Turpin Hill

Our Leaders Have the Power to Decarcerate and Save Lives, But Where is the Will? | American Civil Liberties Union Research shows that reductions in the United States incarceration rate would have prevented millions of COVID-19 cases and tens of thousands of deaths, both inside jails and prisons and in their surrounding communities. For those of us working with incarcerated people during the pandemic, this confirms what we already know : decarceration will save lives and is a vital part of pandemic response. So why, with the Delta variant tearing through the country and a new, vaccine resistant variant discovered, are we not seeing more releases? In part, this is due to a failure in leadership. Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Ralph Gants explained the dilemma in his comments on a lawsuit to increase releases from the state’s detention facilities: “We’ve got the governor saying, ‘Not my problem, I shouldn’t be ordered to do something.’ We’ve got the Department of Correctio...

Family Surveillance by Algorithm: The Rapidly Spreading Tools Few Have Heard Of Last month, police took American Idol finalist Syesha Mercado’s days-old newborn Ast away because she had not reported her daughter’s birth to authorities, while she was still fighting to regain custody of her son from the state. In February 2021, Syesha had taken her 13-month-old son Amen’Ra to a hospital because he had difficulty transitioning from breast milk to formula and was refusing to eat. What should have been an ordinary medical visit for a new mom prompted a state-contracted child abuse pediatrician with a known history of wrongfully reporting medical conditions as child abuse to call child welfare. Authorities took custody of Amen’Ra on the grounds that Syesha had neglected him. Syesha has been reunited with Ast after substantial media attention and public outrage, but continues to fight for the return of Amen’Ra. Meanwhile, it took over a year and a half for Erin Yellow Robe, a member of t...

Understaffed, Unsanitary ICE Facility in New Mexico Fails Annual Inspection This piece originally appeared on the ACLU of New Mexico’s blog . The privately-run ICE detention center in Torrance County, New Mexico failed its government inspection earlier this year, with a newly released report finding severe understaffing, unsanitary food, and visitation rules that were inaccessible to people with no money, among other complaints. The failed inspection is the latest in a series of troubling news for the Torrance County Detention Center, which earlier this year reported a massive COVID-19 outbreak among detainees and staff, as well as reports of guards using harsh chemical agents in response to a peaceful hunger strike protesting conditions at the facility. The Torrance detention center in Estancia, southeast of Albuquerque, detains male migrants for ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as men and women for Torrance County. It is managed by CoreCivic, a private for-profit priso...

Here’s What You Need to Know About the White House’s Plan to Promote Voting Access Today on voter registration day, the Biden administration has a crucial opportunity to promote voting access. This past March, the Biden administration issued an executive order instructing federal agencies to put together plans to promote voting access through voter registration. The federal agencies will submit their plans to the White House this month. Especially with the innumerable attacks on the right to vote — more than 400 anti-voter bills have been introduced in 48 states during the 2021 legislative session — the Biden administration must ensure federal agencies propose and implement plans to provide robust and effective voter registration services. The purpose of the Executive Order on Promoting Voting Access is to “protect and promote the exercise of the right to vote, eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting, and expand access to voter registration and accurate election infor...

Ohio’s New State Legislative Maps Are Unconstitutional – Here’s Why Last week the Ohio Redistricting Commission enacted maps reflecting new electoral district boundaries. As the first state in the nation to pass statewide maps this year, Ohio had a promising opportunity to show the country what fairly apportioned electoral district boundaries look like. Instead, the state of Ohio presented a map that was grossly gerrymandered and far from fair. That’s why the ACLU filed a lawsuit this week challenging the Ohio state legislative map as unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. Many states, like Ohio, have used the redistricting process to manipulate electoral boundaries to their political advantage — a practice known as gerrymandering — and to the great disadvantage of voters. It’s a dangerous political practice in which bad actors slice and dice our communities so politicians can pick and choose who they represent. Resulting in politicians who are not accountable to wider population...

