By Duncan Roy, ACLU client
Duncan Roy was arrested in November 2011 on a charge of extortion for threatening to blog about the legality of a real estate deal. He was held at a sheriff’s station in Lost Hills before being transferred to Men’s Central Jail.
After I was arrested, I was granted bail by the police. And I should have been let out that, and in any other circumstance, I would have been let out that night; the bail bondsman would have turned up, he would have posted bail, I’d have been home. well, I wasn’t home. Because when the bail bondsman turned up, he was told that I was on an ICE hold. 
An ICE hold is a request from the federal government for local law enforcement to hold someone in jail for immigration purposes.
You know what, over the next week, two, three weeks, we tried really hard to post bail. And on each occasion the bail bondsman was told that I could not post bail because I was under an ICE hold. During the time that I was there it was simply about surviving day after day. It was a very cruel and difficult environment. There was lots of people with severe mental health problems in the jail, and a lot of cruelty to the gay population where I was housed in the men’s county jail.
Before I went into jail, I had a thriving business at my house -- I have a house in Malibu which I rented out through various websites, and I had done very well renting to people, and obviously the day that I was arrested that came crashing to a halt. All of my income stopped. I was also in negotiation to start shooting a movie. The bills weren’t paid, the mortgage wasn’t paid... those things were -- it was hard to watch your life crumble. My family were desperately worried and -- obviously -- confused, baffled, as to how this could have happened.
Those nights that were the hardest were just remembering that I had worked very hard in this country -- brought my life savings to the United States, had invested in property, had decided to make my life here. And was here legally when I was arrested. And could still be treated the way I was treated.
You don’t have to be illegal -- you don’t have to be illegally here to be treated like this. I was legally in the country and I was still treated like this.
After 89 days of imprisonment, ICE lifted Duncan’s immigration hold. The Sheriff’s Department allowed him to post bail and released him.
When I was finally released from jail, three months after I was put there, it was a bit of a shock. It was a bail bondsman that picked me up and took me home. Finally, he could post bail. And he expressed his frustration at how hard he had tried to get me out of that place.
I’m lucky because I know that I can -- I have a voice that will be heard. That I’m lucky that I can get out there and tell people what I saw, and I’ll be believed. Many of the people I met in that jail will never be heard, will never be listened to. Just because they’re poor, or they’re homeless, or they’re transsexual, or they’re loud, or they’re black, or they’re Latino -- their voices will not be heard. And it’s a tragedy.
Learn more about ICE holds at www.aclusocal.org/ice-holds.

Budget cuts, teacher layoffs and over-crowded classrooms have been headline stories across California in recent years, but Palisades High students were warned last week that now is the time to really pay attention to the crisis threatening their school year.'
'We're in the worst of it,' said Brooks Allen, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, when he talked to members of the Human Rights Watch Student Task Force chapter and other students on October 10. 'Now is the time to step up and fight for your education.'
Allen, a fierce advocate for educational opportunity, predicted that if the two education funding initiatives on the November 6 ballot'Proposition 30 and Proposition 38'are defeated, 'trigger cuts' could go into effect in the middle of this school year, and worst-case scenario budgets will be implemented.
This could mean slashing 20 days from the current school year across California and shrinking the year to just 160 days, creating 'the shortest school year in the industrialized world,' Allen said.
An early end to the school year would further undermine a public education system in California that already ranks 50th nationwide in student-teacher ratio and 46th in per pupil spending, and laid off 11 percent of the teaching workforce between 2007 and 2011.
'We are looking into an abyss'the worst in our lifetime,' Allen said, and he praised the STF for taking the initiative with its current campaign'fighting for the right to a quality public education for all students.
Back in September, Allen told student leaders from 14 STF schools across the Los Angeles region at a conference at UCLA, 'You have a strong voice if you choose to exercise it.' Last week at Pali, he provided some specific ideas.
