Republic of Serbia : Fourth Review under the Policy Coordination Instrument-Press Release and Staff Report
Published August 28, 2020 at 09:00PM Read more at imf.org
College Athletes and the Systems That Silence Them
Sports have long been an arena where civil rights and civil liberties questions have taken center stage: Track and field star Tommie Smith raised his fist for racial justice on the 1968 Olympic podium. Tennis great Billie Jean King fought for equal pay for women. Olympic runner Caster Semana challenged intersex bigotry to be able to compete. And of course, NBA players organized a strike this week in protest of the killing by police of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
But one group of athletes has often kept quiet during social movements: college athletes. This is largely because the institutions they play for silence them. At a time when racial justice conversations have ignited across the country, At Liberty took a look at how universities suppress their athletes’ voices and the barriers to holding those universities accountable.
Joining us to talk about college athletes and free speech is Frank LoMonte, First Amendment lawyer and director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida, and Toren Young, a former football player at the University of Iowa.
College Athletes and the Systems That Silence Them
Sports have long been an arena where civil rights and civil liberties questions have taken center stage: Track and field star Tommie Smith raised his fist for racial justice on the 1968 Olympic podium. Tennis great Billie Jean King fought for equal pay for women. Olympic runner Caster Semana challenged intersex bigotry to be able to compete. And of course, NBA players organized a strike this week in protest of the killing by police of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
But one group of athletes has often kept quiet during social movements: college athletes. This is largely because the institutions they play for silence them. At a time when racial justice conversations have ignited across the country, At Liberty took a look at how universities suppress their athletes’ voices and the barriers to holding those universities accountable.
Joining us to talk about college athletes and free speech is Frank LoMonte, First Amendment lawyer and director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida, and Toren Young, a former football player at the University of Iowa.
100 Years and Counting: The Fight for Women’s Suffrage Continues
One hundred years ago this month, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote in the single largest voting rights expansion in our nation’s history. However, as we commemorate this historic centennial, we must remember that not all women got the right to vote in 1920.
To this day, women who are people of color, transgender, incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, or have disabilities continue to face barriers to voting, along with other marginalized groups. We have more work to do to ensure that all women — and all people, regardless of gender identity — are able to exercise their voting rights.
Women of color
For many decades after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Black women continued to be blocked from accessing the ballot by Jim Crow-era restrictions aimed at segregating Black Americans, like poll taxes and literacy tests. Native Americans were unable to vote in all states until the 1960s, even after being federally recognized as U.S. citizens in 1924. Asian American immigrant women were unable to vote until immigration and naturalization restrictions were lifted in 1952.
Through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress took action to ensure that communities of color were able to register to vote, cast their ballots, and elect representatives of their choice. However, relics of the Jim Crow era persist in our legal and electoral systems.
Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women
Felony disenfranchisement laws strip voting rights from millions of people convicted of certain felonies—and can prohibit people who have felony convictions from voting while incarcerated, while on parole or on probation, or even after completing their sentence. These laws, enacted in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, were deliberately designed to target Black populations and enshrine white supremacy. Due to the racist roots of our nation’s mass incarceration crisis, the majority of those barred from voting under these laws continue to be people of color, especially Black men.
Women make up an increasing part of the population harmed by felony disenfranchisement, as their incarceration rates are growing at more than twice the rate of men. By 2017, over 1.3 million women and girls—disproportionately people of color, and from low-income communities—were incarcerated, on probation, or on parole.
Trans women and other trans and non-binary people
Trans women, and the trans and non-binary community at large, also face barriers to voting due to voter registration forms and voter ID laws that ask for gender and do not permit voters to update their names, gender markers, or photos. Currently, 36 states have voter ID laws, and 18 of those states specifically require a photo ID. Such laws pose a barrier to trans voters, for whom updating identification cards can be a significant financial and administrative burden. Even in states that do allow trans and non-binary people to correct their IDs, voters often have to jump through hoops to do so. For example, trans people in some states are required to prove that they have undergone gender confirmation surgery, even though many transgender people cannot afford it, and some do not want it as part of their gender-affirming care.
Not only do these laws block hundreds of thousands of trans people from exercising their right to vote, they also further marginalize the trans community, serving as a stark reminder that the government does not respect their identities. Furthermore, these impacts are most keenly felt by trans voters who belong to other politically-marginalized groups; data suggest that “transgender citizens are more likely to have no accurate IDs if they are young adults (age 18-24; 69 percent), people of color (48 percent), students (54 percent), those with low incomes (less than $10,000 annual household income; 60 percent), or have disabilities (55 percent).”
Even in places where there are minimal legal and policy barriers for transgender voters, voting in-person can lead to harassment or discrimination — including from poll workers.
Women with disabilities
Historically, people with certain types of disabilities have been disenfranchised by state laws that explicitly denied the right to vote to people who were assumed to lack the “mental capacity” to vote. These laws were also used to justify the continued disenfranchisement of women and the Black community. Across the country, such laws are largely still in effect. As a result, on an annual basis, tens of thousands of voters are blocked from the ballot box without any judicial determination that they lack the capacity to vote.
Voters with disabilities also continue to face architectural, attitudinal, and even digital barriers to the franchise. Recentfederalstudies have consistently revealed that the majority of polling places surveyed were not fully accessible. Additionally, voters with disabilities are severely underrepresented in our political system, even though they make up one-sixth of the American electorate. Voters with disabilities are also far less likely to participate in elections than their peers, partially because of feelings of political alienation that are reinforced by the barriers they face when attempting to vote. Most states have made voter registration and absentee ballot application forms or portals, in addition to critical information about voting procedures, available online. However, few state election websites have been made fully accessible to allow voters with disabilities to navigate them autonomously.
On top of these barriers, the present pandemic has created additional hurdles for voters with disabilities, many of whom have medical conditions that render them at high risk for severe illness or death if they contract COVID-19. Urban areas, precisely where people with disabilities are more likely to be women, are where the health risks of voting in-person are most acute. COVID-19 has highlighted the need for universal and accessible mail-in voting. Voters with disabilities are more likely to live alone than the general population, meaning they are less likely to be able to vote by mail in states that require a witness requirement for absentee voting. They are also far more likely to live in congregate care facilities—which have been ravaged by COVID-19. Though residents of congregate care facilities account for only 1 percent of the U.S. population, 50 percent of all COVID-19-related deaths have occurred in those facilities.
Youth, caregivers, and immigrants
Young people, such as college students, may face difficulty meeting voter ID requirements if they go to school outside their home state. Several states prohibit students from using their student IDs to vote, and are increasing other obstacles for students, such as requiring them to prove their domicile or closing polling places on college campuses. Women are disproportionately affected by these restrictions, as the majority of students enrolled in higher education are women.
Most caregivers are also women, and specifically women of color. Roughly 85 percent of Black mothers and 60 percent of Latinx mothers are caregivers for their families as well as primary or co-breadwinners. Cutbacks to early in-person voting opportunities and lack of no-excuse absentee voting options for those seeking to vote by mail block many caregivers from accessing the ballot. Caregivers require more flexibility in voting hours and options to be able to cast their ballots.
More than 12 million immigrant women have become naturalized U.S. citizens. Naturalized citizens have lower than average electoral participation rates, partly due to lack of outreach from political campaigns, as well as widespread language access barriers. Unfortunately, because of disruptions caused by COVID-19, more than 300,000 immigrants may not complete the naturalization process in time to vote in the November election. These voters are disproportionately women, as women make up the majority of naturalized citizens from nine of the top 10 countries of origin.
The fight for suffrage continues
Since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, several critical civil rights protections have solidified access to the ballot, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted provisions of the Voting Rights Act which protected voters from discriminatory election practices. The decision cleared the path for states to pass a slew of new voter suppression laws, many of which rolled back access to the ballot for historically disenfranchised groups, including women. Meanwhile, the ADA has been woefully under-enforced in the elections context.
