News & Commentary

This piece originally appeared on Politico. Until a few weeks ago, I was working as a paralegal at an immigration law firm in a subur

Let’s say you’re a high school or college student or recent graduate who came to the United States from somewhere else as a child. You realized at some point that you aren’t like your friends — you have no permission to live in this country. But this country is all you know. You’ve studied U.S. history, played softball, drunk Slurpees at the 7-11, struggled through the SATs, recited the Pledge of Allegiance. You’re American in every way but the paperwork. And then the government offers you a

On June 22, 1999, Jessica Lenahan’s estranged husband, Simon Gonzales, kidnapped their three daughters from the front yard in Castle Rock, Colorado, in violation of a domestic violence order of protection. As soon as Jessica realized the girls were gone, she contacted the local police and told them she suspected Simon had taken them. She begged the police to try to find him and bring the girls home.Over the next 10 hours, Jessica called and met with the police numerous times, seeking their assistance. Yet, each time the police responded that there was nothing they could do — even though Jessica had a restraining order against her husband — and told her to call back later if the children hadn’t come home. At 3:30 a.m., Simon drove up to the police station and started shooting. The police fired back, killing him. When the police looked in the cab of his truck they found the bodies of the three girls who had been killed. Jessica sued the police and th

Last November, Missourians approved a ballot measure which cleared the way for legislators to pass a bill to make a photo ID a requirement for voting. The law had been on the wish list of state Republicans for about a decade after the Supreme Court struck down a previous voter ID bill for creating “a heavy burden on the fundamental right to vote.” This time, however, Republicans are assuring the public that the voter ID requirement isn’t meant to block people, particularly the poor and people of color, from the polls. “We’re here to let people know we want your vote,” Missouri Secretary of State Jay Aschroft

Not since the Watergate hearings more than 40 years ago has the entire country tuned into a Senate hearing to hear firsthand about wrongdoing by the president of the United States. Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, former FBI Director James Comey led the American people through a play-by-play account of a president pressuring the FBI director on a matter that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has called “bigger than Watergate.” Comey gave us all a lot to think about, but he also gave senators a lot to investigate. Here are a few hig

President Trump thinks surveillance is just “terrible.” “You look at the extent of surveillance,” he

Last week, the ACLU caught up with physician Yashica Robinson, an abortion provider from Alabama and recipient of the 2017 George Tiller, M.D. Award from Physicians for Reproductive Health. Dr. Robinson is board-certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is a fell

The Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a landmark case that will determine how the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects cell phone data that tracks the detailed whereabouts of phone users over time. In 2011, without getting a probable cause warrant, the government obtained from cell service companies several

In the late hours of Thursday night, the Trump administration requested that the Supreme Court review the recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that refused to let the president’s Muslim ban go forward. In doing so, the government has recommitted itself to fighting for the ban, which the Fourth Circuit found “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” The Trump administration made three requests to the Supreme Court. The first focused on preserving