local laws, our clients cannot speak up about abortion rights, recruit volunteers to help them do their important work, or congregate to share informational materials in these cities without worrying about getting sued. The laws intentionally and unconstitutionally obstruct our plaintiffs’ ability to do their jobs, impeding the advocacy work that is integral to their mission.
In contrast, anti-abortion organizations face no such restrictions, remaining free to undermine access to reproductive health care without legal ramifications. It’s this targeted and discriminatory suppression of speech and assembly that violates our clients’ First Amendment rights — and exactly what we are challenging in our lawsuit.
Like most Americans, the majority of Texans believe that abortion should remain legal. Regardless of the efforts of anti-abortion extremists who are trying their best to spread their ideology across Texas — in some cases, going so far as to pressure town leadership to pass copycat anti-abortion ordinances — abortion remains a right.
So, we’ll see the cities of Waskom, Naples, Joaquin, Tenaha, Rusk, Gary, and Wells in court. Abortion is health care, and the organizations that advocate for it should not be silenced.
Published February 27, 2020 at 03:51AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3a0mwRQ
When the ACLU filed Ms. L v. ICE exactly two years ago, it was clear what was going on at the border was shocking and unprecedented: A Congolese mother and her six-year-old daughter had been torn apart by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for seemingly no reason at all. ICE sent them to detention sites thousands of miles away from one another, where for four months they had hardly any contact and didn’t know whether they’d ever see each other again. It was an act of senseless cruelty — a seemingly exceptional case that later turned out to not be so unusual after all.
What ICE did to Ms. L and her daughter was hard enough to grasp on its own, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. There were thousands of Ms. Ls in detention sites across the country, separated from their children with no explanation, and what happened wasn’t a random act of cruelty but part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
After months of litigation and a court order to stop the official practice, the Trump administration admitted that it had separated more than 2,700 children from their parents. But they didn’t tell the whole story. What they left out were the children they separated who had already left government custody at the time of the court’s order. When the judge demanded the full picture, the government disclosed an additional 1,556 children separated since 2017. In all, that means the Trump administration separated over 4,200 children from their parents.
The ACLU has managed to reunite over 2,000 families since the injunction in 2018. But the fight to stop separations and reunite families continues. The administration is using loopholes to continue separating some families with excuses including dirty diapers, expired driver’s licenses, and other minor offenses that would never justify separation under any U.S. child welfare laws. Today, the ACLU is fighting to stop these separations and locate every last family that remains separated.
How ICE and CBP used fear and misinformation to deport parents
ICE and CBP showed no mercy when they separated children from their parents. Border agents took one young boy with a vision impairment from his parents without letting him take his glasses case, which he needed to protect the glasses his family had saved up to afford. Several other separated kids had disabilities, including a deaf girl taken from her father.
After separation, border authorities used a pattern of fear and misinformation to deport parents without their children. They often told parents they had no right to asylum and that they had two options: get deported with their child, or alone. Ultimately, hundreds of parents were deported without their children.
Some parents knowingly chose to leave their children in the U.S., believing it was the child’s only chance to get asylum and protect them from the danger they originally fled in their home countries. These parents were forced into making an unbearable decision between protecting their child and staying together.
Many parents were deported without understanding what they had agreed to, forced into signing papers in a language they couldn’t read. At times ICE and CBP agents told parents that their child would be waiting for them on the plane. When two parents learned that this was a lie — that their children would not be coming with them — officials had to physically force them onto the plane.
One mother, Belen, fled to the U.S. in fear for her life, only to have her son taken away as soon as she arrived at the border. A survivor of sexual abuse, Belen pursued asylum after passing a credible fear hearing. Border officials later threatened her by telling her that pursuing asylum would only prolong separation from her son, so she abandoned her case. In the end, Belen returned to the country she fled, even though she had a strong case for asylum as an abuse survivor.
Tracking down untracked parents in Central America
The reckless way that ICE and CBP deported parents makes reunification difficult and in some cases nearly impossible. Border authorities deported hundreds of parents, and in many cases didn’t bother to keep any meaningful contact information, like a proper address or working phone number. In 2018, when a federal judge ordered the government to reunite all the families, the administration tried to shift the responsibility onto the ACLU instead.