Today, the ACLU is actively litigating to safeguard voters’ rights. We have initiated lawsuits across the country (20 and counting) to expand access to voting by mail to ensure that voters can vote safely from their homes, protect themselves and the public at large, and minimize the risk COVID-19 transmission while exercising the fundamental right to vote. We are also going to trial next month with our partners at the Native American Rights Fund to challenge a law that severely inhibits Native Americans’ access to the ballot.
The ACLU also went back to court this month to defend our victory protecting the voting rights of Floridians with past felony convictions. Before the historic passage of Amendment 4 in 2018, Florida was one of four states that banned voting for life for people convicted of a felony, disenfranchising more than a million people. Amendment 4 was one of the largest expansions of voting rights since the Nineteenth Amendment.
Throughout the country, activists are fighting voter suppression tactics and pushing to expand access to the ballot through the VRAA, the VoteSafe Act, and the HEROES Act. The ACLU is also advocating for the Accessible Voting Act, which would establish new protections for voters with disabilities, seniors, Indigenous voters, and language minority voters. Activists on the ground can also spread awareness with our Let People Vote educational resource on voting by mail, our Know Your Voting Rights pages, and by sharing our Let People with Disabilities Vote content.
On the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, we must remember that the law did not enfranchise all women equally and let that knowledge guide us as we march forward in our fight for voting rights.
Published August 28, 2020 at 04:52PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3hP2qy0
100 Years and Counting: The Fight for Women’s Suffrage Continues
One hundred years ago this month, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote in the single largest voting rights expansion in our nation’s history. However, as we commemorate this historic centennial, we must remember that not all women got the right to vote in 1920.
To this day, women who are people of color, transgender, incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, or have disabilities continue to face barriers to voting, along with other marginalized groups. We have more work to do to ensure that all women — and all people, regardless of gender identity — are able to exercise their voting rights.
Women of color
For many decades after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Black women continued to be blocked from accessing the ballot by Jim Crow-era restrictions aimed at segregating Black Americans, like poll taxes and literacy tests. Native Americans were unable to vote in all states until the 1960s, even after being federally recognized as U.S. citizens in 1924. Asian American immigrant women were unable to vote until immigration and naturalization restrictions were lifted in 1952.
Through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress took action to ensure that communities of color were able to register to vote, cast their ballots, and elect representatives of their choice. However, relics of the Jim Crow era persist in our legal and electoral systems.
Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women
Felony disenfranchisement laws strip voting rights from millions of people convicted of certain felonies—and can prohibit people who have felony convictions from voting while incarcerated, while on parole or on probation, or even after completing their sentence. These laws, enacted in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, were deliberately designed to target Black populations and enshrine white supremacy. Due to the racist roots of our nation’s mass incarceration crisis, the majority of those barred from voting under these laws continue to be people of color, especially Black men.
Women make up an increasing part of the population harmed by felony disenfranchisement, as their incarceration rates are growing at more than twice the rate of men. By 2017, over 1.3 million women and girls—disproportionately people of color, and from low-income communities—were incarcerated, on probation, or on parole.
Trans women and other trans and non-binary people
Trans women, and the trans and non-binary community at large, also face barriers to voting due to voter registration forms and voter ID laws that ask for gender and do not permit voters to update their names, gender markers, or photos. Currently, 36 states have voter ID laws, and 18 of those states specifically require a photo ID. Such laws pose a barrier to trans voters, for whom updating identification cards can be a significant financial and administrative burden. Even in states that do allow trans and non-binary people to correct their IDs, voters often have to jump through hoops to do so. For example, trans people in some states are required to prove that they have undergone gender confirmation surgery, even though many transgender people cannot afford it, and some do not want it as part of their gender-affirming care.
Not only do these laws block hundreds of thousands of trans people from exercising their right to vote, they also further marginalize the trans community, serving as a stark reminder that the government does not respect their identities. Furthermore, these impacts are most keenly felt by trans voters who belong to other politically-marginalized groups; data suggest that “transgender citizens are more likely to have no accurate IDs if they are young adults (age 18-24; 69 percent), people of color (48 percent), students (54 percent), those with low incomes (less than $10,000 annual household income; 60 percent), or have disabilities (55 percent).”
Even in places where there are minimal legal and policy barriers for transgender voters, voting in-person can lead to harassment or discrimination — including from poll workers.
Women with disabilities
Historically, people with certain types of disabilities have been disenfranchised by state laws that explicitly denied the right to vote to people who were assumed to lack the “mental capacity” to vote. These laws were also used to justify the continued disenfranchisement of women and the Black community. Across the country, such laws are largely still in effect. As a result, on an annual basis, tens of thousands of voters are blocked from the ballot box without any judicial determination that they lack the capacity to vote.
Voters with disabilities also continue to face architectural, attitudinal, and even digital barriers to the franchise. Recentfederalstudies have consistently revealed that the majority of polling places surveyed were not fully accessible. Additionally, voters with disabilities are severely underrepresented in our political system, even though they make up one-sixth of the American electorate. Voters with disabilities are also far less likely to participate in elections than their peers, partially because of feelings of political alienation that are reinforced by the barriers they face when attempting to vote. Most states have made voter registration and absentee ballot application forms or portals, in addition to critical information about voting procedures, available online. However, few state election websites have been made fully accessible to allow voters with disabilities to navigate them autonomously.
On top of these barriers, the present pandemic has created additional hurdles for voters with disabilities, many of whom have medical conditions that render them at high risk for severe illness or death if they contract COVID-19. Urban areas, precisely where people with disabilities are more likely to be women, are where the health risks of voting in-person are most acute. COVID-19 has highlighted the need for universal and accessible mail-in voting. Voters with disabilities are more likely to live alone than the general population, meaning they are less likely to be able to vote by mail in states that require a witness requirement for absentee voting. They are also far more likely to live in congregate care facilities—which have been ravaged by COVID-19. Though residents of congregate care facilities account for only 1 percent of the U.S. population, 50 percent of all COVID-19-related deaths have occurred in those facilities.
Youth, caregivers, and immigrants
Young people, such as college students, may face difficulty meeting voter ID requirements if they go to school outside their home state. Several states prohibit students from using their student IDs to vote, and are increasing other obstacles for students, such as requiring them to prove their domicile or closing polling places on college campuses. Women are disproportionately affected by these restrictions, as the majority of students enrolled in higher education are women.
Most caregivers are also women, and specifically women of color. Roughly 85 percent of Black mothers and 60 percent of Latinx mothers are caregivers for their families as well as primary or co-breadwinners. Cutbacks to early in-person voting opportunities and lack of no-excuse absentee voting options for those seeking to vote by mail block many caregivers from accessing the ballot. Caregivers require more flexibility in voting hours and options to be able to cast their ballots.
More than 12 million immigrant women have become naturalized U.S. citizens. Naturalized citizens have lower than average electoral participation rates, partly due to lack of outreach from political campaigns, as well as widespread language access barriers. Unfortunately, because of disruptions caused by COVID-19, more than 300,000 immigrants may not complete the naturalization process in time to vote in the November election. These voters are disproportionately women, as women make up the majority of naturalized citizens from nine of the top 10 countries of origin.
The fight for suffrage continues
Since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, several critical civil rights protections have solidified access to the ballot, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted provisions of the Voting Rights Act which protected voters from discriminatory election practices. The decision cleared the path for states to pass a slew of new voter suppression laws, many of which rolled back access to the ballot for historically disenfranchised groups, including women. Meanwhile, the ADA has been woefully under-enforced in the elections context.