He urged the 18 year olds to register to vote, and to encourage their friends of voting age and adults in their family to follow suit. 'When you leave today, make sure you share what you have learned with people who vote,' said Allen, who also emphasized the importance of the students' voice and action within the community. 'Change stems from our young leaders because their young voices can create much more change in Sacramento and beyond.'
Allen told the STF: 'The student voice doesn't get heard enough. When I am in Sacramento for hearings, you do not have student advocates'except on a very rare occasion. The whole group [referring the Senate Education Committee] gets silent when students do come up; all business grinds to a halt because they realize it's a special opportunity to actually hear directly from students.'
'Hearing Brooks Allen talk today was really energizing because it reminded me that we, as students, are not powerless,' said senior Kenzie Givens, the STF co-president. ''He demonstrated that it's possible to create lasting, impactful change within our community'that we can really stir up a lot of positive, progressive energy.'
Allen's visit to PaliHi is one of many events the HRW Student Task Force is holding this year to advocate for the right to education. Pali and four other chapters will co-host an Assembly candidate/education issues forum at 7 p.m. on October 25 at the Santa Monica Main Library. The League of Women Voters of Santa Monica is the co-sponsor.
The Pali STF meets every Wednesday at lunch under the guidance of teachers Angelica Pereyra and Sandra Martin. Visit: www.hrwstf.org.
By JACK DAVIS

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on behalf of people who say they were denied bail for minor offenses after being flagged by immigration authorities.
British filmmaker Duncan Roy, who says he spent nearly three months in L.A. County jails without a chance to post bail, is one of the five plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which will be filed today in U.S. District Court.
Roy was arrested Nov. 15 in Malibu on an extortion charge. He was in the country legally but was identified as a suspected illegal immigrant through a federal program called Secure Communities, which sends the fingerprints of all arrestees through an immigration database.
Sheriff's Department officials rejected Roy's repeated efforts to post $35,000 bail, citing a detention order by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the lawsuit alleges.
The ACLU and other plaintiffs' attorneys say the bail denials have been a blanket practice by the Sheriff's Department, affecting thousands of people who are subjected to ICE holds in local jails. The lawsuit notes that the denials may have ceased in the last week.
A Baca spokeswoman said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment on its specifics. She disputed the charge that the Sheriff's Department has denied bail to anyone because of ICE holds.
"If you are able to post bail — say it's $10,000 — and you're an immigrant from wherever. With or without an ICE hold, we accept that," said the spokeswoman, Nicole Nishida.
A report by prison expert James Austin cites data from Baca's office indicating that at least 20,000 Los Angeles County inmates, nearly all of them Latino males, were subjected to ICE holds in 2011.
As many as 17 other counties, including Orange, San Bernardino, Sacramento and San Diego, also allegedly deny bail for defendants with ICE holds, according to John Bench, president of the Golden State Bail Agents Assn.
"The principle of bail is something so fundamental, that you shouldn't be held until you're found guilty," said Jennie Pasquarella, an ACLU attorney involved in the lawsuit.
The dangerous conditions in the nation's largest jail system, which will be overseen by a special monitor after a scathing report by a blue ribbon panel, add "insult to injury" for anyone detained unnecessarily, Pasquarella added.
The Obama administration's deportation policies, which rely on cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, have come under fire in California. Legislation that would have prohibited sheriffs and police departments from enforcing ICE holds in most cases was vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown last month.
Denying bail to arrestees would go above and beyond Secure Communities, which requires only that local law enforcement agencies honor the 48-hour ICE holds.
Alain Martinez-Perez, another plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, was arrested in December following a domestic dispute. He spent several days behind bars while his cousin's efforts to post bail were rejected because he was under an immigration hold, the lawsuit says.
"People should not be abused in this way," Martinez-Perez, a 37-year-old immigrant from Mexico, said in an interview. "The law should reflect the need to protect all people. We come to America to make better lives, not to be abused and treated differently from others."
By Cindy Chang, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-aclu-baca-20121019,0,2183199.story