Reuniting these families is of course the responsibility of the people who separated them. But the Trump administration wasn’t acting fast enough, and the families were understandably reluctant to trust them again. That summer, the ACLU formed a steering committee to locate and help parents, along with partners at Kids in Need of Defense, the Women’s Refugee Commission, Justice in Motion, and the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.
One of the reunited families was that of Ricardo and Luna, a father and daughter from Guatemala who were separated near McAllen, Texas in December 2017. Border officials sent three-year-old Luna to a Texas shelter and deported Ricardo, tricking him into believing she would soon join him. But Ricardo returned to Guatemala City with just a sheet of paper containing his daughter’s alien registration number. He was given a toll-free phone number to call for information about Luna, but each time he called, the operators told him they had no record of her in the system.
“When I saw her, I felt my soul ache. She was skinny and sad for all the time she hadn’t seen us. It was a sad but at the same time very joyful moment.” — Ricardo
Luna was part of the class of children under age five prioritized by the court order for reunification. But it wasn’t until a month after the reunification deadline that she was finally returned to her father. By then, the length of her detention was among the longest of any child affected by family separation.
Seeking damages for lifelong trauma
After months of separation, Ever Reyes-Mejia was reunited with his three-year-old son, Sammy. But Sammy seemed to have trouble recognizing his parents. Their difficult reunion was captured on video, showing us how separation causes trauma that reunification alone can’t fix.
The trauma of separation will cause lifelong trauma for whole families, but children under the age of five, like Sammy, will feel the effects the most. To hold the Trump administration accountable, the ACLU filed another lawsuit last year seeking damages for these families, as well as the creation of a fund to pay for professional mental health services.
At shelters in the U.S., children have been hospitalized for behavioral health issues that arose during detention, including suicide attempts. And like Sammy, children are showing signs of trauma even after reunification. One young boy would cry whenever his father left the room because he thought he was going to be abandoned again.
Parents also face an increased risk of developing mental health disorders. Belen was described by a former asylum officer as “one of the most traumatized and vulnerable persons that I have ever interviewed.” During her separation from her son, she was in such distress that part of her face would become paralyzed for days at a time. She has since been reunited with her son, but due to the trauma of separation, she won’t leave her house unaccompanied.
Detention itself is traumatic. Ricardo’s daughter Luna was held in a shelter plagued by sexual abuse allegations, and there is a well-documented history of CBP abusing children in its custody. Facilities are often overcrowded, with scarce food and water and no way to bathe or brush teeth. At several shelters, parents staged hunger strikes to protest the refusal of ICE and CBP officials to provide any information about their children.
“I did not know what was happening and I had no idea where my son was.” — Eduardo
These traumas will stay with families for a lifetime, and it’s the Trump administration’s fault. A July 2019 House Oversight staff report concluded that those responsible have “not been candid with the American people” about the horrors families faced, and that the separations were “more harmful, traumatic, and chaotic than previously known.”
Where we stand two years after Ms. L
Ms. L and her daughter had traveled across ten countries and three continents seeking safety here, only to be traumatized with separation. Her daughter had to spend her seventh birthday in a detention cell, alone, not knowing whether she’d ever see her mother again. But they were among the fortunate ones: soon after the lawsuit filed on their behalf, Ms. L and her daughter were reunited.
Family separation is just one of the ways the Trump administration has deliberately tried to stop people from seeking asylum here. The administration has also tried to gut asylum protections for immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality, ban people from applying for asylum outside of formal ports of entry, force asylum seekers into Mexico to await far-off court dates in the U.S., and bar asylum seekers who have passed through other countries without first applying for asylum in those countries. Poor infrastructure and instability in many countries in the region makes it incredibly difficult to live in safety, let alone go through the asylum process. The administration is trying to make the asylum process so torturous that people will continue to live in danger rather than seek safety.
Denying protection for people fleeing danger is a violation of the law and basic human rights. The U.S. government must treat them with humanity and uphold their right to seek asylum.
NOTE: All names have been changed to protect identity and safety.
