The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California added refugees from Somalia and U.S. residents from El Salvador and Mexico to its class action lawsuit in federal court here challenging the U.S. government’s right to detain immigrants indefinitely while they await the outcome of immigration proceedings.
Co-counsel in the lawsuit include the national ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, and the law firm of Sidley Austin LLP.
Named plaintiffs in the amended suit are six men held at the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster, CA, for more than six months without having received a detention hearing, in violation of due process and the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The amended complaint revises the original lawsuit known as Rodriguez v. Hayes, which was filed in federal district court in Los Angeles in May 2007 on behalf of Alejandro Rodriguez, a man who was brought to the United States from Mexico as an infant, but was detained for more than three years without ever receiving a detention hearing while his immigration case was being adjudicated. In that suit, Rodriguez asked for a hearing to determine if his prolonged detention was justified and also sought to represent other similarly situated immigrants in the Central District of California.
The federal district court in California refused to grant the case class action status, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision, noting that a class action would provide a remedy for immigration detainees who are unrepresented.
“These six men represent thousands of people forgotten in our immigration prison system, some of whom remain there for years without due process or the right to a lawyer,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, Director of Immigrants’ Rights and National Security at the ACLU/SC.
The six new plaintiffs include:

• Abdirizak Aden Farah and Yussuf Abdikadir, Somalian refugees who requested asylum from their war-torn country but have been imprisoned for months while the immigration courts process their applications;
• Alejandro Rodriguez, a lawful permanent resident from Mexico who came to the United States at the age of one;
• Abel Perez Ruelas, also from Mexico, who entered the U.S. on a visitor’s visa approximately eight years ago and is now married to a U.S. citizen;
• Jose Farias Cornejo, a lawful permanent resident whose family brought him here from Mexico before his first birthday; and
• Angel Armando Amaya, a man from El Salvador who has lived in this country since the age of 11.

   
(l to r: Yussuf Abdikadir, Jose Farias Cornejo and Abdirizak Aden Farah.)
On an average day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detains approximately 35,000 individuals in federal detention facilities and local jails across the country -- more than a threefold increase in the detention population since just a decade ago. In the Central District of California alone, hundreds of detainees each year are subjected to prolonged immigration detention while they fight their immigration cases.
During the past few years, the ACLU has filed multiple lawsuits on behalf of individual immigrants who have been held for prolonged periods of time while fighting their immigration cases, winning the release of more than a dozen individuals who were being unlawfully detained. The U.S. government has released those individuals, but has refused to change its policy on a broader scale.

Nearly two years after President Obama's election, Somali refugee Yussuf Abdikadir could be forgiven for being skeptical about the president's campaign motto, change you can believe in.
After facing severe persecution as a child in Somalia and later as an undocumented Somali refugee in Kenya (birthplace of the president's father, Barack Obama Sr.), Mr. Abdikadir fled to the United States to seek asylum. But federal authorities have incarcerated him in an immigration prison outside Los Angeles while the overburdened immigration courts slowly resolve his asylum case. He has been incarcerated for six months, but a hearing on whether he should be released has yet to take place.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California added Mr. Abdilkadir and five other immigrants to its class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court, Rodriguez v. Hayes, challenging the U.S. government's right to detain immigrants indefinitely while they await the outcome of immigration proceedings. Named plaintiffs in the amended suit are six men from Somalia, El Salvador, and Mexico, each held at the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster, CA, for more than six months without having received a detention hearing, in violation of due process and the Immigration and Nationality Act.
These men's stories are all too familiar. Every day in the Los Angeles area alone, more than 300 immigrants sitting in detention facilities have been there for more than six months - without the right to a release hearing. Hundreds of immigrants across the nation face a similar fate. Many of them never have been convicted of any crime. Each has finished serving any sentence he or she might have had. But the U.S. government continues to maintain that our immigration laws do not permit these detainees the benefit of either lawyers or release hearings.
This draconian policy affects not only refugees like Mr. Abdikadir, but also lawful permanent residents who have lived here nearly their whole lives. Jose Farias Cornejo is another victim of the immigration detention system. He came to the United States prior to his first birthday, the child of migrant farm workers. He considers himself an American  he speaks perfect English, finished school in Los Angeles, and has never known any other country. Like other Americans, though, he had substance abuse problems that led to legal problems. He was convicted of two minor crimes, including a drug offense for which a criminal court judge sentenced him to 60 days in jail. But because he isn't an American citizen, immigration authorities arrested him after his sentence was over and now want to take away his green card for that same crime. Although he almost certainly will win his immigration case because he is eligible for relief to remain here, despite his drug crime, it has taken nearly a year to complete it, during which he has sat in immigration prison.
As stories like this show, the U.S. immigration detention system has become a national disgrace. Nowhere else do we imprison people for so long ''' often for years -- without lawyers or even hearings to determine if imprisonment is really necessary. This broken system inflicts a heavy cost not just to the detainees who languish in the system, but also to their families, and ultimately to the American taxpayer, who has to pay for the cost of imprisoning thousands of people for no reason.
Surely the son of an immigrant should understand that this system needs to change.

The California affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit against the State of California and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today for allowing school districts throughout the state to charge fees for books and other essential educational supplies. This practice violates the California Constitution which, since 1879, has guaranteed children a free education.

The California affiliates include the ACLU affiliates in Southern California, Northern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties. The law firm Morrison & Foerster is co-counsel on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, follows an investigation by the ACLU/SC that uncovered a widespread practice among school districts of forcing students to purchase textbooks, workbooks, and assigned novels to matriculate in academic courses. School districts also charged students to take Advanced Placement examinations, even though completing these examinations is a course requirement and affects students’ grades. The suit contends that this discriminating practice against lower-income children will result in an unfair system where only the wealthy will be able to afford an education that is constitutionally supposed to be free to all regardless of economic status.

“School districts know they cannot charge students for an education; this practice was struck down by the California Supreme Court in 1984,” said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU/SC. “The court said no to pay-to-play then, and it should be no different now.”

Illegal school fees levied against students who strived to be successful in school caused a great academic disadvantage, and the suit alleges that some students who could not afford to pay the illegal fees were overtly humiliated by teachers and school officials. In one incident, a student’s Spanish teacher wrote the teenager’s name on the board because she could not pay for assigned workbooks. The school required this student, who wants to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, to pay $440 annually in course and uniform fees. This was an extreme financial burden for the student’s family.

“The idea of educating every child at public expense ranks with political democracy as one of the United States’ great original social contributions,” said Mark Rosenbaum, Chief Counsel of ACLU/SC. “Each of these ideas rests on a hallowed belief that every child is capable of reaching his or her fullest potential only when we encourage and honor accomplishment based on merit and hard work and disavow class distinctions.”

Another student, who also requested anonymity, was required to pay for a workbook for English class, foreign language workbooks, science lab manuals, and a school-issued agenda, which he could not afford.

The ACLU investigation, while not exhaustive, found 40 school districts that openly violate the state constitution by posting on school websites fees students must pay to participate in educational programs. It is likely that many more school districts are charging similar fees. Some examples of the fees found in the investigation include:

• All public high schools in the Tustin Unified School district in Orange County charge students fees for art courses, music courses, automotive technology, fashion design, interior design and website development;
• Arcadia High School in Los Angeles County charges students fees for art and music courses;
• California Academy of Math and Science in Long Beach Unified School District in Los Angeles County charges students fees for physical education uniforms that they are required to wear; and
• California High School in Contra Costa County requires students to purchase foreign language workbooks and a locker lock from the school.