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For Immediate Release
July, 17 2009, 12:54pm EDT
Contact:
Maria Archuleta, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Linda Paris, (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org
DHS Continues State and Local Immigration Enforcement Program Without Meaningful Changes
New MOA Governing Federal 287(g) Initiative Does Not Address Program's Serious Flaws
WASHINGTON
After a congressional request and multiple Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) requests, including one from the American Civil Liberties Union,
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a new standardized
Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that it will use in its expanded 287(g)
program granting state and local law enforcement agencies federal
immigration enforcement authority. The 287(g) program has led to
serious civil rights abuses and public safety concerns, and according
to an analysis by the ACLU, the changes in the new MOA do nothing to
solve these problems.
"The new standardized MOA makes no
serious attempt at discouraging illegal racial profiling or reducing
the conflict between sound community policing principles and the
expansion of this program," said Omar Jadwat, staff attorney with the
ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "The Department of Homeland Security
has claimed that the new MOA contains many significant improvements,
but now that we actually have the document, it is clear that many of
the claimed changes are really not changes at all, that the remaining
changes have little or no positive operative effect, and that the new
MOA actually takes several disturbing steps backward, particularly in
the area of transparency."
Section 287(g) of the Immigration
and Nationality Act provides for the delegation of immigration
enforcement authority in certain circumstances to specific state or
local agencies. Previously, MOAs between U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and local law enforcement varied by jurisdiction, but
the new standardized MOA would govern all 287(g) partnerships.
In a comparison of the new
standardized MOA to the MOA that ICE signed with Maricopa County,
Arizona in February 2007, the ACLU found that the new MOA would do
little or nothing to correct the egregious racial profiling and civil
rights abuses that have occurred there, and in some respects, the new
MOA is actually worse than the original from the Bush administration.
The new MOA includes a list of
"priority levels" of different categories of suspected violators, but
even assuming those priorities are sound, the MOA does not include any
measures to ensure that its priorities translate into practice, such as
requiring that arrest statistics reflect the priority levels, requiring
agencies to implement an effective prioritization system or preventing
the use of local resources to go after low-priority offenders.
A number of DHS's claimed
improvements simply cannot be verified by comparing the old and new
MOAs. For example, DHS claimed that the new MOA would reduce concerns
that individuals are arrested for minor or pretextual violations by
requiring that the arresting authority pursue any criminal charges that
justified the original arrest. But the new MOA only "expect[s]," rather
than "requires," the pursuit of charges. The old MOA contained the same
"expectation."
Some aspects of new MOA are clearly
a step in the wrong direction. The new MOA reduces the amount of
experience that a local law enforcement officer needs to become
MOA-designated; expands the list of powers granted to task force
personnel; attempts to remove 287(g) documents from public scrutiny by
subjecting even state or local records to ICE control and claiming that
documents related to the 287(g) are no longer public records; reduces
the already-low data collection and tracking requirements under the old
agreement; and authorizes the exclusion of civilian personnel from some
program reviews.
"Contrary to DHS's announcement, the
new 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement is not substantially different from
the Bush administration MOA, including the much abused agreement
currently in place in Maricopa County, Arizona," said Joanne Lin, ACLU
Legislative Counsel. "This new 287(g) MOA is not government reform.
Cosmetic changes to a written agreement will not solve the fundamental
problems associated with local police enforcement of federal civil
immigration laws. Under the Bush administration 287(g) program, local
law enforcement committed illegal profiling and civil rights violations
under the cloak of federal immigration authority. Under the newly
released 287(g) MOA, local law enforcement are free to continue the
same abuse of power. It is time for the Department of Homeland Security
and Congress to end, not mend, the 287(g) program."
The new standardized MOA, Maricopa County's MOA and the ACLU side-by-side comparison of the two can be found at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/local/40350lgl20090716.html
The ACLU's FOIA request can be found at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/40308lgl20090714.html
ACLU's submitted testimony on 287 (g) program can be found at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/39062leg20090304.html
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
'This is an Internment Camp': Lawmakers Horrified by Inhumane Conditions in 'Alligator Alcatraz'
"I saw 32 people per cage—about 6 cages in one tent. People were yelling, 'Help me, help me'," said Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost.
Jul 13, 2025
For the first time, Democratic lawmakers were allowed to tour U.S. President Donald Trump's sprawling Everglades immigrant detention center on Saturday. They said what they witnessed was "disturbing" and "disgusting."
After Democrats were previously denied entry to the facility known as "Alligator Alcatraz," three Democratic congresspeople from Florida—Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Jared Moskowitz, and Maxwell Frost—journeyed to the remote compound along with another group of Republicans as part of a state-arranged tour.
"Alligator Alcatraz" was erected within a matter of weeks and now contains approximately 900 people who have been rounded up as part of Trump's "mass deportation" crusade, which a court determined was rife with illegal racial profiling.
The administration said they hope to fill the camp with as many as 5,000 people at a time.