Published February 27, 2020 at 01:35AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2HZIQiw
When the ACLU filed Ms. L v. ICE exactly two years ago, it was clear what was going on at the border was shocking and unprecedented: A Congolese mother and her six-year-old daughter had been torn apart by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for seemingly no reason at all. ICE sent them to detention sites thousands of miles away from one another, where for four months they had hardly any contact and didn’t know whether they’d ever see each other again. It was an act of senseless cruelty — a seemingly exceptional case that later turned out to not be so unusual after all.
What ICE did to Ms. L and her daughter was hard enough to grasp on its own, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. There were thousands of Ms. Ls in detention sites across the country, separated from their children with no explanation, and what happened wasn’t a random act of cruelty but part of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
After months of litigation and a court order to stop the official practice, the Trump administration admitted that it had separated more than 2,700 children from their parents. But they didn’t tell the whole story. What they left out were the children they separated who had already left government custody at the time of the court’s order. When the judge demanded the full picture, the government disclosed an additional 1,556 children separated since 2017. In all, that means the Trump administration separated over 4,200 children from their parents.
The ACLU has managed to reunite over 2,000 families since the injunction in 2018. But the fight to stop separations and reunite families continues. The administration is using loopholes to continue separating some families with excuses including dirty diapers, expired driver’s licenses, and other minor offenses that would never justify separation under any U.S. child welfare laws. Today, the ACLU is fighting to stop these separations and locate every last family that remains separated.
How ICE and CBP used fear and misinformation to deport parents
ICE and CBP showed no mercy when they separated children from their parents. Border agents took one young boy with a vision impairment from his parents without letting him take his glasses case, which he needed to protect the glasses his family had saved up to afford. Several other separated kids had disabilities, including a deaf girl taken from her father.
After separation, border authorities used a pattern of fear and misinformation to deport parents without their children. They often told parents they had no right to asylum and that they had two options: get deported with their child, or alone. Ultimately, hundreds of parents were deported without their children.
Some parents knowingly chose to leave their children in the U.S., believing it was the child’s only chance to get asylum and protect them from the danger they originally fled in their home countries. These parents were forced into making an unbearable decision between protecting their child and staying together.
Many parents were deported without understanding what they had agreed to, forced into signing papers in a language they couldn’t read. At times ICE and CBP agents told parents that their child would be waiting for them on the plane. When two parents learned that this was a lie — that their children would not be coming with them — officials had to physically force them onto the plane.
One mother, Belen, fled to the U.S. in fear for her life, only to have her son taken away as soon as she arrived at the border. A survivor of sexual abuse, Belen pursued asylum after passing a credible fear hearing. Border officials later threatened her by telling her that pursuing asylum would only prolong separation from her son, so she abandoned her case. In the end, Belen returned to the country she fled, even though she had a strong case for asylum as an abuse survivor.
Tracking down untracked parents in Central America
The reckless way that ICE and CBP deported parents makes reunification difficult and in some cases nearly impossible. Border authorities deported hundreds of parents, and in many cases didn’t bother to keep any meaningful contact information, like a proper address or working phone number. In 2018, when a federal judge ordered the government to reunite all the families, the administration tried to shift the responsibility onto the ACLU instead.
Reuniting these families is of course the responsibility of the people who separated them. But the Trump administration wasn’t acting fast enough, and the families were understandably reluctant to trust them again. That summer, the ACLU formed a steering committee to locate and help parents, along with partners at Kids in Need of Defense, the Women’s Refugee Commission, Justice in Motion, and the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.
One of the reunited families was that of Ricardo and Luna, a father and daughter from Guatemala who were separated near McAllen, Texas in December 2017. Border officials sent three-year-old Luna to a Texas shelter and deported Ricardo, tricking him into believing she would soon join him. But Ricardo returned to Guatemala City with just a sheet of paper containing his daughter’s alien registration number. He was given a toll-free phone number to call for information about Luna, but each time he called, the operators told him they had no record of her in the system.
“When I saw her, I felt my soul ache. She was skinny and sad for all the time she hadn’t seen us. It was a sad but at the same time very joyful moment.” — Ricardo
Luna was part of the class of children under age five prioritized by the court order for reunification. But it wasn’t until a month after the reunification deadline that she was finally returned to her father. By then, the length of her detention was among the longest of any child affected by family separation.
Seeking damages for lifelong trauma
After months of separation, Ever Reyes-Mejia was reunited with his three-year-old son, Sammy. But Sammy seemed to have trouble recognizing his parents. Their difficult reunion was captured on video, showing us how separation causes trauma that reunification alone can’t fix.
