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Our Leaders Have the Power to Decarcerate and Save Lives, But Where is the Will? | American Civil Liberties Union

Milo Inglehart — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:54:06 -0400

Research shows that reductions in the United States incarceration rate would have prevented millions of COVID-19 cases and tens of thousands of deaths, both inside jails and prisons and in their surrounding communities. For those of us working with incarcerated people during the pandemic, this confirms what we already know: decarceration will save lives and is a vital part of pandemic response. So why, with the Delta variant tearing through the country and a new, vaccine resistant variant discovered, are we not seeing more releases?

In part, this is due to a failure in leadership. Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants explained the dilemma in his comments on a lawsuit to increase releases from the state’s detention facilities: “We’ve got the governor saying, ‘Not my problem, I shouldn’t be ordered to do something.’ We’ve got the Department of Correction saying, ‘We manage the prisons, the only thing we’re involved with is medical parole,’ and now we’ve got the parole board saying that it’s not their problem. So who’s supposed to do it?” Justice Gants asked.

COVID releases that did occur prove that a range of government actors have the power to release people when they deem it appropriate. This is not a question of authority; it is a question of will.

Governors have the power to commute sentences, as they did everywhere from Washington state to North Carolina. State legislatures can pass bills to release people early, as New Jersey’s did. Corrections departments can expedite releases or release people early, as many states, including Wisconsin and Iowa’s, did. State courts can identify people for early release or appoint special masters to do this as they did in Maryland and Hawaii, or expand those eligible for release hearings as in Massachusetts. Federal courts can act similarly, as when a federal judge ordered federal immigration authorities to immediately release people from Pennsylvania prisons. Criminal judicial systems, superior courts, and district attorneys can adopt policies that fix the presumptive bail amount for certain charged offenses at $0, so that people are not locked in jails due to their poverty and inability to raise enough money to buy their freedom pending trial.

With thousands dead from COVID-19 in U.S. jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers, the failure of officials with the authority to release people to do so is inexcusable. The evidence shows that when jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers reduced the number of people locked up, public safety did not suffer, and that releases save lives.

While ensuring vaccine access is vital, it is not a substitute for decarceration. Breakthrough infections remain a danger even for those who are vaccinated, and vaccinated people are still able to spread the disease to others, including those who are unable to be vaccinated. During a July COVID-19 outbreak in a highly-vaccinated Texas federal prison, for example, 70 percent of vaccinated people were infected, along with 93 percent of unvaccinated people in the prison.

Carceral settings, communal living spaces that often have tight quarters and poor ventilation, are an ideal environment for spreading the highly infectious Delta variant, and the discovery of the vaccine-resistant Mu variant further proves the danger of relying on vaccines alone. The World Health Organization has emphasized the “need to do everything possible to stop the spread of the virus in order to prevent mutations that may reduce the efficacy of existing vaccines.”

As the U.S. battles the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to learn from the mistakes of the first waves, including the failure to release large numbers of people from the prisons, jails, and detention centers that became hotbeds for the virus. Judges, elected officials, and correctional officers have a choice to make as they respond to this wave. They can choose to value public health and the safety of incarcerated people over the will to punish no matter the cost.

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Family Surveillance by Algorithm: The Rapidly Spreading Tools Few Have Heard Of

Anjana Samant — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 16:07:33 -0400

Last month, police took American Idol finalist Syesha Mercado’s days-old newborn Ast away because she had not reported her daughter’s birth to authorities, while she was still fighting to regain custody of her son from the state. In February 2021, Syesha had taken her 13-month-old son Amen’Ra to a hospital because he had difficulty transitioning from breast milk to formula and was refusing to eat. What should have been an ordinary medical visit for a new mom prompted a state-contracted child abuse pediatrician with a known history of wrongfully reporting medical conditions as child abuse to call child welfare. Authorities took custody of Amen’Ra on the grounds that Syesha had neglected him. Syesha has been reunited with Ast after substantial media attention and public outrage, but continues to fight for the return of Amen’Ra.

Meanwhile, it took over a year and a half for Erin Yellow Robe, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, to be reunited with her children. Based on an unsubstantiated rumor that Erin was misusing prescription pills, authorities took custody of her children and placed them with white foster parents — despite the federal Indian Child Welfare Act’s requirements and the willingness of relatives and tribal members to care for the children.

For white families, these scenarios typically do not lead to child welfare involvement. For Black and Indigenous families, they often lead to years — potentially a lifetime — of ensnarement in the child welfare system or, as some are now more appropriately calling it, the family regulation system.

