ACLU

Oct. 31 (UPI) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois sued the Trump administration Friday for allegedly violating the civil rights of those detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill.

The suit, which includes lawyers for the MacArthur Justice Center, the ACLU of Illinois and the Chicago law office of Eimer Stahl, was filed in federal court in Chicago, a press release said.

The suit demands that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and ICE “stop flouting the law inside Broadview.” The press release said the agencies “must obey the Constitution and provide the people they detain with ready access to counsel and humane conditions of confinement.”

Since the beginning of Operation Midway Blitz on Sept. 8, in which federal agents increased actions against undocumented immigrants in and around Chicago, protests and legal battles have ensued. On Tuesday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order on Gregory Bovino, a U.S. border patrol commander, after video footage showed Bovino throwing tear gas into a crowd during public demonstrations in Chicago and outside of the Broadview detention center. Clergy members, media groups and protesters had filed a suit alleging a “pattern of extreme brutality” intended to “silence the press” and American citizens.

Judge Sara Ellis ordered all agents to wear body cameras. She also ordered Bovino to check in with her daily, but an appeals court overturned that requirement.

“Everyone, no matter their legal status, has the right to access counsel and to not be subject to horrific and inhumane conditions,” said Alexa Van Brunt, director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois office and lead counsel on the suit, in a statement. “Community members are being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights. This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It must end now.”

The press release said that agents at Broadview “have treated detainees abhorrently, depriving them of sleep, privacy, menstrual products, and the ability to shower.” Agents have repeatedly denied entry for attorneys, members of Congress, and religious and faith leaders, it said.

DHS has not responded to the suit or its allegations.

“This lawsuit is necessary because the Trump administration has attempted to evade accountability for turning the processing center at Broadview into a de facto detention center,” said Kevin Fee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, in a statement. “DHS personnel have denied access to counsel, legislators and journalists so that the harsh and deteriorating conditions at the facility can be shielded from public view. These conditions are unconstitutional and threaten to coerce people into sacrificing their rights without the benefit of legal advice and a full airing of their legal defenses.”

Lawyer Nate Eimer emphasized the importance of access to a lawyer.

“Access to counsel is not a privilege. It is a right,” Eimer, partner at Eimer Stahl and co-counsel in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “We can debate immigration policy but there is no debating the denial of legal rights and holding those detained in conditions that are not only unlawful but inhumane. Justice and compassion demand that our clients’ rights be upheld.”

BATON ROUGE, La. — The immigration detainees sent to a notorious Louisiana prison last month are being punished for crimes for which they have already served time, the American Civil Liberties Union said Monday in a lawsuit challenging the government’s decision to hold what it calls the “worst of the worst” there.

The lawsuit accuses President Trump’s administration of selecting the former slave plantation known as Angola for its “uniquely horrifying history” and intentionally subjecting immigrant detainees to inhumane conditions — including foul water and lacking basic necessities — in violation of the Double Jeopardy clause, which protects people from being punished twice for the same crime.

The ACLU also alleges some immigrants detained at the newly opened “Louisiana Lockup” should be released because the government failed to deport them within six months of a removal order. The lawsuit cites a 2001 Supreme Court ruling raised in several recent immigration cases, including that of the Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, that says immigration detention should be “nonpunitive.”

“The anti-immigrant campaign under the guise of ‘Making America Safe Again’ does not remotely outweigh or justify indefinite detention in ‘America’s Bloodiest Prison’ without any of the rights afforded to criminal defendants,” ACLU attorneys argue in a petition reviewed by The Associated Press.

The AP sent requests for comment to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.

The lawsuit comes a month after state and federal authorities gathered at the sprawling Louisiana State Penitentiary to announce that the previously shuttered prison complex had been refurbished to house up to 400 immigrant detainees that officials said would include some of the most violent in ICE custody.

The complex had been nicknamed “the dungeon” because it previously held inmates in solitary cells for more than 23 hours a day.

ICE repurposed the facility amid an ongoing legal battle over an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” and as Trump continues his large-scale attempt to remove millions of people suspected of entering the country illegally. The federal government has been racing to to expand its deportation infrastructure and, with state allies, has announced other new facilities, including what it calls the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska. ICE is seeking to detain 100,000 people under a $45 billion expansion Trump signed into law in July.