The trauma of separation will cause lifelong trauma for whole families, but children under the age of five, like Sammy, will feel the effects the most. To hold the Trump administration accountable, the ACLU filed another lawsuit last year seeking damages for these families, as well as the creation of a fund to pay for professional mental health services.
At shelters in the U.S., children have been hospitalized for behavioral health issues that arose during detention, including suicide attempts. And like Sammy, children are showing signs of trauma even after reunification. One young boy would cry whenever his father left the room because he thought he was going to be abandoned again.
Parents also face an increased risk of developing mental health disorders. Belen was described by a former asylum officer as “one of the most traumatized and vulnerable persons that I have ever interviewed.” During her separation from her son, she was in such distress that part of her face would become paralyzed for days at a time. She has since been reunited with her son, but due to the trauma of separation, she won’t leave her house unaccompanied.
Detention itself is traumatic. Ricardo’s daughter Luna was held in a shelter plagued by sexual abuse allegations, and there is a well-documented history of CBP abusing children in its custody. Facilities are often overcrowded, with scarce food and water and no way to bathe or brush teeth. At several shelters, parents staged hunger strikes to protest the refusal of ICE and CBP officials to provide any information about their children.
“I did not know what was happening and I had no idea where my son was.” — Eduardo
These traumas will stay with families for a lifetime, and it’s the Trump administration’s fault. A July 2019 House Oversight staff report concluded that those responsible have “not been candid with the American people” about the horrors families faced, and that the separations were “more harmful, traumatic, and chaotic than previously known.”
Where we stand two years after Ms. L
Ms. L and her daughter had traveled across ten countries and three continents seeking safety here, only to be traumatized with separation. Her daughter had to spend her seventh birthday in a detention cell, alone, not knowing whether she’d ever see her mother again. But they were among the fortunate ones: soon after the lawsuit filed on their behalf, Ms. L and her daughter were reunited.
Family separation is just one of the ways the Trump administration has deliberately tried to stop people from seeking asylum here. The administration has also tried to gut asylum protections for immigrants fleeing domestic violence and gang brutality, ban people from applying for asylum outside of formal ports of entry, force asylum seekers into Mexico to await far-off court dates in the U.S., and bar asylum seekers who have passed through other countries without first applying for asylum in those countries. Poor infrastructure and instability in many countries in the region makes it incredibly difficult to live in safety, let alone go through the asylum process. The administration is trying to make the asylum process so torturous that people will continue to live in danger rather than seek safety.
Denying protection for people fleeing danger is a violation of the law and basic human rights. The U.S. government must treat them with humanity and uphold their right to seek asylum.
NOTE: All names have been changed to protect identity and safety.
Published February 26, 2020 at 08:05PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2HZIQiw
Ban on Attorney Access for Asylum Proceedings in Inhumane CBP Jails Key to Trump’s Attack on Asylum
President Trump has launched attack after attack on the U.S. asylum system over the past three years. While the administration’s atrocious forced return to Mexico (MPP) policy has appropriately received much attention, another particularly nefarious policy has flown under the radar. The policy — known as Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) when it’s applied to people from countries other than Mexico and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) when it’s applied to people from Mexico — essentially bans access to lawyers while holding asylum seekers incommunicado in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) jails, rushing them through a screening process in inhumane conditions, and removing them.
PACR/HARP requires the detention of asylum seekers in dangerous CBP facilities known as “hieleras” (or “iceboxes” for their freezing temperatures) with no meaningful way to obtain or consult with an attorney before their proceedings. It began secretly in El Paso, Texas last October, and since then at least 1,000 asylum seekers have been subjected to the policy without their legally guaranteed right to access counsel, although the government has refused to release data on the policy. In January, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, promised to expand PACR/HARP border-wide.
Let us be clear: PACR/HARP is a wholly inadequate and unlawful substitute for a fair and meaningful asylum process. The ACLU sued in December, and last week, we argued in federal court that the policy should be declared illegal and ended immediately. We represent two Salvadoran families and one Mexican family who sought protection in the U.S., were put into the program, and were quickly ordered removed back to their home countries, where they now face the threat of horrific violence. The lawsuit was also brought on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization that provides legal services to immigrants detained by the federal government in the El Paso area.