Today, the ACLU is actively litigating to safeguard voters’ rights. We have initiated lawsuits across the country (20 and counting) to expand access to voting by mail to ensure that voters can vote safely from their homes, protect themselves and the public at large, and minimize the risk COVID-19 transmission while exercising the fundamental right to vote. We are also going to trial next month with our partners at the Native American Rights Fund to challenge a law that severely inhibits Native Americans’ access to the ballot.
The ACLU also went back to court this month to defend our victory protecting the voting rights of Floridians with past felony convictions. Before the historic passage of Amendment 4 in 2018, Florida was one of four states that banned voting for life for people convicted of a felony, disenfranchising more than a million people. Amendment 4 was one of the largest expansions of voting rights since the Nineteenth Amendment.
Throughout the country, activists are fighting voter suppression tactics and pushing to expand access to the ballot through the VRAA, the VoteSafe Act, and the HEROES Act. The ACLU is also advocating for the Accessible Voting Act, which would establish new protections for voters with disabilities, seniors, Indigenous voters, and language minority voters. Activists on the ground can also spread awareness with our Let People Vote educational resource on voting by mail, our Know Your Voting Rights pages, and by sharing our Let People with Disabilities Vote content.
On the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, we must remember that the law did not enfranchise all women equally and let that knowledge guide us as we march forward in our fight for voting rights.
Published August 28, 2020 at 09:22PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3hP2qy0
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled in favor of American Civil Liberties Union client Gavin Grimm, deciding that restroom policies segregating transgender students from their peers and denying transgender student accurate transcripts are unconstitutional and violate Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.
The decision comes after a five-year long court battle that began when the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Virginia filed a sex discrimination lawsuit against the Gloucester Country School Board for adopting a discriminatory policy requiring Grimm and other transgender students to use “alternative private” restrooms.
“Grimm’s four years of high school were shaped by his fight to use the restroom that matched his consistent and persistent gender identity. In the face of adults who misgendered him and called him names, he spoke with conviction at school Board meetings. The solution was apparent: allow Grimm to use the boys’ restrooms, as he had been doing without incident. But instead, the Board implemented a policy that … sent him to special bathrooms that might as well have said ‘Gavin’ on the sign. It did so while increasing privacy in the boys’ bathrooms, after which its own deposition witness could not cite a remaining privacy concern. We are left without doubt that the Board acted to protect cisgender boys from Gavin’s mere presence — a special kind of discrimination against a child that he will no doubt carry with him for life.”
“The proudest moments of the federal judiciary are when we affirm the burgeoning values of our bright youth, rather than preserve the prejudices of the past. … How shallow a promise of equal protection that would not protect Grim from the fantastical fears and unfounded prejudices of his adult community. It is time to move forward. The district court’s judgment is Affirmed.”
Judge Wynn issued a second opinion in agreement, called a concurrence, adding:
“Th[is] is indistinguishable from the sort of separate-but-equal treatment that is anathema under our jurisprudence. No less than the recent historical practice of segregating Black and white restrooms, schools, and other public accommodations, the unequal treatment enabled by the Board’s policy produces a vicious and ineradicable stigma. The result is to deeply and indelibly scar the most vulnerable among us — children who simply wish to be treated as equals at one of the most fraught developmental moments in their lives — by labeling them as unfit for equal participation in our society. And for what gain? The Board has persisted in offering hypothetical and pretextual concerns that have failed to manifest, either in this case or in myriad others like it across our nation. I am left to conclude that the policy instead discriminates against transgender students out of a bare dislike or fear of those ‘others’ who are all too often marginalized in our society for the mere fact that they are different. As such, the policy grossly offends the Constitution’s basic guarantee of equal protection under the law.
“I see little distinction between the message sent to Black children denied equal treatment in education under the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ and transgender children relegated to the ‘alternative appropriate private facilit[ies]’ provided for by the Board’s policy. The import is the same: ‘the affirmation that the very being of a people is inferior.’ (Martin Luther King, Jr.)”
Today’s ruling follows a recent decision from the Supreme Court that it is illegal to fire someone for being LGBTQ. The ACLU argued in the case of Aimee Stephens that federal civil rights laws that prohibit sex discrimination protect LGBTQ people. Today the court once again ruled that Title IX, which also prohibits sex discrimination, applies to transgender students.
While the summer has brought legal wins for the LGBTQ community, the fight is not over. In 2020, over 200 anti-LGBTQ laws were active in state legislatures, including dozens targeting transgender youth. The ACLU and its partners fought many of those and won, and will continue to fight for transgender youth across America.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled in favor of American Civil Liberties Union client Gavin Grimm, deciding that restroom policies segregating transgender students from their peers and denying transgender student accurate transcripts are unconstitutional and violate Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.
The decision comes after a five-year long court battle that began when the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Virginia filed a sex discrimination lawsuit against the Gloucester Country School Board for adopting a discriminatory policy requiring Grimm and other transgender students to use “alternative private” restrooms.
“Grimm’s four years of high school were shaped by his fight to use the restroom that matched his consistent and persistent gender identity. In the face of adults who misgendered him and called him names, he spoke with conviction at school Board meetings. The solution was apparent: allow Grimm to use the boys’ restrooms, as he had been doing without incident. But instead, the Board implemented a policy that … sent him to special bathrooms that might as well have said ‘Gavin’ on the sign. It did so while increasing privacy in the boys’ bathrooms, after which its own deposition witness could not cite a remaining privacy concern. We are left without doubt that the Board acted to protect cisgender boys from Gavin’s mere presence — a special kind of discrimination against a child that he will no doubt carry with him for life.”
“The proudest moments of the federal judiciary are when we affirm the burgeoning values of our bright youth, rather than preserve the prejudices of the past. … How shallow a promise of equal protection that would not protect Grim from the fantastical fears and unfounded prejudices of his adult community. It is time to move forward. The district court’s judgment is Affirmed.”
Judge Wynn issued a second opinion in agreement, called a concurrence, adding:
“Th[is] is indistinguishable from the sort of separate-but-equal treatment that is anathema under our jurisprudence. No less than the recent historical practice of segregating Black and white restrooms, schools, and other public accommodations, the unequal treatment enabled by the Board’s policy produces a vicious and ineradicable stigma. The result is to deeply and indelibly scar the most vulnerable among us — children who simply wish to be treated as equals at one of the most fraught developmental moments in their lives — by labeling them as unfit for equal participation in our society. And for what gain? The Board has persisted in offering hypothetical and pretextual concerns that have failed to manifest, either in this case or in myriad others like it across our nation. I am left to conclude that the policy instead discriminates against transgender students out of a bare dislike or fear of those ‘others’ who are all too often marginalized in our society for the mere fact that they are different. As such, the policy grossly offends the Constitution’s basic guarantee of equal protection under the law.
“I see little distinction between the message sent to Black children denied equal treatment in education under the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ and transgender children relegated to the ‘alternative appropriate private facilit[ies]’ provided for by the Board’s policy. The import is the same: ‘the affirmation that the very being of a people is inferior.’ (Martin Luther King, Jr.)”
Today’s ruling follows a recent decision from the Supreme Court that it is illegal to fire someone for being LGBTQ. The ACLU argued in the case of Aimee Stephens that federal civil rights laws that prohibit sex discrimination protect LGBTQ people. Today the court once again ruled that Title IX, which also prohibits sex discrimination, applies to transgender students.
While the summer has brought legal wins for the LGBTQ community, the fight is not over. In 2020, over 200 anti-LGBTQ laws were active in state legislatures, including dozens targeting transgender youth. The ACLU and its partners fought many of those and won, and will continue to fight for transgender youth across America.
