Tag Archives: aclu

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ACLU of Colorado sues Boulder over camping and tent bans

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado on Thursday sued Boulder, challenging the city’s bans on camping and tents in public spaces.

Specifically, the lawsuit is asking Boulder to stop enforcing these ordinances under certain circumstances, including when a person cannot access indoor shelter. The suit also seeks to recoup “nominal damages” for the individual, unhoused plaintiffs named in the suit.

“What I’m hoping is that this is a nudge to the city to rethink some of the decisions that it’s made over the past few years,” ACLU attorney and Equal Justice Works fellow Annie Kurtz said.

Boulder acknowledged receipt of the lawsuit but otherwise did not provide a comment on the ongoing litigation.

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Blog, Civil Rights, Legal News, Supreme Court

ACLU Wisconsin calling for temporary ban on evictions amid pandemic

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV)– The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is calling for evictions to be temporarily banned in the state as many residents face financial turmoil caused by the pandemic.

The Wisconsin chapter is joining affiliates in 19 other states to push lawmakers to issue or expand “statewide moratoria against evictions and commit to preventing mass evictions after these moratoria end,” according to a statement Thursday.

ACLU said people of color and women especially are in need of such protections.

“The disproportionate toll that the COVID-19 crisis has taken on communities of color has already been devastating enough, and the burden will only become more severe if action isn’t taken to prevent evictions and utility shut-offs,” said Asma Kadri Keeler, staff attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin.

“Homelessness and housing instability cause a myriad of lasting financial, emotional, and health problems which victimize women of color and their families most acutely. In the pandemic context, it also poses a serious health risk to the public writ large,” Asma Kadri Keeler adds.

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Blog, celebrity legal news, Civil Rights, Immigration, Legal News, Supreme Court

ACLU-MN lawsuit claims ICE illegally held Minnesota man, U.S. citizen for 11 months

ST. PAUL — The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota is suing the federal government for holding a U.S. citizen living in Minnesota in Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) custody for 11 months.

According to a Thursday, March 26, news release from the nonpartisan litigating group, Ali Abdalla sought refuge in the United States from Somalia, and was granted citizenship in 2003. Fourteen years later in 2017, ICE arrested him and threatened deportation despite Abdalla’s citizenship status.

ACLU-MN alleges that ICE broke the law by holding Abdalla for 11 months in three different jails, and never properly investigating whether he was a citizen. They also allege that one Minnesota county jail failed to give Abdalla his necessary anxiety medication, causing additional distress.

ACLU-MN claims immigration officials violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, and falsely arrested and imprisoned Abdalla. The lawsuit says that what happened to Abdalla was a “consequence of official policies, patterns, practices, and customs that manifest not only intentional discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion as well as disregard of basic principles of due process, but also a reckless disregard for human life and liberty.”

While he was in detention, the ACLU-MN said an immigration judge ruled that Abdalla was a citizen and moved to terminate his removal proceedings. But ICE appealed the ruling and held onto Abdalla for five more months.

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Blog, Family, Immigration, International, Legal News

Civil rights groups slam ICE over detentions of pregnant women

BY MALLORY SHELBOURNE – 09/26/17 12:13 PM EDT

Civil rights groups on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security, demanding a review of allegations by pregnant women who were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“The policy violations and inhumane treatment addressed in the complaint are of especially great concern given the Trump administration’s executive orders directing ICE to dramatically expand immigration enforcement actions and increase the number of individuals subject to immigration detention,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement.

The administrative complaint includes accounts from multiple women who were detained by ICE while pregnant, including one woman who said she was unable to obtain medical attention after telling officials she was pregnant and bleeding.

Read Full – http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/352472-civil-rights-groups-slam-ice-over-detentions-of-pregnant-women

Blog, Criminal, Legal News

To fight crime, Miami-Dade may deploy blanket surveillance from the air

BY DOUGLAS HANKS

dhanks@miamiherald.com

Miami-Dade police may deploy sophisticated aerial surveillance capable of photographing everyone outside for 32 square miles in an effort to track vehicles and individuals involved in crimes.

The proposal, first reported by the Miami New Times, would send a surveillance plane high above high-crime neighborhoods to film everything below, according to Lt. Juan Villalba Jr. Already used in Baltimore, the technology lets police pull footage after a crime occurs and try to recreate where the perpetrators came from on their way to the scene and where they fled to afterward.

“It’s kind of like a DVR,” Villalba said, referring to playing back television shows hours after they air. “This will allow us to go back and look at what happened.”

Already used in Baltimore and other cities, the technology has helped spark a national debate on civil liberties as it pushes the edge of what’s possible now in mass surveillance. The camera system tracks how the U.S. pursued suicide bombers in Iraq, and the American Civil Liberties Union has called it “terrifying” for the potential to record every citizen’s movement when he or she is visible from the sky.”

“This is not the way to adopt public policy — no system of surveillance should be put into place until it is first established that there is a need which this system addresses, and that there are protections in place for the privacy of the people of Miami-Dade County,” the ACLU’s Florida said in a statement Thursday from executive director Howard Simon. “Until these protections for the rights and privacy of the people of Miami-Dade County are put into place, the grant request should be withdrawn.”

With increasingly cheaper surveillance cameras already mounted on lampposts, buildings, traffic lights and homes throughout Miami-Dade — not to mention the prevalence of cellphone footage — the sophisticated aerial surveillance arrives at a time when people are used to being recorded when they leave home.

Full Read – http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article153901379.html