News & Commentary

I am a 30-year-old woman and mother of three kids living in Tennessee. My oldest is just over two years old. My two girls are nine-month-old twins. Because the twins were born prematurely, they have significant medical needs. I have no family living nearby, and very little caregiving support. I tried to get my son into daycare earlier this year, but the childcare facility — anticipating that they might have to shut down temporarily because of COVID-19 — declined to accept new enrollments. After my girls were born, I knew I could not handle another child; I am already stretched almost to the breaking point physically, emotionally, and financially. To be absolutely sure I would not face an unintended pregnancy, I decided to get a tubal ligation last year. I was told that it went perfectly; when my doctor assured me that my days of pregnancy were behind me, it was a huge relief. Still, I continued to use condoms for extra protection. But in late March, I started feeling extreme fatigue and other familiar symptoms. I decided to take a pregnancy test, even though I believed I could not possibly be pregnant. After the test came up positive, I took five more.   It is difficult to explain how devastating this pregnancy news was for me. It was finally starting to feel like I was regaining control of my life after the extreme challenges of raising a toddler and two premature twins mostly on my own. But there is no way I could afford another child. Before I had the twins, I saved as much as I could but had to stop working when they were born prematurely. Although I receive monthly support from my kids’ father, food stamps, and can sometimes borrow money from family, it is still a real struggle to make ends meet. I also have epilepsy, and although I have managed my seizures for the past several years with medications, some symptoms of pregnancy like fatigue and dehydration are potential triggers. Since learning about my pregnancy, I have been terrified that something will happen to me that will prevent me from caring for my children. What would happen to my babies if, while I’m alone with them — as I usually am — I had a seizure?   The thought of having a fourth child is gut-wrenching. All of my plans to get back to work, my hopes for my kids’ lives — all of it would go down the drain. I am a strong woman who has overcome a lot of adversity in my life, but this would break me. When I went into my local abortion clinic on April 16 for my counseling appointment, I was nearly 14 weeks pregnant. The clinic provides abortion services only up to 15 weeks, so if I couldn’t get my abortion in the next week, I wouldn’t be able to get care anywhere within three hours of my house.   Then I learned that the Governor of Tennessee had issued an Executive Order that blocked all abortion procedures in the state until April 30.   When I was told that I would not be able to get an abortion anywhere in Tennessee until April 30 at the earliest because of the executive order, I panicked. There is simply no way I could drive six hours round-trip to Atlanta — where the closest out-of-state clinic is located — by myself, with a toddler and two babies. Even if that were possible, who would watch them during the procedure? My babies’ medical needs make it difficult, if not impossible, for me to leave them with someone else while I am gone in Atlanta for a whole day or longer.  I understood that my only other “option” would be to remain pregnant until April 30, hope that I could then quickly get an appointment at a clinic across the state before reaching that clinic’s limit of 19 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy — and then either travel four to six hours round-trip with my kids, or try to leave my kids at home in someone else’s care all day, even though that would be unsafe for my babies. All of this travel would have to happen in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, adding another layer of safety concerns. If I had to leave my children at someone else’s home or a daycare center, how I could be sure it was properly sanitized? If l had to stop along the way with a toddler and two babies to change diapers, how could we possibly avoid touching contaminated surfaces? Caring for a toddler and twin babies, alone, while exhausted from and deeply anxious about an unwanted pregnancy, all amidst a pandemic, is just too much. It has been an extremely difficult two weeks, made all the more stressful and dangerous for me and my family by the state’s actions to ban abortion.   When I heard that the court had granted an order that would allow me to get my abortion locally, I felt incredible relief. Then, when I heard two days later that the state was trying to put the court’s order on hold, I was terrified again. The abortion clinic in my community has already been a blessing in my life: When I faced an unintended pregnancy as a 19-year-old freshman in college, I knew I was not ready to have a child. I needed to finish my education, and save money — to meet my own goals, and to give my future kids the lives they deserve. I am grateful that the clinic was there for me all those years ago, and that I was able to wait until I was ready to have my beautiful children. I know that ending this pregnancy is the right decision — indeed, the only decision — for me and my kids. I pray that all patients will be able to get the abortion care they urgently need during this incredibly difficult time.

