News & Commentary

The ACLU today announced the release of Lilian Calderon, a Rhode Island mother who was detained last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Calderon has lived in the United States since she was brought across the border at the age of three, and her sudden detention separated her from her husband and two young children. "Lilian’s detention was inhumane and unlawful," said Adriana Lafaille, staff attorney at ACLU of Massachusetts. "We are pleased that she is back home with her family, and will continue to work to protect Lilian’s rights and to fight against arbitrary detentions like this one." In 2016, Calderon and her husband began a process created by the government that allows individuals in Calderon’s situation to apply for lawful permanent residency. On January 17, she appeared at the Johnston, Rhode Island offices of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) with her husband for an interview designed to confirm their marital relationship – the first step in the process of seeking to become a lawful permanent resident. At the end of the interview, USCIS recognized their marital relationship as legitimate, setting her one step further along the path of seeking her status. Immediately afterward, she was abruptly detained by ICE and taken to a detention facility in Boston. "In this case, the government’s left hand beckoned her forward, and its right hand grabbed her,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island. “This is yet another local example of families torn apart and lives disrupted for no legitimate immigration enforcement purpose. We are glad that she is able to return to Rhode Island and her family." The ACLU of Massachusetts – with support from the ACLU of Rhode Island – filed a petition in federal court to seek the immediate release of Calderon. The lawsuit argued that Calderon’s detention was a violation of her constitutional right to due process and federal immigration laws and regulations. "I am so happy to see my husband and children again and to be out of immigration detention, which was a terrible ordeal for our family,” said Calderon upon release. “What the government is doing to my family, and to so many others, is simply wrong."

By: Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts and Steven Brown, Executive Director, ACLU of Rhode Island

BREAKING 2/6/18 11:20AM: Judge bars removal of Calderon outside Massachusetts while the suit is pending.  The judge's order is available here.

Here’s a look at the top issues – including some big victories and losses – of 2017:

Where were you a year ago? We were digesting the election results and hoping that the Trump presidency wouldn’t be based on the same hateful ideas that made up much of his campaign.  By February, we had stopped hoping and were hard at work trying to protect Rhode Island’s immigrant communities.  And that was just the beginning of what has been a challenging year for our founding principles.  We have been VERY busy – both challenging federal threats to our rights, and working to safeguard and expand justice in the Ocean State in response to those threats. Here’s a look at a sample month-by-month snippet of what we have been up to in resisting the Trump anti-civil rights agenda:

Responding to President Trump’s decimation of the DACA program – the Obama program that provided legal status to young children brought to the country unlawfully by their parents – a diverse array of seventeen organizations that work with, or advocate for the rights of, immigrants in Rhode Island have sent letters to all state legislators and municipal leaders calling on them to help DACA recipients with the tools at their disposal. The organizations said in separate letters to state legislators and municipal leaders that they were “heartened by the many strong condemnations of the President’s actions” from state and local leaders, but that “the time has now come for action, not just words” to protect those victimized by Trump’s “inhumane action.” The letter to legislators noted that they had the opportunity to pass three bills pending in the General Assembly – and could do so as early as their upcoming special session this month – to provide protection to DACA students while the program remains in limbo:             *  H-6021, which would generally bar schools and other “sensitive locations” from allowing ICE agents access to their facilities without a warrant, passage of which would give DACA students “at least some limited protection from the roundups that have been happening elsewhere.”             * H–5237, which would treat DACA recipients as Rhode Island residents for purposes of qualifying for in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities, allowing them to continue their education even as their legal status remains in limbo. The letter noted: “We can’t condemn President Trump for refusing to treat DACA recipients as Americans if we refuse to treat them as Rhode Islanders.”             * Passage of narrower versions of two bills, S-183 and H-5686, that would provide special driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. The groups urged that the bills be amended to specifically authorize licenses for DACA recipients, who currently qualify for driver’s licenses but will no longer be able to do so once their status expires under Trump’s DACA repeal.

The Trump administration today announced the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program. The DACA program has served as a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of young immigrants who were brought to this country as children and know the United States as home. The following is a statement from Steven Brown, ACLU of RI executive director, reacting to the White House announcement rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program:

In a case that led to a groundbreaking court decision limiting the power of immigration officials, the ACLU today announced the settlement of a lawsuit it filed in 2012 on behalf of Providence resident and United States citizen Ada Morales, who was twice unlawfully held at the ACI because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials erroneously deemed her to be a deportable “alien.”

In response to the reported arrest by ICE agents of an undocumented immigrant outside a Providence courthouse, ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown today issued the following statement: