Court Cases

Throughout California, thousands of people are not allowed to vote because they are on parole for such statutory felonies as drug offenses and shoplifting. And while African-Americans constitute less than 7% of California's adult population, in 2006 they were approximately 28% of all those disenfranchised as a result of being in prison or on parole for a felony. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the Impact Fund filed an amicus brief in the CA Court of Appeal in the case Legal Services for Prisoners with Children v. Bowen, outlining the breadth and implications of disproportionate disenfranchisement of people of color.

Seeking to address years-long delays in the processing of citizenship applications, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and other civil rights organizations filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government for its violation of the Constitution and federal law. Ahmadi v. Chertoff sought to enforce federal laws that require the government to decide a citizenship application within 120 days of the naturalization test.

A settlement was finalized September 16 between the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) in its case involving Kebin Reyes, a U.S. citizen who was six years old when he was illegally detained for ten hours by immigration officials. We argued that Kebin's constitutional rights were violated when he was taken from his home in San Rafael during a raid in which ICE officials arrested his father, who is from Guatemala.

Federal class action lawsuit filed in 2008 charging that the city of Antioch and its police department are engaged in a concerted campaign of intimidation, harassment, and discrimination against African-Americans who receive federal housing assistance.