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Two years ago, the ACLU set a clear goal: push Greyhound to refuse Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers access to their buses to conduct warrantless searches. As part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, CBP officers were targeting bus passengers around the country, boarding their buses to racially profile, harass, and too often, detain people who they suspected of being undocumented. Of course, you can’t tell someone’s immigration status by how they look or sound — this practice is unconstitutional and blatantly racist. By pushing aggressively with the help of our membership and partners, we won: CBP changed its policy to reflect the correct legal position, and Greyhound came out publicly to say it would no longer consent to the agency boarding its buses. This is the story of how we secured this victory, and what’s next in our fight to protect bus passengers around the country from racial profiling and harrassment from CBP.   For decades now, warrantless searches by CBP have been a problem for people who live and work within 100 miles of an international border or coastline. As CBP has grown into the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country, it has been able to expand its authority, unchecked by any accountability measures. The result is a highly militarized federal police force that is infamous for racially profiling and harrassing communities of color who live in the 100-mile border zone. Some of this harrassment took the form of random and warrantless searches at bus stations and on private bus lines, such as Greyhound.    After Trump’s election in 2016, our affiliate partners reported that these random, warrantless searches of Greyhound buses had become more common. The ACLU went to Greyhound directly, explaining that the Fourth Amendment allows Greyhound to prevent agents from boarding buses and questioning passengers without a warrant or the company’s consent. But for two years, Greyhound maintained that even as a private bus carrier, they had no authority to refuse consent.   The ACLU mobilized, putting together a petition signed by more than 111,000 of our supporters. Across the country, we partnered with local organizations and deployed a variety of tactics. We filed lawsuits on behalf of people, including Mr. Sosa and Mr. El Shieky, who had been targeted by CBP’s racial profiling on buses and at stations in Washington. We worked with volunteers in upstate New York and Spokane, Washington to hand out Know Your Rights cards to passengers and remind them of their right to remain silent, regardless of status. We organized to pass local ordinances restricting CBP from bus boarding areas. We called on State Attorneys General offices to investigate the impact Greyhound’s decision not to deny consent had on consumers. We confronted Greyhound again and again.   On February 14, a CBP memo that agreed with the ACLU’s longstanding legal position was leaked to the AP. It stated that private bus carriers could refuse to consent to warrantless searches, even within 100 miles of an international border or coastline.   Once the CBP memo leaked, Greyhound changed its position. Just a week later, the company announced that it would refuse CBP access to its buses. After the ACLU pushed for more specifics on how this new policy would be implemented, the company delivered. Greyhound specified that it would advise its employees to refuse consent to CBP on buses and in stations and would place stickers on its buses stating this position. Taking their new policy a step further, they announced that they would also send a letter to DHS, clearly stating their new position. These policy changes made Greyhound an important model for other bus companies. Once the company announced its policy change, Concord Coach followed suit.   The work at the ACLU is not done. On March 3, Peter Pan Bus Lines, a major Northeast Carrier, announced that they would not be following Greyhound’s lead. In stating their position, the company explained that because their bus routes are concentrated in the Northeast, CBP searches are uncommon. But major Northeast cities such as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, are all within the 100-mile border zone. By allowing warrantless searches on their buses, Peter Pan is exposing its riders to racial profiling and arbitrary searches and detentions. Peter Pan’s customers and employees deserve the same protections that Greyhound and Concord Coach have implemented.   The work to fight for systemic change is never simple — it takes multiple tactics and efforts, and many, many people pushing together in the same direction. Winning often takes years, as this campaign did. But in Spokane, where CBP officers were boarding buses daily, local activists report that they haven’t been there in weeks. In other words, people, regardless of status, can travel freely without fear of interrogation.   We know that social justice work is never static. We will remain vigilant and hold Greyhound and CBP accountable for lasting change in our communities. That is what real change looks like.    