PACR/HARP is a complete hollowing out of the initial asylum screening process, which itself is fraught with due process problems. Without PACR/HARP, individuals who cross the border seeking asylum would be transferred to ICE jails, where the agency is required to provide the ability to meet face-to-face with attorneys and unrestricted access to a telephone to prepare for an initial asylum screening. If they passed the screening, they would be placed into regular deportation proceedings where their asylum claim would be heard by an immigration judge. If they didn’t pass the screening, they’d receive a brief review by an immigration judge–in a hearing that happens quickly and does not provide the opportunity to fully assess their need for protection.
Under PACR/HARP, asylum seekers are subject to this high-stakes process within just a few days of arriving in the U.S., without access to counsel, and while jailed for days in facilities not suitable for stays longer than a few hours. (In fact, CBP has refused to provide even a bed and a shower for migrants held in their custody. Just last week, a federal judge in Tucson ruled that these conditions in Arizona are unconstitutional.)
We are hopeful that the court will require the Trump administration to end PACR/HARP. Regardless, it is incumbent upon Congress to condemn the program, along with MPP and the rest of the administration’s anti-asylum policies, and upon the next president to reject them all entirely. This country has a proud history of providing refuge to people seeking safety. We cannot let this administration destroy it.
Published February 26, 2020 at 04:41PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2vhZOpx
Ban on Attorney Access for Asylum Proceedings in Inhumane CBP Jails Key to Trump’s Attack on Asylum
President Trump has launched attack after attack on the U.S. asylum system over the past three years. While the administration’s atrocious forced return to Mexico (MPP) policy has appropriately received much attention, another particularly nefarious policy has flown under the radar. The policy — known as Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) when it’s applied to people from countries other than Mexico and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) when it’s applied to people from Mexico — essentially bans access to lawyers while holding asylum seekers incommunicado in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) jails, rushing them through a screening process in inhumane conditions, and removing them.
PACR/HARP requires the detention of asylum seekers in dangerous CBP facilities known as “hieleras” (or “iceboxes” for their freezing temperatures) with no meaningful way to obtain or consult with an attorney before their proceedings. It began secretly in El Paso, Texas last October, and since then at least 1,000 asylum seekers have been subjected to the policy without their legally guaranteed right to access counsel, although the government has refused to release data on the policy. In January, Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, promised to expand PACR/HARP border-wide.
Let us be clear: PACR/HARP is a wholly inadequate and unlawful substitute for a fair and meaningful asylum process. The ACLU sued in December, and last week, we argued in federal court that the policy should be declared illegal and ended immediately. We represent two Salvadoran families and one Mexican family who sought protection in the U.S., were put into the program, and were quickly ordered removed back to their home countries, where they now face the threat of horrific violence. The lawsuit was also brought on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a non-profit organization that provides legal services to immigrants detained by the federal government in the El Paso area.
PACR/HARP is a complete hollowing out of the initial asylum screening process, which itself is fraught with due process problems. Without PACR/HARP, individuals who cross the border seeking asylum would be transferred to ICE jails, where the agency is required to provide the ability to meet face-to-face with attorneys and unrestricted access to a telephone to prepare for an initial asylum screening. If they passed the screening, they would be placed into regular deportation proceedings where their asylum claim would be heard by an immigration judge. If they didn’t pass the screening, they’d receive a brief review by an immigration judge–in a hearing that happens quickly and does not provide the opportunity to fully assess their need for protection.
Under PACR/HARP, asylum seekers are subject to this high-stakes process within just a few days of arriving in the U.S., without access to counsel, and while jailed for days in facilities not suitable for stays longer than a few hours. (In fact, CBP has refused to provide even a bed and a shower for migrants held in their custody. Just last week, a federal judge in Tucson ruled that these conditions in Arizona are unconstitutional.)
We are hopeful that the court will require the Trump administration to end PACR/HARP. Regardless, it is incumbent upon Congress to condemn the program, along with MPP and the rest of the administration’s anti-asylum policies, and upon the next president to reject them all entirely. This country has a proud history of providing refuge to people seeking safety. We cannot let this administration destroy it.