Republic of Madagascar : Request for Disbursement under the Rapid Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Republic of Madagascar
Published August 27, 2020 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
In 2018, we did a simple but radical thing: asked a prosecutor to tell us how their office runs. Through an Arizona Public Records Request, we sought basic public information from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO), like who is prosecuted, which crimes are charged, and how long people are sent to prison. We also sought general office policies governing prosecutions in the county.
This is fairly basic stuff, and the public has a right to know how the largest and most powerful prosecuting agency in Arizona operates. Yet MCAO, like many prosecutors’ offices nationwide, has operated for years as a black box, fighting any attempt at transparency. Because of this entrenched culture of secrecy, MCAO ignored our Public Records Request for almost a year. So we did another radical thing that rarely happens to prosecutors: We sued.
And now we’ve won! In fact, not only were we able to obtain almost all the records we asked for, MCAO is also going to pay us $24,000 for the time and resources it took to force them to comply with the law – and be transparent with their own community.
It didn’t have to be this way. When Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel was first appointed to the office, she promised to be more transparent than her predecessor Bill Montgomery, stating “if we are doing our job right, we have nothing to hide.” But behind the scenes, throughout the course of the litigation, she was fighting just as hard as Montgomery to hide her operations from the public. This included withholding almost all her office polices, her approach to the death penalty, and even routine data about prosecutions. During one hearing, when pressed on why they would need to keep information about the death penalty secret from the voting public, Adel’s lawyer bluntly argued, “It doesn’t matter if the voter would want to know that.” Doesn’t sound like an office with nothing to hide, does it?
Adel has recently taken some steps toward better transparency, creating a “data dashboard” and posting office policies online. But let’s be clear: these steps would not have been taken had we not sued. Adel’s lawyers fought us tooth and nail to keep this information secret, and only posted it after multiple rulings in our favor.
Moreover, these late-breaking steps do not achieve real transparency; instead they present only the information and data Adel wants the public to see. For example, her data dashboard conflates all drug crimes into a single category, hiding the fact that her office prosecutes simple drug possession more than any other crime. These prosecutions waste taxpayer dollars, fail to increase public safety, and fill our jails and prisons with people who need treatment, not incarceration—particularly with a pandemic raging inside Maricopa detention facilities.
The dashboard also buries horrendous racial disparities coming out of the MCAO. What Adel or her dashboard won’t tell you is that MCAO prosecutors are more likely to dismiss cases—or never file them at all—against white people than people of any other race.
Percent of Cases Dismissed by
Race/Ethnicity
White
11.2%
Black
10.6%
Asian, Indigenous, and Other*
8.6%
Hispanic*
8.4%
* Proportion of Hispanic and “Other” individuals’ cases with a plea statistically
significantly differs from white people at the a=.05 level.
Black and Hispanic people prosecuted by MCAO spend significantly more time incarcerated than white people. Hispanic people are sentenced to significantly longer jail and prison sentences than their white and Black counterparts when prosecuted for simple marijuana possession. At the same time, Black people consistently receive longer prison, jail, and probation sentences than white or Hispanic people for the personal possession of drug paraphernalia. And when ordered to pay a fine, often requested by Adel’s office, Hispanic people pay significantly higher fines than white people.
Average Jail + Prison
Sentence in Days
Standard Deviation
White
775
1,127
All Others
775
1,237
Hispanic*
990
1,620
Black*
1,004
1,492
*Indicates statistical significance from white people at the a=.05 level.
Just as concerning, the records we obtained reveal that MCAO training material mocked those with mental health conditions,calling them “crazy” and painting them as liars and obstacles to winning a conviction – not as human beings worthy of respect.
These troubling findings – and the racial disparities we detail in a report – would not have been made public without over two years of litigation against MCAO. Yet this is precisely the type of data that the public needs to know to make an informed decision in November when asked to elect the next County Attorney.
The public shouldn’t have to rely on lawsuits to learn what their elected officials are doing. The public deserves nothing less than a County Attorney who will publicly commit to:
· Posting all office policies and prosecution guidelines online, so the public can see how the office says it operates;
· Posting statistical data on all prosecutions online, so the public can see how the office actually operates;
· Posting disaggregated data on race and gender online, so the public can see the disparities that exist in our criminal legal system;
· Making all of the underlying data available to analysts and the public.
The public deserves these commitments, so in November voters can elect a County Attorney who is doing their job right, with nothing to hide.
The ACLU of Arizona does not endorse or oppose candidates. Learn about the Maricopa County Attorney candidates’ policy positions atsmartjusticeaz.org/mcao2020.
Published August 27, 2020 at 12:33AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2YE7xcX
In 2018, we did a simple but radical thing: asked a prosecutor to tell us how their office runs. Through an Arizona Public Records Request, we sought basic public information from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office (MCAO), like who is prosecuted, which crimes are charged, and how long people are sent to prison. We also sought general office policies governing prosecutions in the county.
This is fairly basic stuff, and the public has a right to know how the largest and most powerful prosecuting agency in Arizona operates. Yet MCAO, like many prosecutors’ offices nationwide, has operated for years as a black box, fighting any attempt at transparency. Because of this entrenched culture of secrecy, MCAO ignored our Public Records Request for almost a year. So we did another radical thing that rarely happens to prosecutors: We sued.
And now we’ve won! In fact, not only were we able to obtain almost all the records we asked for, MCAO is also going to pay us $24,000 for the time and resources it took to force them to comply with the law – and be transparent with their own community.
It didn’t have to be this way. When Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel was first appointed to the office, she promised to be more transparent than her predecessor Bill Montgomery, stating “if we are doing our job right, we have nothing to hide.” But behind the scenes, throughout the course of the litigation, she was fighting just as hard as Montgomery to hide her operations from the public. This included withholding almost all her office polices, her approach to the death penalty, and even routine data about prosecutions. During one hearing, when pressed on why they would need to keep information about the death penalty secret from the voting public, Adel’s lawyer bluntly argued, “It doesn’t matter if the voter would want to know that.” Doesn’t sound like an office with nothing to hide, does it?
Adel has recently taken some steps toward better transparency, creating a “data dashboard” and posting office policies online. But let’s be clear: these steps would not have been taken had we not sued. Adel’s lawyers fought us tooth and nail to keep this information secret, and only posted it after multiple rulings in our favor.
Moreover, these late-breaking steps do not achieve real transparency; instead they present only the information and data Adel wants the public to see. For example, her data dashboard conflates all drug crimes into a single category, hiding the fact that her office prosecutes simple drug possession more than any other crime. These prosecutions waste taxpayer dollars, fail to increase public safety, and fill our jails and prisons with people who need treatment, not incarceration—particularly with a pandemic raging inside Maricopa detention facilities.
The dashboard also buries horrendous racial disparities coming out of the MCAO. What Adel or her dashboard won’t tell you is that MCAO prosecutors are more likely to dismiss cases—or never file them at all—against white people than people of any other race.
Percent of Cases Dismissed by
Race/Ethnicity
White
11.2%
Black
10.6%
Asian, Indigenous, and Other*
8.6%
Hispanic*
8.4%
* Proportion of Hispanic and “Other” individuals’ cases with a plea statistically
significantly differs from white people at the a=.05 level.
Black and Hispanic people prosecuted by MCAO spend significantly more time incarcerated than white people. Hispanic people are sentenced to significantly longer jail and prison sentences than their white and Black counterparts when prosecuted for simple marijuana possession. At the same time, Black people consistently receive longer prison, jail, and probation sentences than white or Hispanic people for the personal possession of drug paraphernalia. And when ordered to pay a fine, often requested by Adel’s office, Hispanic people pay significantly higher fines than white people.
Average Jail + Prison
Sentence in Days
Standard Deviation
White
775
1,127
All Others
775
1,237
Hispanic*
990
1,620
Black*
1,004
1,492
*Indicates statistical significance from white people at the a=.05 level.