Child Welfare as Disparate Policing

Our country’s latest reckoning with structural racism has involved critical reflection on the role of the criminal justice system, education policy, and housing practices in perpetuating racial inequity. The family regulation system needs to be added to this list, along with the algorithms working behind the scenes. That’s why the ACLU has conducted a nationwide survey to learn more about these tools.

Women and children who are Indigenous, Black, or experiencing poverty are disproportionately placed under child welfare’s scrutiny. Once there, Indigenous and Black families fare worse than their white counterparts at nearly every critical step. These disparities are partly the legacy of past social practices and government policies that sought to tear apart Indigenous and Black families. But the disparities are also the result of the continued policing of women in recent years through child welfare practices, public benefits laws, the failed war on drugs, and other criminal justice policies that punish women who fail to conform to particular conceptions of “fit mothers.”

Turning to Predictive Analytics for Solutions

Many child welfare agencies have begun turning to risk assessment tools for reasons ranging from wanting the ability to predict which children are at higher risk for maltreatment to improving agency operations. Allegheny County, Pennsylvania has been using the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST) since 2016. The AFST generates a risk score for complaints received through the county’s child maltreatment hotline by looking at whether certain characteristics of the agency’s past cases are also present in the complaint allegations. Key among these characteristics are family member demographics and prior involvement with the county’s child welfare, jail, juvenile probation, and behavioral health systems. Intake staff then use this risk score as an aide in deciding whether or not to follow up on a complaint with a home study or a formal investigation, or to dismiss it outright.

Like their criminal justice analogues, however, child welfare risk assessment tools do not predict the future. For instance, a recidivism risk assessment tool measures the odds that a person will be arrested in the future, not the odds that they will actually commit a crime. Just as being under arrest doesn’t necessarily mean you did something illegal, a child’s removal from the home, often the target of a prediction model, doesn’t necessarily mean a child was in fact maltreated.

We examined how many jurisdictions across the 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories are using one category of predictive analytics tools: models that systematically use data collected by jurisdictions’ public agencies to attempt to predict the likelihood that a child in a given situation or location will be maltreated. Here’s what we found:

Local or state child welfare agencies in at least 26 states plus D.C. have considered using such predictive tools. Of these, jurisdictions in at least 11 states are currently using them.
Large jurisdictions like New York City, Oregon, and Allegheny County have been using predictive analytics for several years now.
Some tools currently in use, such as the AFST, are used when deciding whether to refer a complaint for further agency action, while others are used to flag open cases for closer review because the tool deems them to be higher-risk scenarios.

The Flaws of Predictive Analytics

Despite the growing popularity of these tools, few families or advocates have heard about them, much less provided meaningful input into their development and use. Yet countless policy choices and value judgments are made in the course of creating and using the tool, any or all of which can impact whether the tool promotes “fairness” or reduces racial disproportionality in agency action.

Moreover, like the tools we have seen in the criminal legal system, any tool built from a jurisdiction’s historical data runs the risk of continuing and increasing existing bias. Historically over-regulated and over-separated communities may get caught in a feedback loop that quickly magnifies the biases in these systems. Who decides what “high risk” means? When a caseworker sees a “high” risk score for a Black person, do they respond in the same way as they would for a white person?

Ultimately, we must ask whether these tools are the best way to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, when such funds are urgently needed to help families avoid the crises that lead to abuse and neglect allegations.

What the ACLU is Doing

It’s critical that we interrogate these tools before they become entrenched, as they have in the criminal justice system. Information about the data used to create a predictive algorithm, the policy choices embedded in the tool, and the tool’s impact both system-wide and in individual cases are some of the things that should be disclosed to the public before a tool is adopted and throughout its use. In addition to such transparency, jurisdictions need to make available opportunities to question and contest a tool’s implementation or application in a specific instance if our policymakers and elected officials are to be held accountable for the rules and penalties enforced through such tools.

In this vein, the ACLU has requested data from Allegheny County and other jurisdictions to independently evaluate the design and impact of their predictive analytics tools and any measures they may be taking to address fairness, due process, and civil liberty concerns.

It’s time that all of us ask our local policymakers to end the unnecessary and harmful policing of families through the family regulation system.

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https://www.aclu.org/fact-sheet/family-surveillance-algorithm

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Understaffed, Unsanitary ICE Facility in New Mexico Fails Annual Inspection

Leonardo Castañeda — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 16:09:14 -0400

This piece originally appeared on the ACLU of New Mexico’s blog.

The privately-run ICE detention center in Torrance County, New Mexico failed its government inspection earlier this year, with a newly released report finding severe understaffing, unsanitary food, and visitation rules that were inaccessible to people with no money, among other complaints.