Published February 26, 2020 at 10:11PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2vhZOpx
Anthony Montwheeler spent 20 years in an Oregon mental healthy facility after being found not guilty of kidnapping his ex-wife by reason of insanity. He was released after claiming that he’d been faking the whole time, then immediately kidnapped another ex-wife, eventually stabbing her and killing another person during an ensuing car chase, all in full view of witnesses. And yes, he’s going to plead insanity again. How did he get the “not guilty” verdict 20 years ago? How did he get out? Is he mentally ill; what even is “mental illness” in the criminal justice context? In Rolling Stone, Rob Fischer walks us through Montwheeler’s case and the many blurry lines and troubling policies around the insanity defense in the U.S.
The hearing lasted more than two hours, but Montwheeler testified for only eight and a half minutes. When a state official asked if he ever had trouble sleeping, Montwheeler said, “No. I’ve always been able to sleep at night.” Had he ever been depressed, or felt that life is not worth living? “I’ve always been happy,” Montwheeler said. “I mean, I’ve never been depressed.” So then, the official pressed, you’ve never had any trouble getting out of bed and going about your activities? “No,” Montwheeler replied. “I’ve always showed up for work. I’ve always been Johnny on the spot.”
After a brief recess, the review board found Montwheeler was “no longer affected by a qualifying mental disease or defect,” which meant the state was legally required to discharge him. Offenders who are discharged from the state hospital, even those, like Montwheeler, released before the completion of their full term, are not diverted into penitentiaries. They are set free without additional oversight or guaranteed access to state mental health care.
The board’s chair, Kate Lieber, a Portland-based attorney, was clearly upset. “I don’t even know where to start,” she said. While maintaining a lie for 20 years, she noted, Montwheeler had avoided prison, lived rent-free, and received expensive care from trained professionals. “I mean, that is troubling on all sorts of levels,” Lieber said. “I’m assuming somebody in the system might do a forensic look at this and figure out what the hell happened. But as of now, you’re discharged.” Before Montwheeler walked out the door, she added, “My hope is that you’ll do the right thing. I am sincerely worried that you won’t.”
From Being Tortured in Sri Lanka to the U.S. Supreme Court
On a frigid day in early February, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam stands under an awning on a street corner in lower Manhattan along with one of his attorneys, Celso Perez of the ACLU. Both are bundled in heavy winter jackets. Perez is holding his phone up and squinting as he concentrates on the tinny voice of a translator emanating from its speaker.
“I want them to be aware that you’re traveling,” Perez says into the phone.
The voice on the other line translates what Perez said into Tamil, the native language of Sri Lanka’s largest ethnic minority. Thuraissigiam, heavyset in his late 40s with a short black ponytail hidden under his wool cap, looks at Perez and nods. Behind them stands the imposing façade of the Jacob Javits Federal building – a 42-story tower that houses the New York headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Thuraissigiam is there for one of the regular check-ins with ICE that he must attend in order to comply with the terms of his release from immigration detention. Perez wants to make sure that ICE knows he is planning to head to Washington D.C. in a few weeks so he won’t be flagged when his ankle monitor notifies the agency that he’s left New York.
It will not be a mundane trip. Thuraissigiam is the plaintiff in a landmark immigration case being argued by the ACLU in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 2nd, over three years after he fled Sri Lanka. The court’s ruling will have expansive implications not just for him, but for countless other asylum seekers as well.
The case is complicated, but important. At stake is whether federal courts have authority to review deportation orders that come through a fast-track process called “expedited removal.” If the Supreme Court rules they do not have such authority, it will mean that ICE and CBP will have virtually carte blanche ability to send Thuraissigiam and asylum seekers like him back to the countries they fled with no federal judicial oversight, in a process that can take only a few days.
Thuraissigiam’s path to the Supreme Court began in 2014, in the aftermath of a brutal civil conflict in Sri Lanka. Before a decisive military victory by the government ended the conflict in 2009, tens of thousands of civilians were killed, mostly in the Tamil-dominated northeastern part of the country.
In 2013, Thuraissigiam worked on a local Tamil politician’s election campaign. A few months later, men who said they were intelligence officers working with the government visited his farm. They threw him into the back of a white van, gagged him, and drove 40 minutes away to a house where they tortured him by dunking him into a well. While beating him, the men repeatedly asked about his support for the politician.
