Traveling to Texas May Result in Violation of Constitutional Rights, ACLU Warns

The American Civil Liberties Union issued a “travel alert” today informing anyone planning to travel to Texas in the near future to anticipate the possible violation of their constitutional rights when stopped by law enforcement.

The alert comes amid the passing of a Texas law known as SB4. The law gives a green light to police officers in the state to investigate a person’s immigration status during a routine traffic stop, leading to widespread racial profiling, baseless scrutiny, and illegal arrests of citizens and non-citizens alike presumed to be “foreign” based on how they look or sound.  The travel alert applies to all travelers to Texas, including U.S. travelers from other states and U.S. citizens.  In addition, this alert applies to all encounters with federal, state, county law enforcement including local police and sheriffs.

“The ACLU’s goal is to protect all Texans and all people traveling through Texas — regardless of their immigration status — from illegal harassment by law enforcement,” said Lorella Praeli, ACLU director of immigration policy and campaigns. “Texas is a state with deep Mexican roots and home to immigrants from all walks of life. Many of us fit the racial profile that the police in Texas will use to enforce Trump’s draconian deportation force.”

SB4 requires Texas law enforcement to comply with the federal government’s constitutionally flawed use of detainer requests, which ask local law enforcement to hold people for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), even when they lack the legal authority to do so.

“We plan to fight this racist and wrongheaded law in the courts and in the streets. Until we defeat it, everyone traveling in or to Texas needs to be aware of what’s in store for them,” said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas. “The Lone Star State will become a ‘show me your papers’ state, where every interaction with law enforcement can become a citizenship interrogation and potentially an illegal arrest.”

Between 2008 and 2012, ICE requested local law enforcement to hold 834 U.S. citizens, some of whom subsequently spent days in jail as a result. Under SB4, the state of Texas is placing the rights of its residents, including U.S. citizens, in extreme jeopardy.

“It is simply a matter of time before illegal arrests occur. Local law enforcement will have to decide between violating a person’s rights and being severely fined, thrown in jail, or even being removed from office for choosing not to do so,” said Burke.

Praeli said, “Everyone has constitutional rights in this country. The state of Texas, and every law enforcement officer, must respect those rights. The ACLU stands ready to safeguard those freedoms against those who seek to diminish them.”

The ACLU of North Dakota joined several other ACLU affiliated in issuing a Texas travel alert.
These include:
California
Colorado
Delaware
Hawaii
Louisiana
Maine
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
South Dakota
South Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Wisconsin

Wyoming

“The ACLU of North Dakota stands with the ACLU of Texas against SB4 and will continue to work with affected communities and decision-makers to ensure blatantly discriminatory laws such as this are never enacted in our state,” said Jennifer Cook, Policy Director.

SB4 will go into effect on September 1, 2017. However, the ACLU is concerned that some law enforcement officers may begin to treat residents and travelers unfairly now. If you believe your rights have been violated because of SB4, please contact the ACLU of Texas at 1-888-507-2970.

By Thaddeus Talbot

Extensive questions surround the chaos that erupted nationwide in response to President Trump’s first “Muslim ban.” Because the government has refused to hand over information that would allow the public to evaluate how the ban was implemented, ACLU affiliates have filed dozens of lawsuits around the country to demand details.

On January 27, President Trump signed Executive Order 13769, indefinitely blocking refugees from Syria from entering the United States, barring all refugees from resettlement for 120 days, and prohibiting nationals of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days.

Chaos immediately erupted at airports, courtrooms, and political offices around the country. Dozens of refugees and travelers were detained with little to no explanation, denied access to lawyers, and in some cases put on return flights back to harm’s way.

As this crisis unfolded, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security issued contradictory statements, fueling mass confusion. The agencies claim that they, too, were left in the dark by the Trump administration. Reports confirmed that DHS Secretary John Kelly hadn’t even seen the final version of the Muslim ban until after the executive order was signed.

DHS’s attempts to clarify the terms of the ban nationally only perpetuated the confusion. On Saturday, January 28, DHS declared that green card holders were subject to the ban; by Sunday, January 29, government officials had “clarified” that the Executive Order did not apply to green card holders. Unsurprisingly, CBP’s local implementation of the Muslim ban in different international airports varied widely: While some agents aggressively tried to strip travelers of green cards, others hesitated, unsure which travelers were to be permitted entry and which were to be refused.

Perhaps most troubling, CBP officers apparently ignored the express terms of several federal court orders blocking certain parts of the Muslim ban. At Dulles airport, for example, Democratic members of the House of Representatives had to demand that refugee detainees subject to Trump’s ban be released. Similarly, when refugee advocates at JFK airport asked why the court orders that blocked the ban from taking place weren’t being enforced, some CBP officers replied: “Call Donald Trump.”

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This confusion had serious human impacts. In Texas, a 33-year old Iraqi man in a wheelchair was detained for 15 hours after traveling to Dallas Fort Worth airport on a Special Immigrant Visa that was awarded to him because of his work with the U.S. Army. In Virginia, Yemeni individuals flying to Dulles when the first executive order took effect had their visas revoked upon landing and were required to fly back to Ethiopia. In New York, two doctors from Cleveland were subjected to extensive delays, detention, and distress at JFK airport after returning from vacation in Iran.

To clarify the public’s understanding of these urgent developments, 50 ACLU affiliates filed Freedom of Information Act requests on February 2. Yet more than two months later, neither DHS nor CBP has provided us with any information about their local implementation of the executive order.

FOIA’s purpose is to ensure that people have timely access to crucial government information. The public has a right to know how CBP officers have implemented the Muslim ban locally. We deserve to have access to that information now.

Dozens of ACLU affiliates across the country filed coordinated lawsuits yesterday demanding responses to our FOIA requests. Each lawsuit seeks unique, local information from CBP field offices, to clarify the public’s understanding of how CBP officers in each jurisdiction implemented the Muslim ban in the face of rapidly evolving and sometimes conflicting national guidance.

Democracy withers without government accountability, and accountability requires transparency. The government has a duty to keep the American people informed. This is particularly true for agencies like CBP, which have terrible transparency track records and feel empowered to upend the lives of immigrants and refugees with impunity. Stay tuned.

ACLU of North Dakota Joins Lawsuit Demanding Documents on Implementation of Trump Muslim Ban

The ACLU of North Dakota joined the Washington and Montana affiliates today in filing a lawsuit demanding government documents about the on-the-ground implementation of President Trump’s Muslim bans.

https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-cbp-foia-lawsuits-regarding-muslim-ban-implementation

The release on the original FOIA requests is here:
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-files-demands-documents-implementation-trumps-muslim-ban

More background on CBP’s FOIA practices is here:
https://www.aclu.org/letter/aclu-letter-cbp-re-foia-practices-july-2016