The failed inspection is the latest in a series of troubling news for the Torrance County Detention Center, which earlier this year reported a massive COVID-19 outbreak among detainees and staff, as well as reports of guards using harsh chemical agents in response to a peaceful hunger strike protesting conditions at the facility.

The Torrance detention center in Estancia, southeast of Albuquerque, detains male migrants for ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as men and women for Torrance County. It is managed by CoreCivic, a private for-profit prison corporation based in Nashville, Tenn. The inspection was conducted from July 27 through 29 by The Nakamoto Group, a private contractor that inspects ICE detention facilities. ICE has 60 days from the completion to post the results online.

Allegra Love, an attorney with the El Paso Immigration Collaborative who has worked with detained migrants at Torrance and other ICE facilities, said The Nakamoto Group inspections are notoriously friendly to the facilities and failures are rare.

“I’m surprised that they failed the inspection because I’ve worked in detention centers for the last seven years and they’re all really terrible,” Love said. “You’re never at one that is good or that treats their detainees well, but they all pass their inspections.”

ICE and CoreCivic did not respond to requests for comments about the inspection, which found the facility “does not meet standards.”

During their July review of Torrance, The Nakamoto Group inspectors found 22 deficiencies in how ICE detainees were held, including four categorized as deficiencies in priority components.

Among the most concerning for Love is severe understaffing. Although not a specific deficiency, inspectors noted that “the current staffing level is at 50 percent of the authorized correction/security positions. Staff is currently working mandatory overtime shifts.”

Love said she’s had trouble connecting with a client at the facility, with a staff member saying it would take two weeks just to schedule a legal call. Lack of staff, she said, is a security concern.

“This is not a greenhouse or coffee shop,” she said. “They’re in charge of people’s well-being and safety.”

Twelve of the complaints cited by investigators focused on food preparation, including safety and sanitation concerns with how food was prepared and presented. Food service should be “under the direct supervision of an experienced food service administrator,” the report said. Inspectors also found the facility’s dishwasher wasn’t hot enough to actually sanitize dishes.

That didn’t surprise Ernesto Rodrigo Callado, who was detained for 10 months at Torrance and even worked in the kitchen for a time. The food, he said, was often flavorless and undercooked and was a constant source of complaints.

“The beans were hard, you could throw them at the wall three times and if you kept going you’d break the wall,” Callado said. “They made rice that tasted like going to the yard and eating dirt.”

He said except for a few dishes he tried to prepare his own meals and buy food from the commissary instead.

Alvaro, who asked that his real name not be used for fear of retaliation from immigration authorities, said he also worked in the Torrance kitchen and noticed food that smelled bad. People often had stomach aches that he attributed to the food.

“Just because we’re immigrants doesn’t mean we have to eat like dogs,” he said.

Inspectors also found deficiencies in visitation access. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the facility replaced general in-person visits with paid video calls through tablets, making them inaccessible for detainees without money.

Callado said the tablets were often slow to load and even just waiting for a photo his family had sent him to load could quickly become unaffordable.

The report also noted grievance paperwork and medical grievances were not being maintained properly in detainees’ files and directed the facility to ensure grievances are filed as required. ICE received 43 grievances from detainees at Torrance in the year leading up to the late July inspection, two-thirds of which have been substantiated.

The two other ICE detention facilities in New Mexico, in Otero and Cibola counties, passed their inspections from The Nakomoto Group in January and May respectively.

The ACLU previously called for the closure of the Otero County Processing Center for its long history of inhumane treatment, including denial of access to medical care, retaliatory use of solitary confinement and more. And last year Reuters uncovered numerous unanswered calls for medical attention, inadequate mental health treatment and quarantining procedures and more at Cibola County Correctional Center’s now-closed transgender detainee unit.

Earlier this year, the ACLU of New Mexico filed a lawsuit alongside the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center on behalf of nine former Torrance detainees and the Santa Fe Dreamers Project against CoreCivic and Torrance County. The lawsuit alleged CoreCivic sprayed the men with chemical agents in response to a peaceful hunger strike. The men were protesting inadequate precautions against COVID-19, poor living conditions, and the withholding of status updates on their immigration cases.

Zoila Alvarez Hernández, an immigrant rights attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico, said The Nakamoto Group was correct to fail Torrance after all of the issues at the facility.

“I’m pleasantly surprised that a third-party vendor that (ICE) contracted actually did their job and reported it,” she said. “However, I am not optimistic that CoreCivic and Torrance County will take corrective action to address the deficiencies that were pointed out in the inspection.”