Thuraissigiam lost consciousness. When he woke up he was in a hospital bed. After recovering he went into hiding, and in 2016 he decided to flee to the United States.
For eight months, he traveled through South and Central America, at one stage walking through the notorious Darien Gap, a perilous stretch of remote jungle that separates Colombia and Panama. Eventually, he crossed into the U.S. near Tijuana, where he asked Customs and Border Protection officers for asylum.
The process of trying to win asylum in the U.S. typically begins with what’s called a “credible fear interview.” In this interview, immigration officers determine whether a person is eligible for protection. It was intentionally designed by Congress to have a low threshold for success – if the officer finds that the person has just a “significant possibility” of winning their asylum claim, they’re placed into the next stage of the process.
The reason for that low threshold is simple – legislators who designed the process wanted to make sure there was “no danger that an alien with a genuine asylum claim” would be returned to torture or persecution.
But despite Thuraissigiam’s history of abuse at the hands of the Sri Lankan government, the asylum officer who carried out his interview didn’t recognize that the details of his story matched with other, well-established human rights abuses in the country.
That oversight was costly. The asylum officer believed Thuraissigiam’s testimony, but he was still deemed ineligible for protection, and after a cursory review by an immigration judge he was given an order of expedited removal.
Expedited removal was created by Congress through 1996’s Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). It applies to certain undocumented immigrants and functions as a parallel deportation system with next to no due process protections. Until recently, it was applied almost exclusively at the border to people who had arrived in the U.S. within the previous 14 days. (A Trump Administration order to expand the use of expedited removal nationwide and lengthen the eligible timeframe to two years was recently blocked by the ACLU.)
Immigration advocates have long criticized expedited removal proceedings for the near-unchecked power they grant CBP and ICE to make life-or-death decisions with little oversight. In particular, expedited removal orders issued to asylum seekers who don’t pass their credible fear interviews have been subject to essentially no review by federal courts.
For Thuraissigiam, receiving an expedited removal order meant that a federal judge wouldn’t be able to take a closer look at whether the asylum officer made mistakes during the screening process or failed to follow appropriate procedures. Instead, he was going to be quickly sent back to Sri Lanka, right back into the hands of his torturers.
Because of that ruling, for the first time the denial of asylum claims in expedited removal cases could be reviewed by a federal judge, opening the door for Thuraissigiam and other asylum seekers to challenge mistakes made during their initial screenings. The Trump Administration appealed the decision, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to hear arguments in the case next week.
The stakes are high. Since the Trump Administration took office, the need for checks and balances on the asylum screening process has only grown. Last year, Border Patrol agents began conducting some credible fear interviews instead of specially trained asylum officers, leading to a sharp decline in approval rates. And in a new program being tested in El Paso, the screening process is taking place entirely in CBP detention facilities where asylum seekers are illegally denied access to counsel.
New data published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) shows that in a six-month period between August 2019 and January 2020, the pass rate for credible fear interviews dropped by nearly half.
Vijayakumar Thraissigiam at home in New York City, February 2020.Ashoka Mukpo for the ACLU.
Thuraissigiam has a gentle demeanor but he speaks in taut, short sentences and has an air of weariness. He describes the journey to the U.S. as “very hard,” saying that at one point he went nearly eight days without eating anything other than biscuits. During his appeal, he was detained by ICE for nearly two and a half years.
After his check-in, he moves briskly through the streets of New York in the deliberate, steady pace of a man accustomed to walking long distances. On the ferry to Staten Island, he gazes at the Statue of Liberty as it passes by.
The road ahead is long. If the Supreme Court rules in his favor, Thuraissigiam will not automatically be granted asylum. But he will be able to ask a federal judge to take a vital second look at the mistakes that were made during his initial screening. That, in turn, would give him another chance to win the protection that he traveled halfway across the world hoping to find.
“I’m nervous,” he admits, sitting on a couch in the modest apartment on Staten Island where he’s been staying. “I hope it goes well.”
If it does, he won’t be the only one who wins. For asylum seekers looking for an added layer of protection against faulty rulings, his case could mean the difference between life or death.
Published February 24, 2020 at 07:17PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2T4DR52