Ohio’s New Congressional Maps Are Unconstitutional – Here’s Why Last week the Ohio Redistricting Commission enacted maps reflecting new electoral district boundaries. As the first state in the nation to pass statewide maps this year, Ohio had a promising opportunity to show the country what fairly apportioned electoral district boundaries look like. Instead, the state of Ohio presented a map that was grossly gerrymandered and far from fair. That’s why the ACLU filed a lawsuit this week challenging the Ohio state legislative map as unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. Many states, like Ohio, have used the redistricting process to manipulate electoral boundaries to their political advantage — a practice known as gerrymandering — and to the great disadvantage of voters. It’s a dangerous political practice in which bad actors slice and dice our communities so politicians can pick and choose who they represent. Resulting in politicians who are not accountable to wider population, be...

Addressing Racialized Violence Against Migrants Requires a Complete Overhaul of Customs and Border Protection The latest violent imagery to emerge from Border Patrol’s actions at the U.S.-Mexico border warrants not only outrage and immediate action , but also deep reforms to an entrenched culture of abuse at Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the federal law enforcement agency that includes the sub-agency Border Patrol. One video from Del Rio, Texas shows a Border Patrol officer telling a Haitian migrant, “This is why your country’s shit, because you use your women for this!” This abhorrent comment is not an aberration: CBP has long had a pervasive culture of cruelty and dehumanization of migrants that includes this kind of — often anti-immigrant and racist — verbal abuse . The Biden administration must ensure CBP personnel treat people with dignity and humanity. Narrow investigations and hollow assurances are not an adequate response to Border Patrol’s horrifying treatment and ve...

Why We’re Joining the Call to Shut Down ICE Detention Centers When President Joe Biden came into office, he promised to end the cruelty and inhumanity of President Trump’s immigration policies. While the Biden administration has halted some of the former administration’s cruelest policies, far too many unjust anti-immigrant policies remain, and thousands of immigrants are paying the price. On Biden’s watch, Border Patrol agents are now attacking Haitian asylum-seekers and migrants in Del Rio, Texas — including small children. The government is using the illegal Title 42 program to fly people to Haiti, a country reeling from political unrest and severe natural disasters, without the opportunity to apply for asylum or other protections. Almost twice as many people are detained on an average day by Immigration and Customs Enforcement than at the start of this administration, many in prisons run by private corporations that are profiting from human misery. Only two out of more than 200 ...

Why We’re Joining the Call to Shut Down ICE Detention Centers When President Joe Biden came into office, he promised to end the cruelty and inhumanity of President Trump’s immigration policies. While the Biden administration has halted some of the former administration’s cruelest policies, far too many unjust anti-immigrant policies remain, and thousands of immigrants are paying the price. On Biden’s watch, Border Patrol agents are now attacking Haitian asylum-seekers and migrants in Del Rio, Texas — including small children. The government is using the illegal Title 42 program to fly people to Haiti, a country reeling from political unrest and severe natural disasters, without the opportunity to apply for asylum or other protections. Almost twice as many people are detained on an average day by Immigration and Customs Enforcement than at the start of this administration, many in prisons run by private corporations that are profiting from human misery. Only two out of more than 200 ...

Cruel and Violating: How Texas’ Abortion Law Assaults Our Fundamental Rights When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) into law in May, I felt an unwelcome sense of déjà vu. In January of 2016, I was dialing every phone number I could find, trying to locate a clinic where I could receive abortion care in Austin, where I live. After many phone calls, some of which I accidentally made to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, I finally found one of the last open abortion clinics and got an appointment. I was seven weeks pregnant, and their schedule was packed; the earliest opening they had was more than two weeks later. This was the wreckage of House Bill 2, a restrictive abortion law passed in 2013 that forced approximately half of all abortion clinics in the state to close. The U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately overturn the law in June 2016, just months after I had my abortion, bringing relief to Texans seeking basic health care. This month, Texans like me hoped ou...