In late May, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported a COVID-19 outbreak at the facility, which by then had infected 110 detainees and 16 staff members. There have been 370 COVID cases among people detained by ICE at Torrance, according to the federal agency.

By late May, during the COVID-19 outbreak, Torrance had an average daily population of 29 people in immigration custody, according to data from the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. By late August, the average daily population was up to 126.

For Love, that raises the question of why detainees were sent to Torrance if it wasn’t adequately staffed, among the other deficiencies noted in the inspection.

“Why are they still there,” she said, “if we can’t meet their very, very, very basic needs?”

What you can do:

Congress: Divest from ICE and Stop Abuses

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Here’s What You Need to Know About the White House’s Plan to Promote Voting Access

Sarah Brannon — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 14:51:45 -0400

Today on voter registration day, the Biden administration has a crucial opportunity to promote voting access. This past March, the Biden administration issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to put together plans to promote voting access through voter registration. The federal agencies will submit their plans to the White House this month. Especially with the innumerable attacks on the right to vote — more than 400 anti-voter bills have been introduced in 48 states during the 2021 legislative session — the Biden administration must ensure federal agencies propose and implement plans to provide robust and effective voter registration services.

The purpose of the Executive Order on Promoting Voting Access is to “protect and promote the exercise of the right to vote, eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting, and expand access to voter registration and accurate election information” and to “ensure that registering to vote and the act of voting be made simple and easy for all those eligible to do so.” The order encourages federal agencies to embrace the original intent of the National Voter Registration Act, which dictates that the federal government be actively involved in providing voter registration services. When enacting the NVRA, Congress declared it the “duty of the federal, state, and local governments to promote the exercise of [the] right [to vote].”

Congress passed the NVRA in 1993 to address the discriminatory role voter registration plays in our elections. In the last 25 years, the NVRA has helped address this discrimination and close gaps in registration rates, particularly by requiring states to offer registration opportunities to eligible individuals who interact with state and local agencies such as DMVs and public assistance agencies. But rates of registration among Black and Brown people and low-income people are still disproportionately lower, preventing them from exercising their fundamental right to vote. President Biden’s executive order presents a great opportunity to better achieve the goals and intent of the NVRA by engaging the federal government’s many existing programs to offer eligible individuals a meaningful opportunity to register to vote.

Still, the executive order does not replace the need for federal legislation to protect the right to vote. In Shelby County v. Holder, the Voting Rights Act was weakened by the Supreme Court. The court’s 2013 decision struck down the formula used to identify which states were required to obtain prior approval from the Justice Department, gutting the heart of this landmark legislation. Then, this summer, the Supreme Court substantially weakened another part of the VRA in Brnovich v. DNC, making it more difficult for voting rights advocates to challenge racially discriminatory voting laws in court.

Biden’s executive order does not rehabilitate the VRA or address the lack of pre-clearance for states with prior records of voting discrimination — that must be addressed by Congress. We urge Congress to act now to cement the legacy of the VRA and protect the rights of all Americans by passing the John Lewis Voting Advancement Act. In the meantime, amidst voting rights attacks happening across the country, the administration’s executive order provides an unprecedented opportunity for the federal government to provide meaningful opportunities to register to vote, and expand access to the ballot for millions of Americans.

In issuing the order, the Biden administration demonstrated its strong commitment to ensuring unfettered access to the ballot. But it must see this step through. Given the lack of Congressional action thus far protecting the right to vote, it’s crucial that the administration implement this order expansively and comprehensively. Ensuring our federal agencies do all they can to expand access to voter registration is not only easy, it’s the right thing to do.

What you can do:

Congress: Protect Our Voting Rights

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Ohio’s New State Legislative Maps Are Unconstitutional – Here’s Why

Alora Thomas-Lundborg — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 13:18:40 -0400

Last week the Ohio Redistricting Commission enacted maps reflecting new electoral district boundaries. As the first state in the nation to pass statewide maps this year, Ohio had a promising opportunity to show the country what fairly apportioned electoral district boundaries look like. Instead, the state of Ohio presented a map that was grossly gerrymandered and far from fair. That’s why the ACLU filed a lawsuit this week challenging the Ohio state legislative map as unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.

Many states, like Ohio, have used the redistricting process to manipulate electoral boundaries to their political advantage — a practice known as gerrymandering — and to the great disadvantage of voters. It’s a dangerous political practice in which bad actors slice and dice our communities so politicians can pick and choose who they represent. Resulting in politicians who are not accountable to wider population, because they do not have to be. Voters should be choosing their politicians — not the other way around.