At Angola last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters the “legendary” maximum security prison, the largest in the nation, had been chosen to house a new ICE facility to encourage people in the U.S. illegally to self-deport. “This facility will hold the most dangerous of criminals,” she said.

Authorities said the immigration detainees would be isolated from Angola’s thousands of civil prisoners, many of whom are serving life sentences for violent offenses.

“I know you all in the media will attempt to have a field day with this facility, and you will try to find everything wrong with our operation in an effort to make those who broke the law in some of the most violent ways victims,” Landry, a Republican, said during a news conference last month.

“If you don’t think that they belong in somewhere like this, you’ve got a problem.”

The ACLU lawsuit says detainees at “Louisiana Lockup” already were “forced to go on hunger strike” to “demand basic necessities such as medical care, toilet paper, hygiene products and clean drinking water.” Detainees have described a long-neglected facility that was not yet prepared to house them, saying they are contending with mold, dust and ”black” water coming out of showers, court records show.

Federal and state officials have said those claims are part of a “false narrative” created by the media, and that the hunger strike only occurred after inaccurate reporting.

The lawsuit was filed in Baton Rouge federal court on behalf of Oscar Hernandez Amaya, a 34-year-old Honduran man who has been in ICE custody for two years. He was transferred to “Louisiana Lockup” last month from an ICE detention center in Pennsylvania.

Amaya fled Honduras two decades ago after refusing the violent MS-13 gang’s admonition “to torture and kill another human being,” the lawsuit alleges. The gang had recruited him at age 12, court documents say.

Amaya came to the United States, where he worked “without incident” until 2016. He was arrested that year and later convicted of attempted aggravated assault and sentenced to more than four years in prison. He was released on good-time credits after about two years and then transferred to ICE custody.

An immigration judge this year awarded Amaya “Convention Against Torture” protection from being returned to Honduras, the lawsuit says, but the U.S. government has failed to deport him to another country.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has been very clear that immigration detention cannot be used for punitive purposes,” Nora Ahmed, the ACLU of Louisiana’s legal director, told AP. “You cannot serve time for a crime in immigration detention.”

Mustian and Cline write for the Associated Press. Mustian reported from New York.

Before Disney announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to ABC, the dialogue about the indefinite pause on his late-night show had continued to heat up.

Protesters packed the Hollywood block where Kimmel’s show is taped and sounded off both online and in public displays since the announcement of the suspension last week, and a horde of actors, writers, musicians and artists made their opinions on the matter clear.

Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Kerry Washington, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Maya Rudolph and more than 400 other artists signed an open letter organized by the American Civil Liberties Union calling for the defense of free speech in the wake of Kimmel’s benching.

The letter, which was published Monday, says Kimmel’s suspension marks “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation” and said that the government’s “attempt to silence its critics” runs “counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees.”

“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter continues. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power — because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

The letter came together over the weekend, according to Jessica Weitz, director of artist and entertainment engagement at the ACLU. The list of names continued to grow after the letter was published, she said.

“Behind those signatures are teams of people who made their own calls to their networks to ask people to join, feeling strongly that this attack on free expression must be called out,” Weitz said in a statement to The Times. “When speech is being targeted with so much precision, it takes courage from every single person to speak out — and the creative community is meeting the urgency of this moment.”

Kimmel’s late-night program, which airs weeknights on ABC, has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The decision came after two major owners of ABC affiliates said they were dropping the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Late-night hosts were quick to respond to the news, with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon each commenting on Kimmel’s situation in their Thursday episodes.

Over the weekend, HBO talk shows “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” weighed in on the controversy, beginning with Maher, who focused on Kimmel in his monologue Friday. Maher referred to “Politically Incorrect,” his late-night show that was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were “not cowardly.” Kimmel’s show replaced Maher’s slot.

“I got canceled before cancel even had a culture,” Maher said. “This s— ain’t new. It’s worse. We’ll get to that. But you know, ABC, they are steady. ABC stands for ‘Always be caving.’ So Jimmy, pal, I am with you. I support you. And on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland.”

Maher, who is a self-described “old-school liberal” and has been critical of the Democratic Party in recent years, said he disagreed with Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s suspected killer but believed he shouldn’t lose his job over them.