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Earlier this month, the Prison Law Office and the ACLU National Prison Project filed an emergency motion in federal court in Phoenix. The motion asks the judge to order the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) to consult with a correctional health care expert to develop a plan to prevent, manage, and treat any COVID-19 outbreaks in the state’s 10 prisons. You might think this is an obvious request, but we’ve spent the last decade observing the Arizona prison system — its conditions are wholly inadequate during normal circumstances and, during a crisis, the conditions are deadly.   The emergency motion had two additional requests: that any COVID-19 plan include steps to reduce the density of the prison population, and that the federal court order the state to suspend all policies that interfere with slowing the spread of and treating the virus. Those policies include the requirement that incarcerated people pay for soap and hygiene supplies, co-pays for all requests for medical care, and the prohibition of the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers in the prisons. Given what we know about the severity of this pandemic, the ways in which it spreads, and the heightened risk level for incarcerated people and staff who work at prisons, these are critical and urgent steps which must be taken immediately.    The motion was filed in the long-running case of Parsons v. Shinn, which challenges the inadequate health care and excessive use of solitary confinement in the Arizona state prison system. The case was settled five years ago — with a settlement that was meant to protect the rights and health of incarcerated people — but ADC has not lived up to its requirements. In June 2018, the district court found ADC in contempt of court and fined the state more than $1.4 million for numerous violations. The Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld that ruling in January of this year.     We filed our current emergency motion after a few other attorneys and I visited the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence on March 11th and 12th, where we spoke with hundreds of incarcerated people and met with facility health care staff and ADC leadership. Critically, the leadership told us that they did not have a plan in place to detect, prevent, treat, or manage an outbreak of COVID-19.    During the visit we toured crowded, filthy, and unventilated dorms, tents, and Quonset huts that housed elderly, frail men with chronic health conditions and multiple disabilities. Immediately after the tour, the attorneys sent a letter to ADC demanding an immediate review of these conditions and notifying them that we would be turning to the court to intervene.    I visited the Florence prison’s infirmary and special medical housing units. The medical housing unit was really just one big room with 15 to 20 beds side by side, only a few feet apart from one another. Many of the men in the units were bed-ridden, or incontinent. One told me that he hoped that when COVID-19 came to the unit, it would kill him quickly because “I don’t want to live like this.” A different patient with stage IV cirrhosis said, “If the coronavirus comes in here, we’re all dead.”   I spoke to a profoundly immunocompromised man in the infirmary who has leukemia, just finished chemotherapy, has to use soap and towels to clean his cell, and has not been provided any education from staff about COVID-19. He expressed to me his concerns and fears that after years of fighting cancer, he would be killed by this viral infection. In a different medical housing unit, none of the men I spoke to knew anything about COVID-19, other than to express their resignation and — in some cases, hope — that they would be dead soon.   I toured another unit of the Florence prison that consists of numerous Quonset huts that have been modified to house about 12 people per hut. These huts are stuffy, dimly lit, and numerous elderly men who have serious medical problems or physical disabilities are incarcerated in them. People reported that they had to use their personal supplies of soap and shampoo to attempt to disinfect their living areas, and that they had received no education or information about COVID-19, including the symptoms or how to prevent transmission of the disease.    ADC’s failure to address COVID-19 not only jeopardizes the lives of the people incarcerated in its prisons, but also threatens the community at large, as thousands of correctional, health care, and other staff interact with the incarcerated population every day, and then return to their homes and communities.   As I write this, we have learned that ADC just announced it will lift the four-dollar charge for requesting health care by people who have cold and flu symptoms, and it will temporarily lift the charge for soap. This is a step in the right direction, but it is not nearly enough.   It is imperative that the leaders of ADC and prisons across the nation are proactively putting plans in place to prepare for COVID-19 outbreaks, which public health experts have repeatedly warned will be highly dangerous to incarcerated people, staff that work at the facilities, and the communities they’re a part of. The ACLU has

