News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island is honoring the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless and homeless rights advocate Megan Smith at its Annual Meeting Celebration on Thursday, October 22, at the Providence Biltmore.

The ACLU of RI has filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) on behalf of a recent Italian immigrant whom the DMV has barred from taking the written driver’s license exam in any language other than English, Spanish or Portuguese. The complaint, filed with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), charges the DMV with violating a law that requires agencies receiving federal funding to provide meaningful access to programs and services for individuals with limited English proficiency (LEP).

In an important victory against overzealous and unconstitutional immigration enforcement practices, a federal appeals court today rejected efforts by immigration officials to be dismissed from an ACLU lawsuit on behalf of a North Providence resident who was locked up at the ACI in 2009 as a deportable “alien” even though she is a U.S. citizen. Today’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirms a decision issued last year that there are critical constitutional limits on the power of immigration and corrections officials to detain people while investigating their immigration status. Ada Morales, who was born in Guatemala and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1995, was taken into custody on criminal charges in May 2009. While she was being held at the ACI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials lodged an “immigration detainer” against her – apparently assuming, based on her race and her place of birth, that she was a deportable non-citizen. A judge had ordered Ms. Morales released, but the R.I. Department of Corrections held her in custody for an additional 24 hours solely because of the ICE detainer, and even after she repeatedly told officials she was a U.S. citizen and offered to show them her naturalization certificate and passport. In 2012, the ACLU sued on her behalf, arguing that the detention violated her constitutional rights to equal protection of the law and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. In an opinion issued last year, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell, Jr. agreed that Morales had raised viable claims, holding, among other things, that she had “set forth plausible allegations that she was unconstitutionally detained solely based on her national origin and Hispanic last name.” The court also concluded that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t permit ICE or state officials to hold someone in jail merely to investigate their immigration status; an arrest must be based on probable cause, not mere investigative interest. Three of the ICE officials who were sued for being responsible for Morales’s detention appealed that ruling, arguing that they should be dismissed from the suit because at the time of her detention in 2009, the law was not clearly established that probable cause was required in order to issue a detainer against an alleged undocumented immigrant. The appellate court unanimously disagreed today, calling that argument an “unprecedented proposition … contradicted by longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Rather, the court held, “the law was clearly established” in 2009 that probable cause was required to detain Morales pursuant to an immigration detainer. The defendants also challenged the lower court’s holding that Morales had plausibly alleged that she was detained because of her national origin. The appellate court dismissed that portion of the appeal, concluding it was without jurisdiction to consider it. ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown remarked: “The unseemly eagerness of some immigration officials to deport people led to an innocent person’s wrongful imprisonment. I am hopeful that this unambiguous ruling will encourage real reform of ICE’s immigration detainer practices.” National ACLU attorney Kate Desormeau added: “The Court has affirmed that immigration officials, just like other law enforcement officials, must comply with the Fourth Amendment.  The Constitution does not permit ICE to lock people up simply to buy more time to investigate them.” Besides Desormeau, the suit is being handled by Omar Jadwat, senior staff attorney with the National ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Lena Graber, volunteer attorney for the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers’ Guild.  At the district court, Morales is also represented by Mark Ford, Margaret O’Grady, Angela Yoon, and Laura Donovan of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

By Johanna Kaiser, Development & Communications Associate

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of a 106-year-old statute that declares inmates serving life sentences at the ACI to be “civilly dead.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Sonja Deyoe, is on behalf of two ACI inmates and the women who have been barred from marrying them because of the “civil death” law. Rhode Island apparently remains one of only three states that still has on the books a law like this, whose origins date back to ancient English common law.

Racial disparities in suspensions at Rhode Island’s schools reached their highest rates in a decade last year, according to a new report issued today by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island. The report, “Blacklisted: 2013-2014,” found that while white students experienced a ten-year low in suspensions during the 2013-2014 school year, the combined suspension rate for Hispanic, black and Native American students was at its highest level.