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.

Los Angeles needs a new jail. That's what the ACLU/SC is telling county leaders. The decrepit, overcrowded Men's Central Jail puts inmates and guards at risk of disease and violence. The answer: Tear it down and rebuild it smaller.

The ACLU/SC supports calls from Sheriff Lee Baca and special monitor Merrick Bobb to demolish the sprawling jail near downtown L.A.

Senior Counsel Melinda Bird also urged county supervisors at a Nov. 27 meeting to think creatively about how to reduce L.A.'s jail population, now the nation's highest.

"Building a new jail is prohibitively expensive only if we assume that we must replace 6,000 beds," she said. "A new jail tower with 1,000 or 2,000 beds, constructed next to Men's Central Jail, will cost far less than renovation and come on line faster."

The ACLU/SC urged L.A. to follow the path taken by New York City, which shrunk its jail population by one-third during the 1990s through common-sense steps. These included faster processing of defendants in the criminal justice system, pre-trial diversion programs, and improved discharge planning for inmates with mental illness and addictions.

These reforms would also help end the department's addiction to stopgap measures such as early release.

"If we could speed court processing so that average length of stay was reduced by just three days, we would save 2,000 beds without resorting to early release," Bird said.

These alternatives keep the community safe, but are far cheaper than building prison beds.