Historically, partisan gerrymandering is the practice of drawing district lines to favor one party over another, and the new Ohio map does exactly that. Sadly, this is not new to the state of Ohio. In 2011, the state legislative maps were drawn in secrecy, without public oversight or Democratic party participation (despite a nominally bipartisan process), in a location referred to as “the bunker.” Under that map, Republicans maintained a hammerlock on supermajority status from 2012 to 2020.

That’s why Ohioans, on Nov. 3, 2015 with a 71 percent majority, approved a constitutional amendment to Article XI of the Ohio Constitution with the goal of preventing exactly what happened this week. Among other things, this amendment created a bipartisan Ohio Redistricting Commission which would consist of seven members, including at least two opposition party members. The current commission is composed of five Republicans and two Democrats. After the adoption of the map, even Ohio Auditor Keith Faber, Ohio Sec. of State Frank LaRose, and Gov. Mike DeWine, all Republican commission members, expressed frustration with this year’s mapmaking process, citing concerns about a “partisan process”.

Further, this year’s newly enacted map draws 67 percent of the House districts and 69 percent of the Senate districts to favor Republicans, assuring Republican veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers. Rather than reflecting voters’ dynamic or evolving preferences, elections under gerrymandered maps like Ohio’s systematically lock in candidates from the legislators’ preferred party, and discourage electoral competition. Politicians from gerrymandered districts are more extreme and polarized than politicians from fair and competitive maps, resulting in policies and laws that do not reflect the will of the voters. For example, despite widespread support for abortion access, free and fair elections, and gun control, the gerrymandered Ohio legislature has consistently acted contrary to the will of the voters.

As redistricting begins nationwide, the ACLU will continue to monitor state legislatures and independent commissions across the country to ensure they heed the Constitution’s fundamental principles of democracy, representation, and equality.

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Addressing Racialized Violence Against Migrants Requires a Complete Overhaul of Customs and Border Protection

Shaw Drake — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 10:53:27 -0400

The latest violent imagery to emerge from Border Patrol’s actions at the U.S.-Mexico border warrants not only outrage and immediate action, but also deep reforms to an entrenched culture of abuse at Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the federal law enforcement agency that includes the sub-agency Border Patrol. One video from Del Rio, Texas shows a Border Patrol officer telling a Haitian migrant, “This is why your country’s shit, because you use your women for this!” This abhorrent comment is not an aberration: CBP has long had a pervasive culture of cruelty and dehumanization of migrants that includes this kind of — often anti-immigrant and racist — verbal abuse. The Biden administration must ensure CBP personnel treat people with dignity and humanity.

Narrow investigations and hollow assurances are not an adequate response to Border Patrol’s horrifying treatment and verbal abuse of Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas. President Biden must immediately prioritize a systemic overhaul of CBP, including fundamental reforms of its use of force policies, hiring and disciplinary practices, and complaint mechanism. In light of Border Patrol’s long-standing failures, President Biden should oppose any move to reward the agency with increased funding. And Congress, for its part, should also be shrinking the agency’s budget, not contemplating any increase.

Every day, CBP carries out U.S. border policy and interacts with migrants through the filter of an agency culture steeped in cruelty, xenophobia and racism, violent inhumanity, and impunity. On rare occasions, the agency’s abusive actions are caught on camera. But images of CBP tear gassing families, surveillance video of a child dying on the floor of a Border Patrol facility, or horse-mounted agents menacing migrants captured on camera tell only a small part of the long history of the agency’s violent actions, and the lack of accountability with which they have been met.

The Border Patrol, initially a small agency, was established in an anti-immigrant atmosphere in 1924. It employed white supremacists, including Ku Klux Klan members, from the outset, and its early history included regular beatings, shootings, and hangings of migrants. Now, after rapid expansion in the early 2000s due to unprecedented funding, Border Patrol’s ranks include nearly 20,000 agents, making it the nation’s largest law enforcement agency. It is also the least accountable.

At least 191 people have died following encounters with Border Patrol in the last decade. Six of these deaths were caused by Border Patrol agents shooting across the border into Mexico — yet no agent was held accountable for the killings. The agency lacks basic accountability practices: No agent has ever been convicted of criminal wrongdoing while on duty, despite deaths in custody and uses of excessive, deadly force. The agency’s discipline system is broken. As James Tomsheck, CBP’s former internal affairs chief, has described, the agency “goes out of its way to evade legal restraints” and is “clearly engineered to interfere with [oversight] efforts to hold the Border Patrol accountable.”

