Home : Immigrants' Rights

ACLU Joins Lawsuit Challenging Trafficking Of Indian Guestworkers (11/17/2008)
NEW ORLEANS - The American Civil Liberties Union today charged that workers brought to the United States from India to work in shipyards after Hurricane Katrina were misleadingly recruited, exploited and mistreated. The ACLU and the law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP joined a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of over 500 guestworkers charging the workers were trafficked into the U.S. through the federal government's H-2B guestworker program with dishonest assurances of becoming lawful permanent U.S. residents and subjected to squalid living conditions, fraudulent payment practices and threats of serious harm upon their arrival.

Problematic E-Verify Program Expanded to Include All Federal Contractors (11/14/2008)
WASHINGTON - Today, President Bush issued a final rule requiring all federal contractors to use E-Verify, a flawed governmental system to check the citizenship status of the workforce, as a condition of doing business with the federal government. This rule would also require re-verification of some current federal contracts. This unprecedented expansion will require the compliance of millions of governmental contractors, for which the systemic infrastructure simply does not exist.

Federal Court Of Appeals Hears Arguments On Hazleton Anti-Immigrant Law (10/30/2008)
PHILADELPHIA – The American Civil Liberties Union argued in an appellate court today that it should uphold the landmark July 2007 ruling by a federal court in Pennsylvania that declared the city of Hazleton's anti-immigrant law unconstitutional. Hazleton's law would punish landlords and employers who are accused of renting to or hiring anyone the city classifies as an "illegal alien."

U.S. Citizen Who Was Illegally Detained and Twice Deported Is Latest Victim of Government's Unconstitutional Immigration Enforcement Policy (10/30/2008)
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A U.S. citizen who was illegally detained and twice deported to Mexico said immigration officials refused to believe his claim of citizenship, even when his mother traveled to the border to show Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents his birth certificate.

Civil Rights Coalition Charges That Finalized "No Match" Rule Will Hurt American Workers And Economy (10/23/2008)
WASHINGTON – The "no match" rule reissued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today will put the livelihoods of authorized workers – including U.S. citizens – at risk, have a devastating impact on the already suffering U.S. economy and lead to widespread discrimination in the workforce, according to a coalition of civil rights organizations.

Attorney General To Reconsider Rules Protecting Immigrants From Lawyers' Mistakes (10/07/2008)
NEW YORK – In a radical departure from years of legal precedent, Attorney General Michael Mukasey is considering ending the practice of allowing immigrants to reopen cases that they lost because of their lawyers' mistakes or incompetence. Mukasey announced that he was considering the issue late this summer and then imposed the unrealistic deadline of October 6 for interested parties to submit briefs, preventing organizations opposing the change, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Bar Association (ABA), from providing a meaningful response.

Bill Ushers in Humane Standards for Immigration Detention Facilities (10/03/2008)
Washington, DC – Today Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) introduced legislation to adopt humane standards for immigration detention facilities that are legally enforceable. The ACLU applauds Rep. Roybal-Allard for her leadership in ensuring that all immigration detainees receive basic minimum protections including access to medical care, phones, legal materials, and law libraries. The bill, H.R. 7255, the Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act, also provides special protections for unaccompanied children, sexual abuse victims, survivors of torture, families with children and other vulnerable populations.

ACLU Agrees to Represent Family of Chinese Detainee Who Died at Wyatt Detention Facility (09/29/2008)
PROVIDENCE, RI - The Rhode Island ACLU today announced that it has agreed to provide legal representation to the family of Hiu Liu ("Jason") Ng, the 34-year-old Chinese detainee who died last month while in the custody of immigration officials at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. The case will be handled by RI ACLU cooperating attorney John J. McConnell, Jr. of the law firm of Motley Rice, LLC.

Governor Signs Important Disaster Victim Protection Bill (09/29/2008)
A bill requiring public employees who provide evacuees with disaster-related assistance to do so without asking for information or documents not strictly necessary to determine eligibility for the services, AB 2327 (Caballero), was signed into law by the governor yesterday. Civil rights organizations that had provided assistance to victims of last year's California wildfires applauded the bill.

ACLU Applauds Senators Menendez and Kennedy for Bill to Protect U.S. Citizens from Unlawful Detention and Deportation (09/26/2008)
Washington, DC – Last night, Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduced legislation to protect U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents from being unlawfully detained and deported by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In the wake of sweeping immigration raids that have devastated communities across the country, the ACLU welcomes this bill, S.3594, The Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act, as the first legislation to require DHS to follow due process standards in executing immigration raids.