Legal: Read the ACLU's filing in Medina v. County of San Bernardino

LOS ANGELES - A 29-year-old Muslim woman who was forced by deputies to remove her religious head covering while she was in custody in San Bernardino County's West Valley Detention Center filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court asserting that her First Amendment religious freedom rights were violated by San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies.

Jameelah Medina, of Rialto, was arrested at the Pomona station of Metrolink's commuter rail system on Dec. 7, 2005, for having an invalid train pass. She was taken to the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga for processing.

Ms. Medina, who was born in the United States and raised in a Muslim family, wears a headscarf known as a hijab to cover her hair, ears, neck and part of her chest. Many Muslim women, like Ms. Medina, believe that they should be covered at all times in the presence of men who are not members of their immediate family.

Despite her repeated requests to keep her head covered during her day-long incarceration, she was forced to remove her hijab in the presence of men she did not know and to remain uncovered for much of the day.

'I tried to tell the officer not to make me remove it because it is part of my religion,' said Ms. Medina. 'Even after the officer had searched me and found nothing, she would not give me back my scarf. I felt humiliated, exposed.'

Ms. Medina was never prosecuted in connection with this arrest.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Southern California, the national ACLU Women's Rights Project and the national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

'In this country, we have the right to practice our religion even when we are in jail or prison,' said Ariela Migdal, staff attorney for the Women's Rights Project. 'San Bernardino County didn't give Jameelah Medina any reason for forcing her to remove her headscarf, and there is no good reason.'

Hector Villagra, director of the Orange County office of the ACLU of Southern California, who filed a similar case three months ago in the city of Orange, said other law enforcement agencies have procedures that allow Muslim women to wear the hijab.

'Other correctional systems, including the federal prisons, allow women to wear headscarves when they are in jail or prison, and San Bernardino County violated Jameelah Medina's rights when they didn't allow her to do so. If other jurisdictions can do it, so too can San Bernardino.'

The attorneys on the case are Ariela Migdal and Lenora Lapidus from the national ACLU Women's Rights Project, Hector Villagra and Ranjana Natarajan of the ACLU of Southern California, and Daniel Mach of the national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

The ACLU is representing a Muslim woman forced to bare her head by San Bernardino County Sheriff's deputies in violation of her religious beliefs.

Some Muslim women choose to wear the hijab as a reflection of their faith. The U.S. Constitution protects individual religious expression, whether in schools, jails or other government buildings.

Jameelah Medina was arrested for having an invalid commuter-rail pass and briefly held. She was not prosecuted.

Despite her repeated requests to keep her head covered, she was forced to remove her hijab.

"Even after the officer had searched me and found nothing, she would not give me back my scarf," said Ms. Medina, who was born in the United States. "I felt humiliated and exposed."

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Southern California, the national ACLU Women's Rights Project and the national ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Photo: Jameelah Medina spoke to the media about her experience

LOS ANGELES - Many immigrants who have satisfied the requirements to become U.S. citizens are left in limbo for months or years due to slow processing of FBI name checks, according to a class-action lawsuit to be filed in federal court. The delays violate time limits in the law that are meant to reduce naturalization backlogs while ensuring national security.

On Tuesday, December 4, the ACLU of Southern California, the National Immigration Law Center, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson will ask a federal judge to enforce the time limits on name checks for people in the naturalization process. The lawsuit, Bavi v. Mukasey, names Attorney General Michael Mukasey and the FBI, which conducts the checks, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), which oversees the naturalization process.

'People's lives are on hold because they are in a bureaucratic black hole. They can't travel abroad without worrying they will be blocked at the border. They can't vote. They can't get business or school loans,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Ranjana Natarajan.

An FBI name check is a routine part of every naturalization application, along with fingerprint and background checks. The name checks are particularly prone to cause delays because similar names result in many false 'hits' that are time-consuming to resolve. The checks can slow the scheduling of naturalization interviews as well as delay final approval of naturalization.

The USCIS ombudsman found that the FBI name check backlogs have grown worse over the past few years, and that the name checks themselves may have little value in identifying persons who pose a threat.

'The current USCIS name check policy may increase the risk to national security by extending the time a potential criminal or terrorist remains in the country,' the report noted. View the report online (pdf).

Thousands of Americans nationwide have been forced to go to court to unblock the delay of their naturalization cases. The government routinely fights or settles these cases rather than fix the underlying problems with name checks.

The plaintiffs in Bavi v. Mukasey include Alex Lee, 26, who was born in South Korea and emigrated with his family in 1998. He applied for citizenship in December 2006. Last Friday he watched in frustration as his parents and brother took the oath of citizenship - even though they filed their applications months later.

Another plaintiff, James Moorhead, was born in England and has lived in the U.S. for 30 years. He has awards from Congress and the city and county of L.A. for foiling an armed robbery. Despite his positive record, he has been waiting more than a year since his immigration interview was abruptly canceled last year.

Bavi v. Mukasey is one of several similar lawsuits that are pending around the country, and the first to address backlogs both for people who have had their naturalization interviews and for those who have not.