Just as concerning, the records we obtained reveal that MCAO training material mocked those with mental health conditions,calling them “crazy” and painting them as liars and obstacles to winning a conviction – not as human beings worthy of respect.
These troubling findings – and the racial disparities we detail in a report – would not have been made public without over two years of litigation against MCAO. Yet this is precisely the type of data that the public needs to know to make an informed decision in November when asked to elect the next County Attorney.
The public shouldn’t have to rely on lawsuits to learn what their elected officials are doing. The public deserves nothing less than a County Attorney who will publicly commit to:
· Posting all office policies and prosecution guidelines online, so the public can see how the office says it operates;
· Posting statistical data on all prosecutions online, so the public can see how the office actually operates;
· Posting disaggregated data on race and gender online, so the public can see the disparities that exist in our criminal legal system;
· Making all of the underlying data available to analysts and the public.
The public deserves these commitments, so in November voters can elect a County Attorney who is doing their job right, with nothing to hide.
The ACLU of Arizona does not endorse or oppose candidates. Learn about the Maricopa County Attorney candidates’ policy positions atsmartjusticeaz.org/mcao2020.
Published August 26, 2020 at 08:03PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2YE7xcX
Not Even a Global Pandemic Could Stop the Federal Government from Pursuing a String of Back-to-Back Executions This Summer
Tonight, the federal government plans to execute Lezmond Mitchell, a Navajo man, despite the objections of the Navajo Nation and the family members of the victim in the case, and despite a federal statute intended to prevent federal executions of indigenous people over the objections of Native American tribes.
Mr. Mitchell is the fourth person set for execution this summer alone. By carrying out this execution, Barr’s Justice Department will have executed more people this summer than in the last 57 years combined. Daniel Lee, Wesley Purkey, and Dustin Honken were executed within four days in July, the first federal executions since 2003, greenlit after the Justice Department proposed a new execution protocol last year. The DOJ has scheduled three more executions before October. This record-breaking string of back-to-back executions occurs during a global pandemic.
In all three executions carried out so far, the government sidestepped due process, public health recommendations, and legal precedent in its rush to kill. In flouting these important procedures, the government is treating human lives — and our laws — like they don’t matter. This should raise serious alarm.
The consequences of the government’s rush to execute will not only affect those on death row. Executions are potential super-spreader events during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving the travel and congregation of hundreds of people from across the country. That the government is choosing to resume federal executions now — at a time when much of our daily lives have ground to a halt — shows an alarming disregard for the lives of all involved, in addition to the inhumanity and the disturbing lawlessness of the capital punishment system.
COVID-19 swept through prisons, where it spreads rapidly due to crowded, unhygienic conditions. Many facilities, including FCC Terre Haute, where federal executions are carried out, have responded by suspending visitation, even by lawyers. But it seems these public health precautions do not apply when it comes to federal executions, which have been scheduled in rapid succession despite the high risk.
Participants at an execution include correctional officers, media representatives, spiritual advisors, and victims’ family members. Many may feel they have no choice.
For example, Purkey’s spiritual advisor Reverend Seigen Hartkemeyer, who is 68 and immunocompromised, felt religiously obligated to attend his execution despite the risks he faced.
“I feel substantial pressure to abandon my religious commitments to [Purkey],” he said in a court declaration in early July before Mr. Purkey’s execution. “I’m being asked to make an impossible decision — violate my religious beliefs or risk my health and life.”
Earlene Peterson, the grandmother and mother of two of Lee’s victims, raised similar concerns. Although Peterson, who is a Trump supporter, had long opposed Lee’s execution, she planned to attend if it was to go forward. She asked President Trump to stop or at least delay the execution until the family could attend safely, but her request was ignored.
These fears are not unfounded. At the time of the executions, the Terre-Haute prison was in the midst of its own outbreak. In fact, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed that a correctional officer at Terre-Haute tested positive for COVID-19 after participating in the preparation of the July executions.
Even without the threat of COVID-19, these unlawful executions should never have taken place. The federal government gave these men less legal process and protection than any state prisoner would ever receive.
For two of the men, the federal government carried out the executions on different days than those set by their death warrants under an unprecedented and illegal instant notice theory. Before any execution, federal law requires the government to issue a death warrant that delineates a specific date on which the execution must take place. Under its own rules, the government must then publicly disclose the execution date at least 20 days in advance.
Lee and Purkey, however, were executed hours after their death warrants expired. Instead of issuing a new execution date at least 20 days out, BOP officials wrote letters in the middle of the night simply declaring that the new execution date was that same day, in effect, that instant. No state or prior federal administration has ever attempted this kind of same day, instant notice.
Procedures such as death warrants and the customary 20-day window of notice of execution dates were put in place for a reason: taking a human life is serious. The death warrant and customary notice period allow any outstanding legal issues to be addressed and resolved. In other words, these rules allow for due process. Lee and Purkey were not afforded this basic right.
The consequences could have meant the difference between life and death. For example, the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of those who are mentally unfit, such as Purkey, whose Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia were so severe that he no longer understood why he was being executed. At the time of his execution, a brain scan supporting these claims still awaited judicial review. Purkey was executed before any court had the opportunity to review this evidence, with his appeal pending.
This raw abuse of federal power to end human life comes at a time when most of the nation is moving away from capital punishment. A Gallup poll conducted last year found that 60 percent of Americans today prefer life imprisonment over the death penalty. Since the last federal execution in 2003, 10 states have formally abolished the death penalty, including Colorado, New Hampshire, and Washington state in recent years. Numerous other states have issued moratoriums.
Across the country, courts are issuing fewer death sentences and executions are rapidly decreasing. These steps toward progress are more aligned with the will of the people than that of the Justice Department. Even supporters of capital punishment should be ashamed of how the government ran roughshod over the Constitution and decency to carry out these executions.
The death penalty is a broken system from start to finish, global pandemic aside. We’ve long known that death sentences have less to do with the severity of the crime than with race, access to quality counsel, and the state or even county in which the crimes were committed. Further, not everybody who is sentenced to death is guilty. Over the last 44 years, 170 people sentenced to death have been exonerated. But the legal system doesn’t always realize its mistake in time. Troy Davis and Cameron Todd Willingham are among those executed despite their almost certain innocence.
The death penalty dehumanizes all of us, and renders the racism and errors of the criminal legal system permanent. The federal government’s eagerness to rush through this very serious legal matter is grotesque — as is its willingness to expose hundreds of individuals to a serious and potentially deadly illness in the process. There’s never been a better time for America to end this failed experiment.
Published August 26, 2020 at 11:48PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3aXkWlr
Not Even a Global Pandemic Could Stop the Federal Government from Pursuing a String of Back-to-Back Executions This Summer
Tonight, the federal government plans to execute Lezmond Mitchell, a Navajo man, despite the objections of the Navajo Nation and the family members of the victim in the case, and despite a federal statute intended to prevent federal executions of indigenous people over the objections of Native American tribes.
Mr. Mitchell is the fourth person set for execution this summer alone. By carrying out this execution, Barr’s Justice Department will have executed more people this summer than in the last 57 years combined. Daniel Lee, Wesley Purkey, and Dustin Honken were executed within four days in July, the first federal executions since 2003, greenlit after the Justice Department proposed a new execution protocol last year. The DOJ has scheduled three more executions before October. This record-breaking string of back-to-back executions occurs during a global pandemic.
In all three executions carried out so far, the government sidestepped due process, public health recommendations, and legal precedent in its rush to kill. In flouting these important procedures, the government is treating human lives — and our laws — like they don’t matter. This should raise serious alarm.
The consequences of the government’s rush to execute will not only affect those on death row. Executions are potential super-spreader events during the COVID-19 pandemic, involving the travel and congregation of hundreds of people from across the country. That the government is choosing to resume federal executions now — at a time when much of our daily lives have ground to a halt — shows an alarming disregard for the lives of all involved, in addition to the inhumanity and the disturbing lawlessness of the capital punishment system.