“You have the right to be wrong or to have any opinion you want, he said. “That’s what the 1st Amendment is all about.”

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver zeroed in on Kimmel’s suspension and the Federal Communications Commission during his Sunday night episode. He blasted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, directly addressed Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and dove into the implications of the suspension in a nearly 30-minute-long segment.

“Kimmel is by no means the first casualty in Trump’s attacks on free speech. He’s just the latest canary in the coal mine — a mine that, at this point, now seems more dead canary than coal,” Oliver said. “This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point, and not because comedians are important, but because we are not. If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air and do so in plain view, it can do a f— of a lot worse.”

In addressing Disney head Iger, Oliver urged him to understand that “giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time.”

Oliver said his show is “lucky” to be in a different situation than Kimmel’s because neither HBO or its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, owns broadcast networks, meaning they are “much less susceptible to pressure from the FCC.” He then cut to a news segment about how Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, is preparing a bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which Oliver followed up with repeated expletives.

The women who host ABC’s “The View,” which is known for not shying away from hot-button topics, had been silent on the issue last week, but addressed Kimmel’s suspension Monday.

“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” host Whoopi Goldberg said. “I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.”

FCC head Carr has indicated that “The View” might be the next subject of a future investigation.

The panel, including Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin, also weighed in before Goldberg said, “We fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.”

The Trump administration announced Saturday that National Guard troops were being sent to Los Angeles — an action Gov. Gavin Newsom said he opposed. President Trump is activating the Guard by using powers that have been invoked only rarely.

Trump said in a memo to the Defense and Homeland Security departments that he was calling the National Guard into federal service under a provision called Title 10 to “temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions.”

What is Title 10?

Title 10 provides for activating National Guard troops for federal service. Such Title 10 orders can be used for deploying National Guard members in the United States or abroad.

Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation’s leading constitutional law scholars, said “for the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling.”

“It is using the military domestically to stop dissent,” said Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “It certainly sends a message as to how this administration is going to respond to protests. It is very frightening to see this done.”

Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar,” announced the plan to send the National Guard in an interview Saturday on Fox News as protesters continued confronting immigration agents during raids.

“This is about enforcing the law,” Homan said. “We’re not going to apologize for doing it. We’re stepping up.”

“We’re already ahead of the game. We were already mobilizing,” he added. “We’re gonna bring the National Guard in tonight. We’re gonna continue doing our job. We’re gonna push back on these people.”

Newsom criticized the federal action, saying that local law enforcement was already mobilized and that sending in troops was a move that was “purposefully inflammatory” and would “only escalate tensions.”

The governor called the president and they spoke for about 40 minutes, according to the governor’s office.

Other rarely used powers

Critics have raised concerns that Trump also might try to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to activate troops as part of his campaign to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants.

The president has the authority under the Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard units of states to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that “so hinders the execution of the laws” that any portion of the state’s inhabitants are deprived of a constitutional right and state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect that right.

The American Civil Liberties Union has warned that Trump’s use of the military domestically would be misguided and dangerous.

According to the ACLU, Title 10 activation of National Guard troops has historically been rare and Congress has prohibited troops deployed under the law from providing “direct assistance” to civilian law enforcement — under both a separate provision of Title 10 as well as the Posse Comitatus Act.

The Insurrection Act, however, is viewed as an exception to the prohibitions under the Posse Comitatus Act.

In 1958, President Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to deploy troops to Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision ending racial segregation in schools, and to defend Black students against a violent mob.

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, wrote in a recent article that if Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act “to activate federalized troops for mass deportation — whether at the border or somewhere else in the country — it would be unprecedented, unnecessary, and wrong.”

Chemerinsky said invoking the Insurrection Act and nationalizing a state’s National Guard has been reserved for extreme circumstances in which there are no other alternatives to maintain the peace.

Chemerinsky said he feared that in this case the Trump administration was seeking “to send a message to protesters of the willingness of the federal government to use federal troops to quell protests.”

In 1992, California Gov. Pete Wilson requested that President George H.W. Bush use the National Guard to quell the unrest in Los Angeles after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That was under a different provision of federal law that allows the president to use military force in the United States. That provision applies if a state governor or legislature requests it.

California politics editor Phil Willon contributed to this report.