News & Commentary

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.

Did you know that California pioneered the public defender system in the early 1900s? It's time for our state to step up again.

One disturbing new trend is the increase in immigration arrests at state courthouses across the country. Beyond posing public safety dangers, these arrests also threaten our constitutional rights.

We fled Guatemala looking for a safer and more peaceful life. What happened to us after crossing the border changed our lives.