COVID-19 swept through prisons, where it spreads rapidly due to crowded, unhygienic conditions. Many facilities, including FCC Terre Haute, where federal executions are carried out, have responded by suspending visitation, even by lawyers. But it seems these public health precautions do not apply when it comes to federal executions, which have been scheduled in rapid succession despite the high risk.
Participants at an execution include correctional officers, media representatives, spiritual advisors, and victims’ family members. Many may feel they have no choice.
For example, Purkey’s spiritual advisor Reverend Seigen Hartkemeyer, who is 68 and immunocompromised, felt religiously obligated to attend his execution despite the risks he faced.
“I feel substantial pressure to abandon my religious commitments to [Purkey],” he said in a court declaration in early July before Mr. Purkey’s execution. “I’m being asked to make an impossible decision — violate my religious beliefs or risk my health and life.”
Earlene Peterson, the grandmother and mother of two of Lee’s victims, raised similar concerns. Although Peterson, who is a Trump supporter, had long opposed Lee’s execution, she planned to attend if it was to go forward. She asked President Trump to stop or at least delay the execution until the family could attend safely, but her request was ignored.
These fears are not unfounded. At the time of the executions, the Terre-Haute prison was in the midst of its own outbreak. In fact, the Bureau of Prisons confirmed that a correctional officer at Terre-Haute tested positive for COVID-19 after participating in the preparation of the July executions.
Even without the threat of COVID-19, these unlawful executions should never have taken place. The federal government gave these men less legal process and protection than any state prisoner would ever receive.
For two of the men, the federal government carried out the executions on different days than those set by their death warrants under an unprecedented and illegal instant notice theory. Before any execution, federal law requires the government to issue a death warrant that delineates a specific date on which the execution must take place. Under its own rules, the government must then publicly disclose the execution date at least 20 days in advance.
Lee and Purkey, however, were executed hours after their death warrants expired. Instead of issuing a new execution date at least 20 days out, BOP officials wrote letters in the middle of the night simply declaring that the new execution date was that same day, in effect, that instant. No state or prior federal administration has ever attempted this kind of same day, instant notice.
Procedures such as death warrants and the customary 20-day window of notice of execution dates were put in place for a reason: taking a human life is serious. The death warrant and customary notice period allow any outstanding legal issues to be addressed and resolved. In other words, these rules allow for due process. Lee and Purkey were not afforded this basic right.
The consequences could have meant the difference between life and death. For example, the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of those who are mentally unfit, such as Purkey, whose Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia were so severe that he no longer understood why he was being executed. At the time of his execution, a brain scan supporting these claims still awaited judicial review. Purkey was executed before any court had the opportunity to review this evidence, with his appeal pending.
This raw abuse of federal power to end human life comes at a time when most of the nation is moving away from capital punishment. A Gallup poll conducted last year found that 60 percent of Americans today prefer life imprisonment over the death penalty. Since the last federal execution in 2003, 10 states have formally abolished the death penalty, including Colorado, New Hampshire, and Washington state in recent years. Numerous other states have issued moratoriums.
Across the country, courts are issuing fewer death sentences and executions are rapidly decreasing. These steps toward progress are more aligned with the will of the people than that of the Justice Department. Even supporters of capital punishment should be ashamed of how the government ran roughshod over the Constitution and decency to carry out these executions.
The death penalty is a broken system from start to finish, global pandemic aside. We’ve long known that death sentences have less to do with the severity of the crime than with race, access to quality counsel, and the state or even county in which the crimes were committed. Further, not everybody who is sentenced to death is guilty. Over the last 44 years, 170 people sentenced to death have been exonerated. But the legal system doesn’t always realize its mistake in time. Troy Davis and Cameron Todd Willingham are among those executed despite their almost certain innocence.
The death penalty dehumanizes all of us, and renders the racism and errors of the criminal legal system permanent. The federal government’s eagerness to rush through this very serious legal matter is grotesque — as is its willingness to expose hundreds of individuals to a serious and potentially deadly illness in the process. There’s never been a better time for America to end this failed experiment.
Published August 26, 2020 at 07:18PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3aXkWlr
Hundreds of Thousands of People in Limbo as They Wait for Justice
Every day, nearly 400,000 people in America with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) wake up wondering whether today will bring news of a court ruling that could effectively end their immigration status and put them at risk for deportation. Perhaps worse is the impact the decision could have on their U.S. citizen children. Thousands of young Americans could face an impossible choice: leave the U.S. to stay with their parents or lose their parents if they choose to stay in the only country they’ve ever known. They can’t have both, at least if the Trump administration has its way.
The court case on which the fate of these thousands of people rests is Ramos v. Nielsen, in which the ACLU, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and Sidley Austin LLP argue that the Trump administration broke the law when it attempted to strip people with TPS of the lawful immigration status they have held in this country for years — often for decades. After a district court ruled in favor of those with TPS, the Trump administration filed an appeal that has now been pending for nearly two years.
Congress created TPS 30 years ago to allow people to stay in America when they cannot return safely to their country of origin. Since its adoption, every administration before this one has invoked it to give humanitarian protection to people when natural disaster, war, or other political, economic, or environmental instability rendered their countries unsafe. When Trump came into office, his administration inherited TPS designations that had granted protection to nearly 400,000 people from 10 countries: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
But the Trump administration had different plans for TPS. Individuals from anti-immigrant, white supremacist organizations, which had long targeted this program, came to work at the White House after Trump took office and quickly implemented their agenda. By January 2018, the administration had terminated TPS for 98 percent of the people who held that status when he came into office — all those from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan. The administration also failed to re-designate TPS for Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, thus denying protection to thousands of people already here, simply because they arrived after Trump came to power.
Fortunately, the courts so far have risen to the challenge of protecting people with TPS from the Trump administration’s cruelty. We filed the Ramos lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of those with TPS from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan on the basis that the administration (1) acted out of racial animus against non-white, non-European immigrants and (2) used a new and extremely narrow interpretation of TPS without adequate justification, thereby violating the Administrative Procedures Act. A few months later, we filed a parallel lawsuit to protect people with TPS from Honduras and Nepal. The lower courts’ decisions on this issue have uniformly agreed that the administration’s TPS decisions violated federal law, issuing decisions that protect the 400,000 people with TPS and their families, for now.
But a decision from the court of appeals is due any day now. An appellate ruling in the government’s favor could leave people with TPS at risk of losing their status once again.
However, an adverse decision would not necessarily mean the end of the road, as we could ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Even if the Supreme Court declines that request, the administration would be required to continue TPS for at least six months, during which the 400,000 TPS holders would continue to maintain their right to live and work here.
That six-month period turns out to be awfully important — we are writing this in August 2020. Six months from now takes us into January 2021. By then, a new administration might be evaluating TPS determinations, perhaps applying the TPS statute as it was intended. There might also be a Congress interested in enacting legislation that puts TPS holders on a pathway to citizenship, such as the Dream and Promise Act, which would also help Dreamers and those with Deferred Enforced Departure.
That window of time brings a bit of hope — for the 400,000 people who hold TPS status, for the hundreds of thousands of children in their homes, and for so many other immigrant communities. And for us, as we wait with them — continuing our struggle for justice.
Published August 25, 2020 at 10:08PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2QnBUQr
Hundreds of Thousands of People in Limbo as They Wait for Justice
Every day, nearly 400,000 people in America with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) wake up wondering whether today will bring news of a court ruling that could effectively end their immigration status and put them at risk for deportation. Perhaps worse is the impact the decision could have on their U.S. citizen children. Thousands of young Americans could face an impossible choice: leave the U.S. to stay with their parents or lose their parents if they choose to stay in the only country they’ve ever known. They can’t have both, at least if the Trump administration has its way.
