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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.

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.

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.

Appellate Court Declines to Overturn Arizona Employer Sanctions Law (09/17/2008)

ACLU Rebukes House for Passing Problematic E-Verify System (08/01/2008)
WASHINGTON, DC – The American Civil Liberties Union rebukes the U.S. House of Representatives for this evening’s reauthorization of the national voluntary employment-verification program (E-Verify). The House has extended a system proven to be ineffective in verifying potential employees’ work status. It has been plagued with errors and has prevented innocent applicants from working.

ACLU Obtains Government "Manual" For Prepackaged Guilty Pleas For Prosecution Of Immigrant Workers In Postville, Iowa (07/31/2008)
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union obtained a government "manual" distributed to defense lawyers assigned to represent immigrant workers arrested and prosecuted in last May's Postville, Iowa meatpacking raids. The document – posted on the ACLU Web site today – contains prepackaged scripts for plea and sentencing hearings as well as documents providing for guilty pleas and waivers of rights that were used to push the more than 300 Postville workers through mass criminal proceedings as quickly as possible.

Civil Rights Groups Urge Appellate Court To Overturn Arizona Employer Sanctions Law (06/12/2008)

ACLU to Testify Before House Judiciary Subcommittee on Electronic Employment Verification (06/10/2008)
WASHINGTON - Timothy Sparapani, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, will testify today before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law about the effects of implementing a mandatory electronic employment verification system in the United States. Sparapani will explain that imposing a mandatory system will endanger the privacy of American citizens, and that its inevitable systemic errors will create a 'No-Work' list of eligible Americans who are wrongly prevented from working by the U.S. government. Six members of Congress will also testify before the subcommittee, marking the growing significance of this issue to both members of Congress and the American people.

ACLU Statement on President Bush’s Directive Mandating Employment Verification for All Governmental Contracts (06/09/2008)
Late last week, President Bush issued a National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive that requires all governmental contracts to go through an employment verification process, checking potential employees against their Social Security file. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been plagued with errors for individual records, resulting in massive backlogs in SSA field offices for the elderly and disabled. Adding employment verification to the SSA’s duties would only exacerbate problems the agency is already facing.

ACLU Demands Government Restore Basic Legal Protections To Meatpacking Workers Arrested In Iowa Raids (05/21/2008)
DES MOINES, IA– The American Civil Liberties Union sharply condemns the denial of basic legal protections to immigrant workers arrested in Postville, Iowa meatpacking raids last week and calls on the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to eliminate arbitrary and unreasonable deadlines for mass plea bargains. The U.S. Attorney's Office and DHS have implemented a troubling system that appears to be designed to undermine fairness and due process by criminally prosecuting the over 300 immigrant workers for identity theft and fraud and rushing them through criminal proceedings with insufficient legal representation.

Employment Verification Would Create a ‘No Work List’ in the U.S. (05/06/2008)
WASHINGTON – As the House Ways & Means subcommittee on Social Security met today to debate employment eligibility verification systems, the American Civil Liberties Union sounds its call for Congress not to erect barriers for Americans who seek employment. The hearing is to examine the impact that employment verification systems would have on the Social Security Administration (SSA), an already overburdened governmental agency.

Civil Rights, Immigration Policy And Workers' Rights Groups Present New Evidence On Devastating Impact Of "No Match" Rule (04/25/2008)
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union, Immigration Policy Center (IPC), National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and Low Wage Immigrant Worker (LWIW) Coalition presented new evidence today that confirms that if the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) proposed "no match" rule goes into effect, it will result in the mass firings of U.S. citizens and other authorized workers and have a devastating impact on American businesses and the economy.

E-Verify Would Cost $40 Billion, CBO Says (04/08/2008)
WASHINGTON – The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released the estimated cost to implement H.R. 4088, the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act of 2007, and found that the proposed legislation would cost taxpayers more than $40 billion over 10 years. H.R. 4088, introduced by Representatives Heath Shuler (D-NC) and Tom Tancredo (R-CO), would implement a national employer verification system and mandate it for all new hires. It is currently under consideration for a “discharge petition” that would allow the bill to bypass the traditional committee markup process and instead go directly to the House floor.

ACLU And MALDEF File Lawsuit Against Arizona Town Over Anti-Solicitation Law (03/25/2008)
PHOENIX – A local Arizona anti-solicitation ordinance targeting day laborers violates the free speech rights of individuals who express their availability to work by standing in public areas, charged the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in a lawsuit filed today in U.S. District Court in Phoenix.

Civil Rights Coalition Charges That Republished "No Match" Rule Will Hurt American Workers (03/21/2008)
WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today reissued a "no match" rule with no substantial changes that would continue to put American and other authorized workers at risk of losing their jobs. If the newly released DHS rule were to take effect, it would still improperly use social security records for immigration enforcement.

Senate Budget Resolution a Setback for Minorities in the Workplace (03/14/2008)
WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union expressed its disappointment with yesterday’s Senate adoption of Senator Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) amendment to the budget resolution. The amendment rolls back federal civil rights enforcement authority created in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Alexander amendment cuts funds allocated to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to prosecute workplace discrimination based on national origin, and redirects the funds to the Department of Education for English language training. Yesterday the Senate also passed an amendment offered by Sen. Kennedy to increase funding for English language training by $1 million.

Civil Rights Coalition Continues To Fight Arizona Employer Sanctions Law (02/28/2008)
PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) will continue to challenge the so-called Legal Arizona Workers Act in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The appellate court issued a decision today denying the coalition’s request to delay the law going into effect while the court considers the appeal. The court’s order did not express any view on the statute’s constitutionality and ordered the appeal to be expedited.

Civil Rights Groups File Lawsuit Over Van Nuys Workplace Raid After ICE Bars Attorneys From Immigration Interviews (02/14/2008)
LOS ANGELES — The ACLU of Southern California, National Lawyers Guild, and National Immigration Law Center asked a federal judge today to order U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow attorneys for workers arrested in last Thursday’s raid in Van Nuys to represent their clients at their immigration interviews. Over the past few days, ICE officials barred attorneys from accompanying their clients to the hearings, where workers were interviewed and then charged with immigration violations.

Challenge To Arizona Employer Sanctions Law Continues In Appellate Court (02/07/2008)
PHOENIX - After a Phoenix federal court today issued a decision that would allow Arizona officials to begin enforcement of the so-called Legal Arizona Workers Act on March 1, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) announced that they will ask the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to suspend the Act.