News & Commentary

Eight people were killed and nearly a dozen more injured yesterday when a man drove into the bike lane of a street in Lower Manhattan. Instead of expressing unity and resilience, Trump took to Twitter to further his nativist agenda, calling for entire Muslim and immigrant communities to be punished and for some of the worst national security policies of recent years to be revived. 

California is known for protecting the rights of marginalized people. The ACLU of California sponsored and supported incredible legislation that was ultimately signed by the governor. And we couldn't have done it without our partners.

Local law enforcement, in particular the Sheriffs in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, are fully entangled with immigration enforcement authorities and detain people on ICE’s behalf in our local county jails. In San Bernardino county, ICE agents are also allowed full and unfettered access to county jails. Nationally, 65-75% of deportations occur because of these entanglements.

The people who grow our food shouldn’t have to risk getting sick just to do their jobs. But dozens of California-grown crops—including oranges, lemons, almonds, and walnuts—are often treated with a dangerous pesticide called chlorpyrifos that can cause asthma and brain damage. This toxicant is not safe for pregnant women and children to ingest even in trace amounts, but it is especially dangerous for the farmworkers who come into direct contact with it while they work.

As mobile iris-scanning apps and tools become available, racial profiling by law enforcement could lead to Latinos and people of color having their eyes scanned simply because they speak Spanish or have brown skin.

ICE obtained a warrant to track and locate the cell phone of an immigrant from El Salvador who the government believed to be removable from the country. This is the first evidence we’ve seen of ICE using a Stingray in a specific immigration enforcement operation, but we’ve known for some time that the agency possesses the technology.

It's the 135th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, an immigration law that legitimized racism as policy.

On Nov. 9, 2016 we awoke to a new reality. America had elected Donald J. Trump as its 45th President. “We’ll see you in court” became the ACLU's mantra.

For months, the Trump administration has tried to bully local communities into signing up to become extensions of the federal deportation system. That campaign of threats and public shaming based on flawed data — which has been mostly unsuccessful — suffered another major blow yesterday. A federal court in San Francisco ruled in two cases that the president’s threats were unconstitutional, and stopped the government from carrying them out anywhere in the country. The ruling vindicates the constitutional rights of cities, counties, and states to refuse to participate in deportations. And like the court orders halting the president’s Muslim ban, the ruling shows the crucial role that courts play in preventing presidential overreach.