The court case on which the fate of these thousands of people rests is Ramos v. Nielsen, in which the ACLU, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and Sidley Austin LLP argue that the Trump administration broke the law when it attempted to strip people with TPS of the lawful immigration status they have held in this country for years — often for decades. After a district court ruled in favor of those with TPS, the Trump administration filed an appeal that has now been pending for nearly two years.
Congress created TPS 30 years ago to allow people to stay in America when they cannot return safely to their country of origin. Since its adoption, every administration before this one has invoked it to give humanitarian protection to people when natural disaster, war, or other political, economic, or environmental instability rendered their countries unsafe. When Trump came into office, his administration inherited TPS designations that had granted protection to nearly 400,000 people from 10 countries: El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
But the Trump administration had different plans for TPS. Individuals from anti-immigrant, white supremacist organizations, which had long targeted this program, came to work at the White House after Trump took office and quickly implemented their agenda. By January 2018, the administration had terminated TPS for 98 percent of the people who held that status when he came into office — all those from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan. The administration also failed to re-designate TPS for Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, thus denying protection to thousands of people already here, simply because they arrived after Trump came to power.
Fortunately, the courts so far have risen to the challenge of protecting people with TPS from the Trump administration’s cruelty. We filed the Ramos lawsuit in 2018 on behalf of those with TPS from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan on the basis that the administration (1) acted out of racial animus against non-white, non-European immigrants and (2) used a new and extremely narrow interpretation of TPS without adequate justification, thereby violating the Administrative Procedures Act. A few months later, we filed a parallel lawsuit to protect people with TPS from Honduras and Nepal. The lower courts’ decisions on this issue have uniformly agreed that the administration’s TPS decisions violated federal law, issuing decisions that protect the 400,000 people with TPS and their families, for now.
But a decision from the court of appeals is due any day now. An appellate ruling in the government’s favor could leave people with TPS at risk of losing their status once again.
However, an adverse decision would not necessarily mean the end of the road, as we could ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Even if the Supreme Court declines that request, the administration would be required to continue TPS for at least six months, during which the 400,000 TPS holders would continue to maintain their right to live and work here.
That six-month period turns out to be awfully important — we are writing this in August 2020. Six months from now takes us into January 2021. By then, a new administration might be evaluating TPS determinations, perhaps applying the TPS statute as it was intended. There might also be a Congress interested in enacting legislation that puts TPS holders on a pathway to citizenship, such as the Dream and Promise Act, which would also help Dreamers and those with Deferred Enforced Departure.
That window of time brings a bit of hope — for the 400,000 people who hold TPS status, for the hundreds of thousands of children in their homes, and for so many other immigrant communities. And for us, as we wait with them — continuing our struggle for justice.
Published August 25, 2020 at 05:38PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2QnBUQr
What’s it Like to be in Immigration Lockup During a Pandemic?
In the 1980s, fewer than 2,000 people were locked up in an immigration detention facility on an average day in America.
Since then, that number has skyrocketed, quadrupling from 7,475 to 32,985 people detained by ICE per day between 1995 and 2016. Under the administration of President Donald Trump, the numbers have shot up even higher — at one point last year, a staggering 56,000 people were behind bars each night in an ICE detention facility. When asylum-seekers and other migrants in Customs and Border Protection facilities are included, the total figure rises to nearly 80,000 people detained by the U.S. government per day.
This explosive growth of the U.S. immigration detention system tracks the rise of mass incarceration in America, prompted by punitive legislation passed by Congress in the mid-1990s around the same time as the infamous “crime bill,” and later through a massive post-9/11 expansion. Since then, the number of detained immigrants in the U.S. has grown nearly every year under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Now, it’s a sprawling prison system, with 40 new immigration detention centers opening their doors just since the beginning of the Trump presidency alone.
The COVID-19 crisis pulled the curtain back once again on the abuse and neglect that is deeply embedded in these detention facilities. While the rest of the country hunkered down in their homes, immigrants in detention have been forced to confront the pandemic in cramped conditions without adequate cleaning protocols or in some cases even basic sanitation supplies like soap. Guards have violently retaliated against immigrants protesting those conditions, and ICE has resisted efforts to secure their release for public health reasons.
A combination of lawsuits and public pressure eventually forced ICE to release more than 1,000 people from detention because of concerns over the spread of COVID-19 between mid-March and early May. Legal actions brought by the ACLU have secured the release of more than 450 people so far. But there are still more than 21,000 people in immigration detention — a drop since last year’s high that is largely attributable to a near-total shutdown of the southern border.
Whenever a new administration takes office, it will inherit an immigration detention system that has become an out-of-control, wasteful, and cruel behemoth. Drastically reducing the number of people trapped inside that system will be a crucial first step towards establishing a more humane and responsible immigration policy.
In recent weeks, the ACLU interviewed a number of immigrants who were released from detention due to concerns over the COVID-19 crisis. They shared the following stories of what it was like to be incarcerated in an immigration detention facility during the pandemic.
“My mother and father had been here for a long time. When I was 7, she came to pick us up in Mexico, and we crossed somewhere in Arizona. I’ve been here ever since then.
“At a young age I started working in restaurants. When I got to high school, in my mind I said, ‘Okay, what’s going to happen?’ I can’t get financial aid, at that point there was no DACA, so I wound up dropping out. I can’t complain about it because I became a plumber, which is what I’ve been for the past 18 years.
“My wife is an American citizen, and my kids were all born here. I’ve never been to Mexico. I mean even though it’s my country, it’s a strange country. I’ve been here all my life. I have an 18-year-old daughter, along with a 10-year-old, a 7-year-old, and my son, who’s 5.
“We recently moved to Pennsylvania, where I purchased a property to fix up and started working with a real estate company. We’re trying to build a future for our kids.
“I was already on ICE’s radar from a DUI in 2010. They picked me up at my house on April 2, 2019. I came out to warm up the car to bring my kids to school, when an officer grabbed me by my neck. They showed me their badge, which said ICE, and I realized they’d come for me.
“I told my wife to contact my lawyer because she was begging them, you know, saying ‘He didn’t do anything wrong. Why are you taking him?’ The kids were crying. It was very sad, but I asked my wife not to beg them. They took me to Pike County [Correctional Facility], and that’s when it started.
“When you first get there, you’re nervous. You don’t know what’s going to happen. So it’s very scary. You have people in there that get so stressed that they break down.
“And if they see that they send you to the nurse, who asks, ‘How are you feeling? Are you stressed?’ Well yes, of course.
“But if you start answering the questions honestly, all of a sudden they put you in what they call the turtle suit,* because they’re afraid you’re going to hurt yourself. So then you’re locked up in solitary for two or three days while they observe you. It makes it so much worse. You can’t contact your family. It’s really sad.
“Seeing your family through glass is hard. I told my wife after the first time she visited me that unless the kids really want to come, I don’t want you to bring them. It’s like you’re in there trying to distract yourself and once you see each other it’s like reopening a wound that’s closing.
“Once COVID started going we started hearing rumors that it was already in other cell blocks. The [ICE staff] kept on quitting. They were overworked always, but once COVID hit forget it, they were understaffed. It came to a point where we’d be on lockdown for 23 and a half hours a day.
“I’m high risk — I have high blood pressure and asthma — so they released me. When I got into the car, me and my kids just started hugging each other and crying. As a child I went through so much domestic violence. I didn’t want my kids to go through anything like that so I’ve always spent as much time as I can with them.
“Not being with them for a whole year was extremely hard, and seeing them again was the most amazing thing. And here we are, you know. Trying to push forward.
“I’m only out because of the coronavirus. Once it’s over, I’m scared that they might come and pick me up again.”
