News & Commentary

Last week, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers arrested a suspect they believe is the elusive "Grim Sleeper" serial killer responsible for 11 murders across South Los Angeles, dating as far back as 1985. The arrest made national news, in part because the LAPD broke the case by using a controversial new technique known as "familial DNA" searching. Prosecutors are now using this success to argue that familial DNA should be used more widely.

Ahilan T. Arulanantham is director of immigrant rights and national security for the ACLU/SC.

Ramona Ripston is Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California.

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit on behalf of 10 U.S. citizens and lawful residents who are prohibited from flying to or from the United States or over U.S. airspace because they are on the government's "No Fly List." None of the individuals in the lawsuit, including a disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran stranded in Egypt and a U.S. Army veteran stuck in Colombia, have been told why they are on the list or given a chance to clear their names.

For many immigrants in this country, the chance to take the oath of allegiance to the United States and become sworn in as a U.S. citizen is a moment they dream about and work years to achieve. But for Tarek Hamdi and many other Muslim immigrants around the country, the dream is tarnished by racial and religious discrimination in the naturalization process.

The

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The ACLU of Southern California sued the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service today for denying a 50-year-old Egyptian Muslim man’s naturalization application based on misleading FBI files and questionable tactics. This disturbing denial is part of what the ACLU/SC, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the National Immigration Law Center believe is a broader pattern of racial and religious profiling in the naturalization process aimed at blocking citizenship for individuals of Muslim countries and coercing them to become FBI informants.

Because the city of Santa Monica has stopped using vaguely worded camping ordinances as a pretext to round up homeless people, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP have agreed to drop a lawsuit against the city over its homeless policies, the legal team announced today. Among the provisions of the settlement are that no one should be forced out of his or her community simply for being homeless; that all communities need to provide a reasonable amount of shelter beds and serves; and public safety personnel must be adequately trained to interact with homeless people.