A Detention Watch Network report released today documents the grim conditions for immigrant detainees housed at Orange County’s Theo Lacy Detention Center, including widespread abuse and substandard medical care.

Six people have brought a landmark class-action lawsuit against Sheriff Baca and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) on grounds they are or were illegally detained in the jails and stations of Los Angeles County Jail for days, weeks, or months after they were entitled to be released because they are the subject of “immigration holds.”

In response to a statement by LAPD Chief Charlie Beck that the department will no longer turn over to federal immigration authorities immigrants arrested for minor offenses, Jennie Pasquarella, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, issued the following statement:

The American Civil Liberties Union of California today called Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision to veto AB 1081, known as the TRUST ACT, a missed opportunity to protect Californians from unnecessary and unjustified detentions and deportations, but vowed to continue the fight to see it become law.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that two community organizations may intervene to help defend a city policy relaxing when police may impound the vehicles of unlicensed drivers. Judge Terry Green today allowed the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), and LA Voice, represented by the ACLU of Southern California, to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the city’s Special Order 7, which allows unlicensed drivers to avoid impoundment if they have valid identification, insurance and registration. 

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction ordering federal immigration officials to provide bond hearings to potentially hundreds of immigrants detained across the Los Angeles area, where they can ask for release under appropriate conditions of supervision. The ruling by U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California Terry Hatter affects up to 500 asylum seekers and other detainees being held due to certain criminal offenses.

In response to a threat by Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to ignore a proposed state law that would limit when local law enforcement must detain illegal immigrant arrestees (“Sheriff Baca may defy proposed law easing immigration enforcement,” Los Angeles Times, August 25), ACLU of Southern California Executive Director Hector Villagra issued the following statement:

Yesterday afternoon, the California State Senate approved AB 1081 – the TRUST Act – with a vote of 21-13. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) is the bill's author; State Senator Kevin de León (D - Los Angeles) served as floor manager for the vote and presented the bill to the Senate.

Hector Villagra, ACLU/SC Executive Director: Today the Supreme Court struck down most of Arizona's SB 1070, the anti-immigrant draconian law that was passed in 2010. Three key provisions were struck down today and these were some of the most outrageous provisions in the law.