There’s an old saying that goes, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This adage is especially applicable to the Trump administration’s approach toward border policy, which is ever more militarized. On March 6th, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials announced that the Department of Defense would deploy 160 active-duty troops to ports of entry at the border — 80 to El Paso and another 80 to San Diego.   The deployment is the latest disturbing chapter in the administration’s dangerous and inappropriate record of using the U.S. military at the border. To date, through various operations and at various times, it has expanded military presence by sending approximately 16,000 troops — some of whom have been active-duty service members acting under Defense Department authority and others under state National Guard deployments.   In recent months, we witnessed soldiers searching vehicles at primary inspection points at ports in El Paso as well as in secondary inspection areas in the Rio Grande Valley. We’ve also observed troops checking immigration documents in the middle of an international bridge in El Paso. There’s no ambiguity here: The military should not be searching cars or checking documents at ports of entry. These are potentially unlawful actions, and both the Defense Department and CBP must provide answers to how and why these actions are taking place. The deployments send a message that our government sees people arriving at the southern U.S. border as a hostile enemy force, rather than who they actually are: vulnerable asylum seekers and migrants seeking safety or a better life. And the language the administration has been using to describe the mission of those soldiers is deeply concerning. One memo said they might participate in “a show or use of force (lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention, and cursory search.” Troops recently deployed to El Paso and San Diego have already participated in port closure drills that further militarize and terrorize border communities.  Use of the military to conduct searches or other law enforcement duties threatens this country’s long-standing separation between civilian and military government, which dates to the founding and has been reiterated by Congress in landmark statutes, including especially the Posse Comitatus Act. A core component of that civil-military separation is the general prohibition against the use of the military “to execute the law” unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.   The administration’s use of soldiers at the border should concern every American. The U.S. military has no business taking part in law enforcement activities like these at the border or anywhere else in the U.S. And the actions of troops we’ve witnessed don’t inspire confidence that they’re following Defense Department regulations that are intended to limit their role.   The administration’s justification for the 160 troops deployment was unfounded claims that a ruling by a federal court of appeals potentially blocking the administration’s policy of forcibly returning asylum seekers to Mexico required military presence. The Supreme Court has allowed the policy to proceed, but the deployment of troops in response to an unfavorable court ruling is nonetheless troubling. Broadening the use of the military domestically for further unneeded fortification of our ports of entry and the continued expanding of their role raises serious civil rights concerns.    Deploying the military like this isn’t just improper, it’s a misuse of public resources. Retired generals have called these deployments “wasteful” and “dangerous,” and the Border Patrol Union called a past deployment a “colossal waste of time.” The U.S. border is simply no place for the military.    For all these reasons, on March 18, the ACLU’s National Security Project and Border Rights Center sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense and the acting head of CBP raising our concerns with the administration’s expanding use of U.S. soldiers at the border — and the searches we documented. We asked these Trump administration officials to immediately clarify what responsibilities troops have been given at ports of entry and make public all directives and guidance issued to troops about their roles and duties. The military should not be used for law enforcement purposes, and the administration must end this practice now.

