Press Releases

ACLU Statement on LAPD Use of Force on Unhoused People and Their Supporters

LOS ANGELES – People who are unhoused in Echo Park and those who support them were subjected to use of force by the Los Angeles Police Department and city officials who direct it.

ACLU Report: The Criminalization of Homelessness in Lancaster 

Report, Two Years in the Making, Spotlights Banishment of Unhoused People to the Desert

Lancaster Sued Over Unlawful Citation System Targeting Poor People

LANCASTER — In the City of Lancaster, people who are homeless are treated as criminals and subjected to citations that carry fines far beyond their means to pay. They can appeal, but in a Kafka-like situation, the city demands that a fine be fully paid before an appeal can be heard.

Demand Letter to ICE: Release All Detained Immigrants

Today, new enforcement priorities under the Biden administration – set out in a memo issued by Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary David Pekoske on January 20 — go into effect, marking a sharp reversal of a 2017 Trump directive under which virtually any undocumented immigrant was an ICE

ACLU Statement on CA Investigation of L.A. Sheriff’s Department

LOS ANGELES — Today, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the state was launching a civil rights investigation into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, among other groups, urged in a letter in October that an investi

Ninth Circuit Court Allows Jose Bello Immigrants’ Rights Case to Continue

BAKERSFIELD — In a key victory for immigrants’ rights and free speech, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today overruled a lower court ruling that rejected the lawsuit of  Jose Bello, a college student and activist who was arrested and jailed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce