LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The ACLU of Southern California today applauded Calabasas Mayor Mary Sue Maurer and the other members of the Calabasas City Council for approving a new resolution on grant funding for community groups that eliminated language from an earlier version that violated First Amendment protections.

After receiving a strongly worded letter from the ACLU/SC that raised the constitutional concerns and threatened possible litigation, the City Council voted 5-0 on Wednesday night to rescind the old resolution and enact a new one. The new law eliminates language that prevented community organizations whose principals had “open or pending lawsuits” against the city, or who had vaguely defined “political affiliations,” from qualifying for city grants.

“We’re very pleased that the city responded to the concerns we expressed and eliminated the portions of previous funding language that we considered unconstitutional,” said Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU/SC. “Barring a group from obtaining city funding based on past or pending litigation comes dangerously close to a loyalty test. And if the city’s goal is to avoid the political use of city funds, it can do so by putting restrictions on how the grant money is used, rather than by restricting which organizations qualify.”

In fact, the city will now rely on the legal restrictions on political activity that apply to nonprofit organizations under federal income-tax laws, Calabasas City Attorney Michael G. Colantuono told the council in a report. “The city is fully supportive of rights of free expression and appreciates this opportunity to clarify that commitment,” he said in the report.

The ACLU/SC sent the first of two letters to Calabasas city officials in July after learning that the city had passed its resolution on grant funding in April. At that time, the council made it clear that under the resolution, otherwise qualified organizations would not receive funding if they had engaged in litigation against the city.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that litigation, because it is a way of petitioning the government for redress of grievances, is constitutionally protected activity,” Eliasberg wrote.

This is a joint release by the ACLU of Southern California and the County of Orange.

ORANGE, CALIF. -- Attorneys for the ACLU of Southern California, Orange County office, representing an association of day laborers, have reached an agreement with counsel for several Orange County defendants in a lawsuit over the First Amendment rights of day laborers to seek work in public areas of the city of Lake Forest.

In the agreement, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the day laborer association affirm the First Amendment right of all individuals to solicit work on public sidewalks in the city unless there are violations of law. They also affirm the right of contractors to solicit workers in public areas of the city as long as no law is violated. Accordingly, under the agreement, the county defendants retain full authority to enforce laws regulating conduct, including those prohibiting jaywalking, double parking or littering.

“This agreement recognizes that certain basic rights belong to all people,” said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU/SC). “Everyone has the right to free expression on the public sidewalk, so long as they are not violating state or local law.”

The terms of the agreement do not include the payment of money by the County of Orange, the Orange County Sheriff's Department or any of the individual defendants, and there is no admission of wrongdoing by any defendant. The agreement allows the plaintiffs to file a motion with the district court to seek payment of attorneys’ fees and costs.

The agreement comes 17 months after the ACLU/SC, acting on behalf of day laborers in the Lake Forest area, filed suit against the city of Lake Forest and several representatives of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department over a local city ordinance barring laborers from soliciting work on local street corners, and over alleged acts of intimidation and harassment targeting those day laborers.

Plaintiffs La Asociacion de Trabajadores de Lake Forest (ATLF), Colectivo Tonantzin, and The National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) complained that the Lake Forest ordinance was illegal because it targeted speech by a specific group and left workers no alternative way to express their availability for work, thus infringing on their constitutionally protected freedom of expression. The plaintiffs further complained that just as the ordinance could not lawfully target the expression of workers, neither could the defendants, through informal acts, seek to discourage workers from engaging in protected speech. The plaintiffs thus claimed that certain practices of sheriff’s deputies interfered with First Amendment rights.

The Orange County defendants maintained throughout the lawsuit, and continue to maintain, that it is the policy of the Sheriff's Department to respond to criminal violations, crime trends, citizen complaints and observations of criminal/suspicious behavior in the same manner throughout the city of Lake Forest. The Sheriff's Department does not discourage the free expression of any individual's constitutional rights, including the right to peaceably assemble on public sidewalks and express availability to work. It is, and has been, the policy of the Sheriff's Department to enforce the law without bias to gender, race, ethnicity or socio-economic standing.

Three weeks after the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit, the city repealed the ordinance. However, the plaintiffs alleged that even after the repeal, the defendants continued in their informal enforcement efforts targeting day laborers soliciting work, so the plaintiffs continued to pursue the litigation.

In June 2008, the plaintiffs settled with a private security company working for business owners in the area that had been added as a defendant in the litigation. At that time, the plaintiffs also agreed to dismiss the city of Lake Forest and its City Council members as defendants, but continued to pursue the case against the Orange County defendants.

On August 18, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter urged the remaining parties to resolve the dispute themselves, although both sides were prepared for a trial.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The continued incarceration of a transgender refugee from Mexico who was tortured in her home country and has been granted asylum by a U.S. immigration judge is 'unconstitutional,' the ACLU and two legal partners argued in a petition filed today.

Seeking to end Oscar 'Diana' Santander's 15 months in jail, the habeas corpus petition filed in federal court calls for her release or an immediate hearing at which the government would be required to show how her lengthy and continuing detention is justified. The Southern California and San Diego affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union filed the petition, together with the Casa Cornelia Law Center and the private law firm Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger.

Santander, who was tortured in Mexico by police and other government officials, was granted asylum and relief under the Convention Against Torture in May by an immigration judge. However, the government continues to incarcerate her at the San Diego Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, Calif., while the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Homeland Security appeals the ruling.

'Controlling federal law bars the government from imprisoning people who have won relief under the Convention Against Torture,' said Ahilan Arulanantham of the ACLU of Southern California, lead counsel in the case. 'It is shameful that the government refuses to follow that law, particularly in this case, where it has resulted in the imprisonment of a person with serious medical needs without any kind of detention hearing.'

The U.S. government contends that Santander cannot be released because she is an aggravated felon, a claim based on statements at her asylum hearing that prior to 1990, she was incarcerated in Mexico on a robbery charge. The immigration judge found no merit to that government claim at the hearing, citing lack of information or evidence of the alleged offense.

'Once again, the government is abusing its power and breaking the law. It has no right to continue locking up Ms. Santander. It should release her immediately," said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial counties.

The petition filed by the ACLU and its partners argues that Santander is not likely to ever be deported, and that her continued detention therefore violates the Immigration and Nationality Act and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The Ninth Circuit Court has twice stated that people who have prevailed in their asylum applications cannot be detained for a prolonged period. The circuit court has also twice held that foreign nationals detained for a prolonged period must be afforded a hearing where the government bears the burden to show that their detention remains justified.

'When, as here, a noncitizen has been detained for over fifteen months outside of any kind of criminal process, the detention becomes punitive,' the petition states.