As COVID-19 spreads across the United States, and as more public and private actors take drastic measures to combat this pandemic, it is vital that police, prosecutors, judges, parole officers, and governors also respond immediately by reducing the footprint of the criminal legal system.   Public health experts recognize the importance of downsizing jails and prisons as part of the COVID-19 response efforts. Millions of people in prisons and jails eat, sleep, shower, and live in close contact with other people, creating perfect breeding grounds for COVID-19.   In response, public health experts have encouraged stakeholders in the criminal legal system to minimize the number of people entering the system in the first place, while also releasing individuals already in prisons and jails who are most vulnerable to the virus.   There are about 10 million admissions each year into our nation’s jails, with 650,000 people incarcerated in jails on any given day. Some are in jail because they are serving a sentence of less than a year, but most are incarcerated in jails while they are awaiting their trial, many because they cannot afford cash bail. They can remain incarcerated for weeks, months, or even years, even though they have not been convicted of a crime. During this time, local jails become incubators for COVID-19 because of their confined space and generally poor sanitation.   One of the best ways to stop the spread of COVID-19 in jails is to decrease the number of people entering the system. This can be done without compromising public safety, while increasing public health.   Police should limit the number of people who are arrested and then detained in jails, even if just for a short time, preventing people from coming in close proximity to other people or in spaces where maintaining hygiene becomes difficult. Police should stop arresting people for low-level offenses, and in many other circumstances can issue citations or desk appearance tickets in lieu of arrest so that people can return home without ever being booked. This will help balance the public safety justifications for arrest with the overwhelming public health concerns presented by coronavirus, and limit the risk of bringing someone who may have the virus into a station and potentially infecting other personnel or first responders.   Prosecutors can also use their immense discretion to limit the number of people who are held in jails or other confined facilities by drastically reducing their requests for pretrial detention and carceral-based sentences. Prosecutors should avoid cash bail requests and move for release in all but the very few cases where pretrial detention is absolutely the least restrictive means necessary to ensure a person’s return to court. With a special focus on populations who the Centers for Disease Control has identified as particularly vulnerable, prosecutors should also institute a review-and-release protocol in cases which bail was already sought and the person is currently detained.   But the public health response cannot end in jails — it must also include our nation’s prisons, where 1.6 million people live. Reducing the number of people who are currently incarcerated will limit the burdens people face due to incarceration or supervision that place them at elevated risk of being affected by the coronavirus pandemic.   Probation and parole agents as well as parole boards must exercise their authority to limit the number of people who are incarcerated or who are forced into public spaces. Agents should cease in-person check-ins to accommodate the need for social distancing, and should allow check-ins to occur by voice or video call. Where those technologies are not accessible to a person under supervision, minimize or temporarily suspend check-in requirements. Additionally, agents should suspend enforcement of any mobility-restricting supervision conditions that impede a person’s ability to seek medical care or to support loved ones who may have COVID-19. Further, limit the number of people being incarcerated by suspending detainers and incarceration for technical (crimeless) rule violations.   Finally, governors have a large role to play in the public health response. They have a uniquely powerful ability to stop the spread of COVID-19 and limit the harm it inflicts on communities by decreasing incarcerated populations and creating a culture in which transparency, safety, and the health of all people are the paramount concerns.   First and foremost, governors should grant commutations to anyone identified by the CDC as particularly vulnerable and whose sentence would end in the next two years. They should also consider commuting all sentences that would end in the next year, and for anyone currently being held on a technical (crimeless) supervision violation.   Importantly, governors should mandate that sheriffs who process these releases coordinate with local service providers and public health experts so that people who may not be able to return home have a safe, accessible place to be that is also close to medical facilities and services. Governors should consider issuing executive orders that seek to achieve these goals, particularly where local system actors are awaiting that guidance.   The good news is that some jurisdictions are beginning to take action. San Francisco and Cuyahoga County in Ohio have begun to safely release people from jail due to concerns about coronavirus spreading through the jails. Moreover, 31 prosecutors representing 17 million people have called for the downsizing of jails and prisons as part of the response to COVID-19, including adopting cite and release policies for police, releasing people who are held because they can’t afford cash bail, and reducing immigration detention.   One of the best ways to minimize the inevitable spread of COVID-19 in jails and prisons is to decrease the amount of people within the system. Now is the time for bold actions by police, prosecutors, sheriffs, parole officers, and governors to protect people during this public health crisis.    