Between just 2019 and 2020, the ACLU filed 13 administrative complaints with internal oversight bodies, documenting hundreds of cases of CBP abuse–including of asylum seekers, families, pregnant persons, and children, among other misconduct. Existing accountability mechanisms have failed to prevent abuses or adequately hold agents to account in ways that would deter future misconduct.

Border Patrol’s abuses are also not limited to the border itself–and have particularly targeted communities of color in the United States. The agency deploys its massive police force across the country where agents profile, surveil, and militarize U.S. communities. Just last year, Border Patrol agents terrorized and kidnapped protesters from the streets of Portland after deployment to Black Lives Matter protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder, and sent sniper units to George Floyd’s burial service with authority to use deadly force.

Verbal abuse of migrants is not unique to the mistreatment documented in Del Rio. In 2019, the ACLU received reports from migrants that detailed verbal abuse by Border Patrol agents. The abuse included bullying, harassment, threats, racism, and misstatements about U.S immigration law. Reported abuse was in line with that in the Del Rio video: For example, migrants described Border Patrol agents calling them derogatory terms and making comments such as, “I’ve fucking had it with you, this is why you guys don’t advance in your country.”

As the disturbing videos from Del Rio show, verbal abuse often accompanies agents’ physical violence. For example, a Border Patrol agent who pleaded guilty in 2019 to repeatedly hitting a migrant with a truck sent text messages in which he described migrants as “disgusting subhuman shit unworthy of being kindling in a fire.” His attorney defended the xenophobic messages as “part of the agency’s culture” and “commonplace.”

Border Patrol’s abuse often targets those who are particularly vulnerable. In 2014, more than 50 children reported verbal abuse. “You’re the garbage that contaminates this country,” one agent told a child. Children have reported that CBP has called them a wide range of derogatory names Migrants also have reported numerous highly derogatory anti-LGBTQ comments.

The agency’s long-entrenched culture of violence and abuse toward migrants is completely contrary to the basic dignity and respect with which all migrants — and anyone who encounters law enforcement — should be afforded.

The Biden administration cannot reward these kinds of human rights abuses by federal law enforcement officers nor allow them to continue. The administration must reject Border Patrol efforts for increased funding and must undertake a complete overhaul of CBP policy and practices, including:

Reforming CBP’s use of force standards, including through public policies and robust transparency requirements for use-of-force incidents and investigations;
A moratorium on new Border Patrol hires;
Expanded training, particularly cultural competence and bias/anti-racism training;
New public disciplinary guidelines that mirror best practices in other law enforcement agencies; and
The creation of a publicly accessible national database of complaints and written resolutions.

We laid out these and other detailed recommendations before the start of this administration. CBP’s rampant abuses are doomed to repeat themselves absent robust reforms.

Agents domineered over migrants, menacing them with horses and lariats and making derogatory comments in Del Rio with the eyes of the country upon them. But agents have acted this way with impunity for many years out of the public view — and it is past time for these racist and anti-immigrant abuses to end.

What you can do:

Congress: Divest from ICE and CBP

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Why We’re Joining the Call to Shut Down ICE Detention Centers

Isra Chaker — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 15:41:55 -0400

When President Joe Biden came into office, he promised to end the cruelty and inhumanity of President Trump’s immigration policies.

While the Biden administration has halted some of the former administration’s cruelest policies, far too many unjust anti-immigrant policies remain, and thousands of immigrants are paying the price. On Biden’s watch, Border Patrol agents are now attacking Haitian asylum-seekers and migrants in Del Rio, Texas — including small children. The government is using the illegal Title 42 program to fly people to Haiti, a country reeling from political unrest and severe natural disasters, without the opportunity to apply for asylum or other protections. Almost twice as many people are detained on an average day by Immigration and Customs Enforcement than at the start of this administration, many in prisons run by private corporations that are profiting from human misery. Only two out of more than 200 ICE detention sites have been closed.

On too many fronts, the Biden administration is failing to deliver on its promises to end the inhumane treatment of immigrants. That’s why today, we’re joining the Detention Watch Network, FIRM Action, Mijente, United We Dream, and the We Are Home Campaign’s “Communities Not Cages” National Day of Action.

We are calling on the Biden administration to shut down detention sites where thousands of people languish for months or even years. Many of these sites have well-established records of horrific conditions, reports of abuse and serious medical neglect. Detention conditions have grown even worse during the COVID-19 pandemic as detained people are left with few options to properly protect themselves from the virus.

Even if a government takes steps to improve detention conditions, detention itself is simply cruel and unnecessary. Immigration detention tears people away from their families and loved ones — when instead, they could navigate their legal proceedings while living in and continuing to contribute to their communities. Indeed, until the 1980s, most immigrants were not detained while navigating the legal process.

