News & Commentary

Thirteen non-profit organizations today sent letters to Governor Gina Raimondo, Attorney General Peter Kilmartin and Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Suttell asking them to take specific actions within their power to help protect Rhode Island’s immigrants.  The diverse signatories included the RI Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Muslim Civic and Community Engagement, RI State Council of Churches, Refugee Dream Center, Fuerza Laboral, and Dorcas International Institute of RI.

As part of a nationwide effort, the ACLU of Rhode Island and five other New England ACLU affiliates today filed a lawsuit demanding government documents about the on-the-ground implementation of President Trump's Muslim bans.

The ACLU of RI is proud to testify today in support of the Community Safety Act at the Providence City Council's Ordinance Committee public hearing.  The comprehensive ordinance was spearheaded by the STEP Up Coalition to ban racial profiling and other discriminatory practices by Providence law enforcement, and "change the way that police interact with members of our community…"

Lately, we’ve gotten a surge of requests for our Know Your Rights information on anti-Muslim discrimination, police practices, and protests and demonstrations.  Given the recent deportation raids, Trump’s “border wall” and “Muslim ban” executive orders, and the nationwide protests that have sprung up in response, we’re not surprised.  Here are quick links to some Know Your Rights pamphlets – to keep you informed and help your efforts to educate others. Feel free to share these widely.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request today with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) local field office in Boston to expose how Trump administration officials are interpreting and executing the president’s immigration ban, and in particular how they appear to be acting in violation of federal courts that ordered a stay on the ban’s implementation. The FOIA request was filed jointly with the ACLU affiliates in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont as part of a coordinated ACLU effort across the country.

A federal court has ruled that federal immigration officials and the state of Rhode Island violated the Constitution in detaining a U.S. citizen without probable cause while the federal government investigated her immigration status.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and the R.I. Disability Law Center today announced the favorable settlement of a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of a profoundly deaf person who was not provided an interpreter to allow him to communicate after he was arrested and detained overnight in jail by Woonsocket police for allegedly making an obscene gesture. The groups expressed hope that the settlement, which addresses important issues regarding municipal agency obligations to accommodate people who are deaf or hard of hearing, will serve as a model for police departments across the state.

Concluding that a 42-year old U.S. Supreme Court decision gave her “no authority to invalidate the Statute as unconstitutional,” U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi today upheld a 107-year-old Rhode Island law that declares inmates serving life sentences at the ACI to be “civilly dead.” The lawsuit, filed last year in U.S. District Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Sonja Deyoe, was on behalf of Woonsocket resident Shelby Ferreira and inmate Cody-Allen Zab, who had been barred from marrying because of the “civil death” law.

According to a national report released by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, blacks in Rhode Island were arrested for drug possession at almost three times the rate of whites in 2014. That rate was higher than the national average, which shows blacks being arrested at about two-and-a-half times the rates of whites. This major disparity at both the state and national level exists even though national studies repeatedly show that blacks and whites generally use drugs at roughly similar rates.