Voting has never been easy for Native Americans living on rural reservations in Montana, which are often geographically isolated, with limited access to postal service and transportation. The passage of the Montana Ballot Interference Prevention Act (BIPA) has made these obstacles even greater, severely inhibiting Native Americans’ access to the ballot. That’s why we’re suing.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration are putting us on an extraordinarily dangerous path toward the normalization of face surveillance. But because key facts about this surveillance are still secret, the public lacks the information it needs to hold these agencies to account. We’re suing to bring some much-needed transparency. Over the past few years, CBP and the TSA have dramatically expanded their use of facial recognition technology at the airport and other U.S. ports of entry. As of June 2019, CBP had scanned the faces of more than 20 million travelers entering and exiting the country. Several major airlines, including Delta, JetBlue, and United Airlines, have already partnered with CBP to build this surveillance infrastructure, and more than 20 other airlines and airports have committed to using CBP’s face-matching technology. The TSA has also partnered with CBP on face surveillance initiatives, with plans to further expand face surveillance to domestic travelers. Unlike other forms of identity verification, facial recognition technology can enable undetectable, persistent government surveillance on a massive scale. As this technology becomes increasingly widespread, the government can use it to grab unprecedented power to track individuals’ movements and associations, posing grave risks to privacy and civil liberties. When such a technology is placed in the hands of agencies like CBP and the TSA — which have been caught tracking and spying on journalists, subjecting innocent travelers to excessive and humiliating searches, and doesn’t always hold — DHS recently floated the possibility of mandating face surveillance on all U.S. citizens traveling internationally. After members of Congress and civil liberties groups sounded the alarm, the agency quickly retreated. The full set of reasons for this reversal, however, remain unclear, and the government has left open the possibility that it will in the future make face surveillance mandatory for U.S. citizens entering and exiting the country. Moreover, non-citizens are currently unable to opt out of CBP’s face surveillance — leaving the Trump administration with yet another tool for targeting, harassing, and violating the rights of non-citizens. We should also be concerned about mission creep. If this technology is normalized at the airport, it’s only a matter of time before the government cites its use at airports as a basis for deploying it elsewhere. Another problem is the technology itself. Several recent studies have shown that facial recognition technology results in a higher rate of false identifications for people of color. For example, a December 2019 report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found a higher rate of incorrect facial matches for photos of Black and Asian people, relative to white people. One false match can lead to missed flights, lengthy interrogations, tense immigration enforcement encounters, or worse. But even if facial recognition technology worked, its use at airports is a dangerous step toward its further deployment in society at large and raises profound civil liberties concerns. The public urgently needs more information about how the government and airlines are using this information, what privacy protections exist, and the extent to which CBP’s and TSA’s use of the technology discriminates on the basis of race or other characteristics. That we even need to go to court to pry out this information further demonstrates why lawmakers urgently need to halt law- and immigration-enforcement use of this technology. There can be no meaningful oversight or accountability with such excessive, undemocratic secrecy.

Coronavirus should not be a political issue, but with presidential primaries and the general election coming up, it could soon directly impact our politics. We should protect not only our health, but our civil liberties at this time — and one of those civil liberties is our fundamental right to vote.  For many, the best way to vote while safeguarding your health during this time may be to vote by mail. It’s easy to request an absentee ballot and there’s still enough time to do so for most states with upcoming primaries. While some states limit who can vote absentee — for example, to people with health issues, disabilities, or other circumstances that may prevent them from voting in person — most states allow anyone to vote this way. If you live in a state with an upcoming primary where it is still possible to apply to vote absentee, find the date by which your application for an absentee ballot must be received and other requirements below.*  Remember that public health officials recommend that you not lick absentee ballot envelopes, but instead use a wet sponge or cloth to seal them.

Every two minutes, we shed enough skin cells to cover nearly an entire football field. With a single sneeze, we can spew 3,000 cell-containing droplets into the world. And, on average, we leave behind between 40 and 100 hairs per day. As long as we live in the world and leave our homes each day, we can’t avoid leaving a trail of our DNA in our wake. Every strand of DNA holds a treasure trove of deeply personal information, from our propensity for medical conditions to our ancestry to our biological family relationships. And increasingly, police are accessing and testing the DNA contained in our unavoidably shed genetic material without judicial oversight. That’s why we’re asking a court to require police to get a warrant before collecting the DNA we unavoidably leave behind.