Today, immigration detention has become the norm, not the exception, and anti-immigrant politicians continue to seek more detention in a bald-faced attempt to ensure that the U.S. government punishes people for coming here — despite their legal right to seek asylum and other forms of relief in the United States.

The White House could have — and should have — started to dismantle this system of mass incarceration from the outset of this administration. Doing so would have been amply justified. As highlighted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), this system ballooned under the Trump administration and squandered millions of taxpayer dollars, to the benefit and profit of private prison corporations. At the same time, ICE detention has grown increasingly unpopular, as is evident from the recent passage of anti-detention legislation in New Jersey, Washington state, and Illinois.

It’s not too late: Our movement has the momentum and the opportunity to push the Biden administration for transformative change. We must move away from using detention to punish and deter migration. We must start welcoming immigrants with dignity.

What you can do:

Shut Down the ICE Detention Machine

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Cruel and Violating: How Texas’ Abortion Law Assaults Our Fundamental Rights

Paige Alexandria — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:09:11 -0400

When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) into law in May, I felt an unwelcome sense of déjà vu. In January of 2016, I was dialing every phone number I could find, trying to locate a clinic where I could receive abortion care in Austin, where I live. After many phone calls, some of which I accidentally made to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, I finally found one of the last open abortion clinics and got an appointment. I was seven weeks pregnant, and their schedule was packed; the earliest opening they had was more than two weeks later. This was the wreckage of House Bill 2, a restrictive abortion law passed in 2013 that forced approximately half of all abortion clinics in the state to close. The U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately overturn the law in June 2016, just months after I had my abortion, bringing relief to Texans seeking basic health care.

This month, Texans like me hoped our rights might be protected by the Supreme Court again. Instead, they let us down by allowing the most restrictive abortion law in the country to take effect. Now, in my work with a fund supporting Texans’ access to abortion, I’m hearing every day from panicked, confused patients who are trying to get an appointment as I did in 2016, and facing wait times as long as a month — too late for many to access care under SB 8. I’ve been reminding some patients to do what I did: keep calling each day to see if any cancellations open up earlier appointments. And then we work together to come up with a plan for out of state care to avoid delaying their abortion further.

SB 8 bans abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy — before many people even know they’re pregnant; roughly 85 to 90 percent of people who get abortions are at least six weeks into pregnancy. This law has decimated abortion access in the state, and I’m watching it happen in real time.

This law is cruel, and it’s violating.

I’ve been hearing from many people with housing insecurity who are struggling to quickly figure out how to travel hundreds of miles out of state to access abortion care. And it was already difficult to access abortion as a Texan, especially for people with low incomes, Black women, Indigenous folks, people of color, undocumented folks, our queer and trans communities, disabled people, and youth. SB 8 is racist, classist, and ableist, and these communities are the first to experience the impacts of abortion restrictions. Some folks living in Southern Texas have no way to even leave the state because of border patrol checkpoints. Getting abortion care is hard for everyone in Texas, but now it can be outright impossible, and will continue to be hardest for these Texans.

While this assault on our rights would be terrible at any time, it’s especially dangerous during a pandemic. Texans were already forced to jump through these political hoops last year when our governor deemed abortion non-essential and banned it for over a month at the beginning of COVID-19. Patients were turned away from the clinic at the last second and forced to travel as far as Oklahoma and Colorado, much like now. At a time when Gov. Abbott should be protecting Texans, he is more concerned with regulating our bodies and putting our health and lives at risk — again. He is more concerned with making sure I don’t have an abortion — by all means necessary — than he is with protecting the two children I have by not requiring masks inside public schools.

Though things may feel isolating and scary right now, I want Texans to remember that abortion is still legal in all 50 states. SB 8 may restrict abortion to before around six weeks, but make sure to keep in touch with abortion funds and advocates; things can often change quickly and misinformation surrounding SB 8 is spreading. We are here to help you sort through the confusion and get the resources you need.

Although it was difficult to access abortion in Texas, the staff at my clinic and the abortion fund that helped me were wonderful, and that was powerful for me. Everything I am as a person now is because I had an abortion. It allowed me to be the parent I wanted to be, led me to a career I love, and it was the first time I really understood what it meant to be a supporter of abortion rights. We may have a right to a legal abortion, but that doesn’t mean it’s accessible. Under SB 8, that’s more true than ever, but we are going to continue to fight for our right to safe and legal abortion, regardless of our zip code, and regardless of how much money we make, no matter what.

What you can do:

Defend Abortion Access for All

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How Much Do You Know about Redistricting?