Essential workers are on the front-lines during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have suffered higher infection rates because of it. Yet too many of these workers do not have access to paid sick leave and family leave. That means that if an employee comes down with COVID-19, they must choose between safeguarding their own health and the health of others, and potentially losing their job. Nobody should have to make this choice.  Essential businesses include ubiquitous fast-food chains like McDonald’s, whose workers continue to serve food in restaurants and drive-thrus while many of us have the privilege of staying home under shelter-in-place orders. According to a recent survey, 78 percent of McDonald’s workers reported having no access to paid sick leave. That’s a risk for not only the employees’ health, but the health of their family members — and during the outbreak of a highly infectious disease like COVID-19, the health of all of us.  Presently, some franchised McDonald’s restaurants provide a limited amount of paid sick leave to meet local and state laws. Corporate restaurants, which represent less than 10 percent of all McDonald’s restaurants, are required to provide two weeks of paid sick leave to workers who test positive for COVID-19 in accordance with McDonald’s latest policy changes. However, many franchised and corporate restaurant workers have flagged huge problems with implementation, and none of these paid sick leave policies adequately protect workers or public health.

It’s almost the first of the month, and millions of tenants across the country are at risk of losing their homes in the middle of a global pandemic. In the seven weeks since the U.S. declared a national emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic already has resulted in widespread economic consequences. More than 30 million workers have filed for unemployment, though many have yet to receive any benefits. And last month, nearly a third of apartment tenants didn’t pay rent by the first week of April — an alarming sign that many households are struggling to make rent during this crisis.       While Congress and state and city governments have issued some safeguards against eviction, an overwhelming number of tenants are not protected from being kicked out of their homes during a global health pandemic. The CARES Act’s federal ban on evictions only prohibits landlords from filing new eviction actions against tenants living in federally supported or financed housing, and will expire on July 24. Accordingly, most tenants must rely on their state or local governments, leaving many without protection. Landlords in some states, such as North Dakota, Missouri, and Arkansas, are continuing to evict tenants in the absence of any statewide eviction bans. Other states have issued temporary bans on eviction, but even those are significantly limited in scope and leave tenants vulnerable to losing their homes due to procedural hurdles or loopholes. Moreover, many of these statewide bans are time-limited and offer no long-term protections, ensuring that courts will be inundated with mass evictions as soon as these bans are lifted. Many tenants are also at risk of losing water and utility service, posing a major public health threat during a global crisis.   The impact of mass evictions and utility shut-offs will overwhelmingly burden tenants of color and, in particular, Black women. Earlier this year, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and Data Analytics team existing racial disparities that have emerged in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.               The lack of statewide protections against eviction is also concerning for the housing security and safety of women, as tenants struggling to pay rent may be particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and other forms of abuse by landlords during this crisis. There has been an alarming increase in reports of landlords sexually harassing tenants who are unable to pay rent due to COVID-19. Domestic violence survivors, already endangered because their homes are unsafe, face even greater vulnerability if eviction looms. Lack of safe and stable housing is one of the primary barriers that survivors face when trying to escape an abusive relationship. Strong protections against eviction are critical to ensure that tenants do not have to choose between enduring harassment and abuse or being forced to leave their home and compromise their well-being during a pandemic.   The impending flood of mass evictions will undoubtedly risk further spread of COVID-19, as families are forced to double-up with other households, seek refuge in crowded shelters, or find themselves living outside. Even without a public health crisis, eviction often sets off a chain of devastating hardships, including physical and mental health issues, chronic joblessness, financial loss, and homelessness. In the face of a global pandemic and its economic fallout, the harmful impact of eviction is only magnified. Moreover, the aftermath of eviction persists for decades, as individuals with prior eviction records are indefinitely shut out of future housing opportunities due to unfair eviction screening policies that deny housing to anyone with a prior eviction filing.   It is critical that state and local governments work now to ensure that renters do not face a surge of evictions due to an inability to pay back-rent as soon as the bans are lifted. Permitting mass evictions to take place — whether in one month or six — will lead to huge upheavals for families and threaten community stability.   In response to this threat, the ACLU and 20 state affiliates across the country joined housing advocates, organizers, and other groups to demand that their state and local officials take immediate action to prevent mass evictions and utility shut-offs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. State officials must issue comprehensive measures to stop mass evictions and utility disconnections that will:

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed down many businesses, but the ACLU’s work of defending and expanding civil liberties and civil rights continues, essential as ever. At the ACLU, our most immediate focus has been on issues arising from the government’s response — or lack thereof — to the pandemic.   Since the start of the outbreak, we’ve filed over 90 legal actions and have seen thousands of people released from prisons, jails, and immigration detention.