*An “anti-suicide smock” that resembles a straitjacket.
Adrian: “Before I left, I was in charge of sending doctors on mission trips to other countries.”
Yasmani: “I worked at a radio and television agency, organizing programs and broadcasters for the night schedule.
“We left Cuba for Guyana, traveling to Brazil and then up through the Americas into Mexico. We were in Tijuana for months until our numbers were called so we could turn ourselves in at the border in San Ysidro [outside of San Diego, CA].”
A: “After being detained in a border detention center known as a ‘hielera,’ we were transferred to the Otay Mesa detention center. It was horrible there, like another world. When the coronavirus started, we went on a hunger strike because they weren’t giving us masks. [The guards] started attacking us. They would show up dressed all in black with tear-gas guns and threaten us, saying go back to your rooms.
“We didn’t want to; we wanted to be taken out of there. We did things right, waiting for the process in Mexico only to be treated like that. They didn’t care. They had masks and we didn’t.
“They took away about seven people from our pod, because a guard had coronavirus. He would take his mask off and walk around coughing. After he stopped coming to work for about two weeks, they placed our pod in quarantine.
“Everyone realized that our pod had coronavirus and that’s when we started worrying more. We were trapped in there, but they didn’t adopt any measures; they didn’t give us anything and we couldn’t keep any distance. In fact, if someone got sick, they would take that person out of the pod for a week and after that they would bring the person back. As someone who is HIV positive, I feared I would not survive if I got sick in there.”
Y: “After being released, we felt good to breathe fresh air again. But in my case, I also feel bad because I have an ankle monitor on — you feel like you’re still a prisoner. They call you at night at all times and again at dawn. During the process, you can’t work. We don’t have jobs, and we aren’t independent.
“But I think, if we made it this far, it was God’s will — we just need to wait it out until the process happens.”
****
NAHOM
Refugee and lawful permanent resident, originally from Eritrea. Detained at theYork County Prisonin Pennsylvania for two months.
Credit: Allison Shelley for the ACLU
“I came here when I was 8 years old, from Eritrea with my family in 1998. We had gone through a lot of war, turmoil, and civil unrest. We were able to come to the United States as lawful permanent residents thanks to literal miracles from relatives here, and I’ve been here ever since.
“In 2007, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. In the span of a few weeks, I went from weighing 200 pounds to 140. It altered my life completely. I was taking pain medications and anxiety medications. What got me into trouble with immigration was prescription fraud.
“I took a plea bargain because I thought it wouldn’t affect me in a negative way. I wasn’t thinking about immigration, I was just thinking about my parents back home. She’s 78, and he’s 91, and I needed to take care of them. They didn’t inform me it would affect me like this.
“Immigration picked me up from the jail and brought me to the York County Prison.
“The food there made me sick because of my Crohn’s disease, and I started losing weight. I couldn’t see a full-fledged doctor, just nurse practitioners. They didn’t really understand my condition, and it took awhile for them to get my medication. They treat you like you’re the scum of the earth. What I heard from other people as well is that they would treat a severe issue as if it was something to put a Band-Aid on.
“When COVID started, people went on hunger strike because the guards had masks, but we didn’t have anything. And they’d just wear them when they felt like it.
“They didn’t offer us anything until people stopped eating. It took a long time. There had already been a confirmed case in the jail, and they hadn’t done anything about it.
“I was amazed to get out. It was a literal miracle. I could properly take care of myself and have some sort of control over my life and health.
“I went straight to my mom and dad’s. They cried. They had thought the worst, since I’ve never been that long without them before. They were happy, but they were crying and worried at the same time.”
“Before turning myself over to immigration, I was waiting in Nogales, Mexico. I had trouble with the mafia there, and they cut off the thumb on my right hand. They told me to leave and that they didn’t want to see me again. I was in very bad shape, bleeding so much.
“I told a social worker that I was really scared and being followed, so she took me to [Border Patrol], and they said if I was in danger I should present myself at the port of entry.
“From Nogales they took me to the Eloy Detention Center, still in Arizona. At Eloy, they don’t have special conditions for trans women. They have us mixed in with the men. We suffered a lot of discrimination and abuse, but thankfully it didn’t go beyond that.
“Eventually I was transferred to La Palma [Correctional Center]. When the coronavirus situation first happened people were all crammed together, with no face coverings. They didn’t give us hand sanitizer or gloves, none of that. The [corrections officers] would work and cough, without any face coverings or protection. And they come from the outside while we are inside. I think that’s how people started getting infected.
“A lot of people complained, but that’s when you realize they don’t care what you say. ICE said our right was to shut our mouths, take it, and wait for our turn to get out or be deported.
“When they told me I was getting out, I was so happy, because I’d been detained for nearly a year. I’m doing really well with my sponsors now, they’re beautiful people. They treat me very well. After so much struggling, here I am.”
“When I first arrived, for about three years, I worked at pizzerias and restaurants. Now I work in construction. I like to spend time with my family and study English – that’s my hobby.
“It was just a day like any other. I was on my way to work at my construction job when ICE stopped us — they said it was a routine check, and that’s when they caught me.
“In detention, they give you a manual of what the rules are. They claim that you can go out in the courtyard and have fun or whatever, but it’s a lie. There’s no courtyard. I wouldn’t wish detention on my worst enemy because it truly is horrible. Some of the officers were very kind, but others just mess with you. One night my face and teeth were hurting and I told one of them I needed a painkiller. He said, ‘If you don’t go to bed, I’m going to put a mark on your record and send you to the hole.’
“We saw the news about the virus and started getting worried, because they were still bringing people in off the streets. We got scared when some people inside started having dry coughs. We were in bunk beds, all together, and couldn’t keep distance. There were a lot of sick people. I couldn’t say whether they had coronavirus or not, but they were rushed to the detention infirmary for eight, nine, 10 days. Some didn’t come back, and we never found out what happened to them. That’s when we got really scared, because we didn’t know what was going on.
“When I was detained, my wife was six months pregnant. I wasn’t there for the birth of my first-born child. That’s what I cared about — being with them. When I was released, he was about two weeks old.
“I was really happy, because I felt like I’d been in a contagion zone. I wouldn’t like to go back, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”
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DAMARY
Asylum-seeker, originally from Cuba.
Credit: Gary Bogdon for the ACLU
“I flew from Cuba to Nicaragua and then traveled by bus through Honduras, Guatemala, and then Mexico. I crossed the border, and immediately turned myself over to Border Patrol. From there, I was sent to detention in McAllen, Texas for several days and then was transferred to Michigan where I remained for months until my release.
“I traveled by plane with my hands and feet in shackles. They said in case of an emergency you had to put on your life vest and oxygen mask, but if anything had happened I wouldn’t have been able to do it because of the shackles.
“I won’t say they treated me badly — nobody beat me — but I suffered a lot while detained. I had never been in prison before that, and everyone suffers there.
“I have high blood pressure and gastritis, so the coronavirus was a big worry for me because I’m a vulnerable person. If I were to catch the virus, I would be in more danger than most.
“We were at risk, some people there didn’t wear masks and they could infect us. Not everyone practiced social distancing around us. We were all very worried, and every day we became more vulnerable to catching the virus. But a person who is afraid to go back to their country and wants to fight for political asylum has to wait as long as it takes.
“When I was released, I was so happy. I didn’t know what to do so I cried and laughed. Now I’m home with relatives complying with all the immigration proceedings. But I know a lot of people who are still there are at risk and suffering. People that I came to care about a lot since we were there together for so long. It’s very painful.”
Published August 24, 2020 at 09:45PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2QnoCTU
Credit: Marco Calderon for the ACLU
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Credit: Allison Shelley for the ACLU
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Credit: Gary Bogdon for the ACLU