ACLU — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 10:54:17 -0400

It’s official: The once-in-a-decade redistricting process has begun. Communities and jurisdictions across the country are crunching 2020 census data to redraw district lines. The way these lines are drawn will determine political representation, resource allocation, and the weight of your vote.

The stakes are high, so it’s critical we watch closely as our district lines take shape. Take this quiz on redistricting to test your knowledge.

Stay informed about our work

Ivermectin “Treatment” in Arkansas Jail Illustrates Systemic Abuse

Holly Dickson — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 15:01:58 -0400

Last month, people detained in a Fayetteville, Arkansas jail became the unwitting subjects of an unsafe experiment — like many incarcerated people before them. In late August, a county official revealed during a budget meeting that a doctor employed at the Washington County Detention Center had been treating COVID-19-positive incarcerated people with ivermectin. The anti-parasitic drug has garnered increased media attention in the last few weeks as poison control centers across the country field an increasing number of calls from people who have misguidedly attempted to treat or prevent COVID-19 with the drug.

The FDA has warned that ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for treatment or prevention of COVID-19, and that the misuse of ivermectin can cause serious harm, including seizures, comas, and even death. As COVID-19 ravages communities in Arkansas, the ACLU is fighting for the detained people who were given non-FDA approved drugs without their informed consent or patient education.

Sadly, the jail’s actions fit into a larger pattern seen across the country during the pandemic. Incarcerated people are not receiving proper medical education or care to protect them from the virus, nor to treat them once infected. Providing unapproved and even toxic “treatment” to incarcerated people without their knowledge or education is not only inhumane and dangerous; it’s also a recipe to create even more mistrust of staff among people in jail.

Following the revelation in Fayetteville, several incarcerated people at the jail contacted the ACLU of Arkansas to report that they were unaware that they had been given ivermectin to treat COVID. They also reported that they have been and are still experiencing adverse side effects from the medication.

Marlena Floreal-Wooten learned that her husband Edrick was one of those COVID-positive patients misled by medical staff at the detention center. Edrick and Marlena report that he was told he was being treated with vitamins and steroids — not a dewormer more commonly used for livestock. When ingested by humans in high doses, ivermectin can cause a number of side effects, including skin rash, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, facial or limb swelling, and adverse neurologic events. Once it was publicly revealed that he and others at the jail were given ivermectin without their knowledge, Edrick and 20 other people in his housing unit refused to take the pills again.

The ACLU of Arkansas obtained records from Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder’s office, and from Karas Correctional Medical, which is contracted by the jail to provide medical care. As part of our investigation into this incident, we are reviewing the documents connected to COVID-19 precautions and treatment for people in the jail’s custody.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the ACLU has consistently advocated for reducing the number of people in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers across the country to prevent the spread of the virus. Yet as the Delta variant surges throughout Arkansas and the rest of the country, Washington County government officials are instead using federal COVID-19 recovery funds to expand the jail and lock up more people.

The pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 7,100 Arkansans, and at least 52 of those people were incarcerated. Yet in the past few weeks, Sheriff Helder sought and obtained approval from county officials to use $250,000 of the state’s federal recovery funds to obtain engineering reports that are required as the first step toward expanding the jail.

As the pandemic stretches on, the Washington County jail continues to detain more than 200 people for merely failing to appear in court during a pandemic. Courts continue to set impossibly high bonds for minor technical offenses, in spite of ample evidence that higher jail populations lead to the spread of COVID-19 throughout communities. Many people are needlessly incarcerated, subject to the risk of infection by COVID-19 — and to dangerous “treatment” for infection.

The ACLU of Arkansas is once again asking jails and prisons throughout the state to safely release as many people as they can. The detention center’s failure to use safe, appropriate, and available treatments for COVID-19, along with county officials’ plan to use relief money to expand the jail rather than reduce its population or provide appropriate medical care is absurd and incongruous. Washington County’s mistreatment of the people in its custody illustrates the larger systemic problem in jails throughout the country of mistreating incarcerated people, and needlessly locking up more people who pose no threat to public safety — even in the midst of a pandemic.

What you can do:

4,000 People Could Be Sent Back to Prison. Contact Biden Now.

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Queer Voices - LGBTQ News, Opinion and Conversations: When Leaving Campus Means Going Back In The Closet

Sat, 30 May 2020 06:00:26 -0400

For some queer college students, online learning amid COVID-19 means more than just awkward Zoom classes. It means hiding their sexuality or gender identity.

Queer Voices - LGBTQ News, Opinion and Conversations

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Coronavirus | Coronavirus: is the hantavirus a new threat to the world? - AS.com en.as.com/en/2020/03/25/…

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