For years state lawmakers have pushed legislation attempting to shut trans people out of public spaces. In 2020, lawmakers zeroed in on sports and introduced 20 bills seeking to ban trans people from participating in athletics. These statewide efforts have been supported through a coordinated campaign led by anti-LGBTQ groups that have long worked to attack our communities. Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most state legislatures, Idaho became the first state to pass a sweeping ban on trans people’s participation in athletics from kindergarten through college. We, along with our partners, immediately sued. Advocates across the country are gearing up to continue the fight against these harmful bills in legislatures when they reconvene. In Connecticut, the ACLU is defending the rights of transgender athletes in a lawsuit brought by cisgender athletes seeking to strike down the state’s inclusive policy.  Though we are fighting every day in the courts and in legislatures, upholding trans rights will take more than judicial and legislative action. It will require rooting out the inaccurate and harmful beliefs underlying these policies. Below, we debunk four myths about trans athletes using the expertise of doctors, academics, and sports psychologists serving as experts in our litigation in Idaho.

How many times have you failed to get a new digital device working properly the first time? While toddlers can (amazingly) master iPhones in minutes, some tech gadgets require many troubleshooting attempts to activate. And even then, they might fizzle.   Last month, the state of Utah learned that simple tech lesson in a very public way.   As part of a series of measures to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert issued an executive order requiring every adult crossing the Utah border to submit an electronic State of Utah Travel Self-Declaration Form with details about their contact information and health status. To implement the order, the state set up nine virtual border checkpoints positioned across major roads and highways. When crossing one of the checkpoints, motorists were supposed to receive a text message directing them to complete a survey form with their name, address, phone number, email, and any potential symptoms or exposure to COVID-19.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people locked up in immigration detention facilities have feared for their lives. Detainees have raised concerns over their inability to practice social distancing and lack of sanitation materials — even basic soap to clean their hands and cells. Instead of addressing these concerns, detention officers have responded to detainees’ pleas for help by punishing them, placing them in in solitary confinement, and even tear-gassing detainees asking for safer conditions. This risk is imminent: Yesterday, news broke that two officers at the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana died of COVID-19 after facility officials barred them from wearing face masks. As of today, at least 449 immigrant detainees have now tested positive for the virus; 45 percent of ICE detainees tested have come up positive for COVID-19. These numbers are likely a severe undercount and will continue to grow. Earlier this month, ICE Acting Director Matt Albence confirmed to Congress that ICE had tested less than two percent of detainees nationwide. Albence also testified that ICE did not plan to release any additional detainees to slow the spread of COVID-19 in detention facilities, as such release could give the impression that the administration is “not enforcing our immigration laws.” The rapid spread of COVID-19 in immigration detention facilities is a prime example of everything that has gone wrong with immigration detention. Justice Free Zones: Immigration Detention Under the Trump Administration, a new report released today by the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and the National Immigrant Justice Center, looks at the origins of this humanitarian crisis. The report shows how the Trump administration laid the groundwork for the current disaster of COVID-19 in immigration detention facilities. It is little coincidence that a disproportionate number of detention centers that now have confirmed cases of COVID-19 came online under the Trump administration. The report explores the vast expansion of immigration detention under the Trump administration; how private prison companies have increasingly profited off this growth; and the ways in which ICE has designed the system so detained people have no clear path out.   While researching this report, our teams conducted site visits to five detention centers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arizona, all opened under the Trump administration. Three of these five detention facilities now have confirmed COVID-19 cases, including the Richwood Correctional Center, where two officers have already died from the virus. Today, 10 of the 28 ICE detention facilities with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are facilities that have opened under the Trump administration. And unless ICE quickly releases medically vulnerable people from detention, COVID-19 outbreaks at these facilities will are set to overwhelm local hospitals and intensive care units. Based on interviews with 150 detained people, detention facility site visits, and analysis of countless records — including some we had to sue to access — Justice Free Zones documents the inhumane growth of the immigration detention machine under the Trump presidency. Our intention is not to suggest that other administrations did not have problematic policies and practices related to detention: The trend toward increased detention and the increased role of private operators has been underway since the early 2000s and rose sharply under the Obama administration. That said, the Trump administration’s approach to immigration detention has created a situation more dire than any in recent memory.     