How Much Do You Know about Redistricting? It’s official: The once-in-a-decade redistricting process has begun. Communities and jurisdictions across the country are crunching 2020 census data to redraw district lines. The way these lines are drawn will determine political representation, resource allocation, and the weight of your vote. The stakes are high, so it’s critical we watch closely as our district lines take shape. Take this quiz on redistricting to test your knowledge. Stay informed about our work Sign up Published September 23, 2021 at 10:54AM via ACLU (https://ift.tt/2ZpNtOR) via ACLU

Ivermectin “Treatment” in Arkansas Jail Illustrates Systemic Abuse Last month, people detained in a Fayetteville, Arkansas jail became the unwitting subjects of an unsafe experiment — like many incarcerated people before them. In late August, a county official revealed during a budget meeting that a doctor employed at the Washington County Detention Center had been treating COVID-19-positive incarcerated people with ivermectin. The anti-parasitic drug has garnered increased media attention in the last few weeks as poison control centers across the country field an increasing number of calls from people who have misguidedly attempted to treat or prevent COVID-19 with the drug. The FDA has warned that ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for treatment or prevention of COVID-19, and that the misuse of ivermectin can cause serious harm, including seizures, comas, and even death. As COVID-19 ravages communities in Arkansas, the ACLU is fighting for the detained people...

Remembering Damon Thibodeaux, Who Survived Death Row I first met Damon Thibodeaux early in 1998, on death row at Angola Prison in Louisiana. I was his lawyer for the next 15 years, while he successfully fought for and won his exoneration and freedom in 2012. I was his friend until he died, on August 31, of COVID-19. The Damon I met that day at Angola was beaten down and almost defeated by injustice and hardship. His childhood had been tough: He was raised by an impoverished single mother who loved him but could not protect him from abuse. At 21, he was arrested for a murder he did not commit. A year later he was convicted at a farce of a trial and sentenced to death. I’d come to ask him to let me represent him on appeal; he answered that he didn’t see the point. If he gave up his appeals, he reasoned, the hell of wrongful imprisonment and solitary confinement would be ended sooner, by his execution. Death penalty lawyers call this “volunteering” for death. We try to offer hope in a...

Public Trust in Artificial Intelligence Starts With Institutional Reform Gaining the public’s trust in artificial intelligence (AI) will take more than just setting technical standards. It will require that institutions using this technology first prove they are worthy of our trust. Earlier this year, Congress passed its most significant law to date on AI. As part of this law, Congress tasked the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with creating a framework to manage risks associated with the use of AI. While this is a critical first step towards AI accountability, technical standards alone can’t guarantee trustworthiness in AI development and use. That’s why last week we sent a letter responding to NIST’s draft proposal on methods to manage bias in AI. AI might evoke science fiction to some, but it is already being deployed throughout our society in ways that directly impact rights and liberties. For example, AI is used to determine where police resources will ...

A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity: Why the U.S. Should Keep its Promise to Diversity Visa Winners Update 9/14/2021: This week, the House Judiciary Committee will begin markup of immigration provisions in the Build Back Better reconciliation bill. As of Monday morning, the language restores access to diversity visas for people who were selected in the diversity visa lottery but were denied visas due to Muslim, Africa, and immigrant travel bans and COVID-19 related disruption. Now the fight continues to ensure the language stays in the reconciliation bill and becomes law. I was six years old when I first saw the Statue of Liberty, on a trip to New York with my parents and two younger siblings. We were not tourists. We were immigrants about to embark on a new chapter of life in America, carrying immigration papers that felt like gold after winning the diversity visa lottery. Today, thousands of people from around the world are being denied that same chance at the American dream because ...

Drug Treatment is Infrastructure COVID-19 was not the only deadly public health crisis of the past year and a half. The overdose epidemic killed a record 93,000 Americans in 2020, ravaging communities across the country, and may be on track to be worse in 2021 . While the nation has combated COVID-19 by prioritizing medical research, vaccine production, treatment development, and implementation of common-sense public health measures, our response to the overdose epidemic has been tragically meager. In this moment of investment in our nation’s infrastructure, it is time for federal, state, and local governments to change course and invest in proven, life-saving public health tools to finally stem the tide of overdoses across the country. It is no mystery what prevents overdose deaths. Studies consistently show that medical treatment and prevention, not punishment , saves lives. Yet, the most effective support for our family members, friends, and neighbors who use drugs are largely u...