Our research of detention centers opened under the Trump administration exposed sordid conditions and inadequate medical care, abuse and retaliation against detained people who dared speak up against abuse, and the impossible odds for receiving release from detention. These conditions that have set up a tinderbox for COVID-19 to explode. At the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, run by the private prison company LaSalle Corrections, we met a doctor who explained that that a request to see an outside specialist to set a broken bone could be booked “within a week.” We also saw the solitary confinement cell where Roylan Hernandez Diaz, an asylum seeker from Cuba, had died by suicide only weeks before our visit. During our visit, Richwood officials confirmed that there are no mental health professionals available on site at the facility. Forty-six detainees at Richwood have already tested positive for COVID-19; two guards have now died. At the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, run by CoreCivic, Inc., we saw cruel treatment and neglect of immigrants with disabilities. Manuel Amaya Portillo, an asylum seeker with disabilities affecting his mobility who made repeated requests for a wheelchair, which staff did not address, reported that medical staff locked him in the medical unit and gave him sedatives during a facility inspection tour by government-contracted outside inspectors. Other detainees at Winn also reported being locked up in solitary confinement for over a week after talking to journalists about conditions at the facility. Three detainees at Winn have now tested positive for COVID-19. At La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, also run by CoreCivic, Inc., a Honduran asylum seeker told us that another detainee was grabbed by the head and slammed against the wall by officers for taking papers out of his belongings on his first day of detention. People at La Palma reported water leaking into cells, gray drinking water, clogged toilets that were only a foot from the beds, and poor ventilation. Twenty-four detainees at La Palma have already tested positive for COVID-19. At Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Jonesboro, Louisiana, run by LaSalle, many detainees reported that they did not have soap for bathing or cleaning supplies for their cells or bathrooms — even before COVID-19. Several men at Richwood described a recent scabies outbreak, during which they were stripped and sprayed with chemicals by guards. Several people detained at Winn reported black mold growing on the walls and leaks in the roof that would soak peoples’ beds. To date, the ACLU and its affiliates have filed over 30 cases around the country to free people from immigration detention in light of the COVID-19 crisis. The mass growth of the ICE detention machine — as well as the horrific conditions inside them and the huge profits being made off detained people — are not normal. We will not allow these horrors in detention to be normalized. We will not stop fighting for the rights of the people who are caged. It is time for our nation’s immigration system to move away from its reliance on incarceration for management of a civil system. Instead, ICE should utilize alternatives to detention that are more humane, efficient, and cost-effective. We must ensure that Congress reduce funding to ICE for detention operations and shift to community-based alternatives to immigration detention that are not driven by profit.

A month ago, Congress gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)

No one should have to choose between their health and their vote, but during the Wisconsin primary, an estimated 19,000 Milwaukeeans were forced to risk their health to cast their primary ballots. Already, at least seven positive COVID-19 cases have been linked to in-person voting in Milwaukee, including one poll worker who may have interacted with hundreds of other voters, and 19 cases have been linked to the primary statewide. Wisconsin is a preview of what could happen in November if we don’t act. That’s why we’re fighting in the halls of Congress and in courts across the country to adopt common sense solutions to protect every voter’s right to safely cast a ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic and to protect their rights while doing so. To protect our democracy, it’s imperative that we expand early voting, allow every eligible voter to vote by mail, and reduce the logistical, financial, and health barriers that inhibit voting by mail. Currently, there are approximately 16 states that do not allow no-excuse absentee voting by mail. In a number of these states, the limitations are codified in state law or within the states’ constitution, making litigation and congressional action necessary to allow people to safely vote this election cycle.