Detainees have previously described heinous conditions to their attorneys, including worm and maggot-infested food, sweltering heat, and the denial of medication and showers for days at a time.
Though the Democrats who visited the facility were not allowed to speak with detainees or see their conditions up close, their descriptions of the facilities at a press conference following the visit paint an appalling picture.
- YouTube
Wasserman-Schultz described it as an "internment camp" where detainees are "essentially packed into cages."
"Wall-to-wall humans. 32 detainees per cage," she said. This, she noted, is unusual for immigration facilities, like the nearby Krome detention center in Miami-Dade County, where detainees are allowed to roam freely between buildings.
"The only thing inside those cages are their bunk beds," she said. She later noted that in the unused dorm they toured there were already "bugs all over the mattresses that had not yet been used."
"There are three tiny toilet units that have a sink attached to it," she said. "They get their drinking water, and they brush their teeth where they poop, in the same unit," she continued.
Frost said the lawmakers asked to view the toilets currently in use by detainees, but were denied and instead showed ones in a currently unused part of the facility.
He brought up prior complaints made by prisoners of the camp about the sanitation.
"Some of the biggest complaints we've heard is, yes, there's three toilets, but a lot of the time, only one is working," he said. "They get backed up: Feces being spread everywhere."
Wasserman-Schultz said they also viewed a meal-prep area. While employees of the facility were given large, hearty portions, she says prisoners were fed a "small...gray turkey and cheese sandwich, an apple, and chips" that she said was far too small to sustain a fully-grown man.
Wasserman-Schultz also said she brought a thermostat to measure the temperature within the facility, which the Department of Homeland Security has claimed was "air conditioned." She said that the area just outside the tents that housed the detainees was 83°F and said it was likely much hotter inside due to the body heat.
Moskowitz said there was "evidence of flooding" and "floors that are only about eight inches above the ground," while other lawmakers noted that a hurricane or even a lighter tropical storm could prove catastrophic.
Last week, videos circulated on social media of the facility already beginning to flood due to a minor storm:
Moskowitz also noted the extraordinary cost to assemble and run the makeshift facility, which is estimated to cost $450 million per year according to one U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press.
"Why are they spending all this money for this?" he asked. "One can't help but understand and conclude that this is a total cruel political stunt meant to have a spectacle of political theater."
The Trump administration has described the facility as a holding tank for "the worst of the worst" criminals as they await deportation. But according to reporting by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times on Sunday, only a third of the people in the facility have criminal convictions, which range from crimes like attempted murder to traffic violations. More than 250 of the people in the facility have not been convicted of or even charged with a crime.
No outside journalists have been allowed to tour the facility, and there are no photos or videos available publicly beyond what has been released by the Trump government. The congresspeople on the tour were told they were not allowed to take any photos or videos inside or meet with any of the detainees.
Instead of being shown the conditions in which detainees were currently being housed, they were shown facilities that had not yet been filled. They were still denied access to some, including medical facilities.
Last week a group of Democrats in Florida's state legislature were turned away when they attempted to tour the camp, with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) saying they could not show up unannounced to perform oversight over a federal facility.
Frost said that there has been "ambiguity" about who has authority over the prison, but it was made abundantly clear during the visit that every decision being made was directed by the federal government.
"What we heard very clear is that ICE is giving them the directions from A to Z," he said. "Which means members of Congress are able to come here unannounced. And we will come here unannounced."
"Even with this invitation, so much was kept from us," Frost said.
In a video filmed while riding back from the camp, Frost spoke even more candidly about what he saw and how much it disturbed him.
Though the congresspeople were not given access to the detainees and "pushed back" by security guards, Frost said, "We could see in, and we could hear everybody."
"When those doors opened, what I saw made my heart sink," he said. "I saw a lot of people, young men, who looked like me."
"People were yelling, 'Help me, help me!' I heard in the back someone say, 'I'm a U.S. citizen,'" he continued. "And as we were walking away, they started chanting 'Libertad! Libertad! Libertad!'... 'Freedom.'"
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'Unforgivable': FEMA Missed Thousands of Calls from Texas Flood Victims After Noem Fired Contractors
"They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Jul 12, 2025
Outrage continues to grow against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over her response to the deadly floods that ravaged Texas last week.
According to a Friday report from The New York Times, more than two-thirds of phone calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from flood victims went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off on July 5, just a day after the nightmare storm.
According to The Times, this dramatically hampered the ability of the agency to respond to calls from survivors in the following days:
On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.
That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.
The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.
Calling is one of the primary ways that flood victims apply for aid from the disaster relief agency. But Noem would wait until July 10—five days later—to renew the contracts of the people who took those phone calls.
"Responding to less than half of the inquiries is pretty horrific," Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told The Times.
"Put yourself in the shoes of a survivor: You've lost everything, you're trying to find out what's insured and what's not, and you’re navigating multiple aid programs," he added. "One of the most important services in disaster recovery is being able to call someone and walk through these processes and paperwork."
The lapse is a direct result of a policy introduced by Noem last month, which required any payments made by FEMA above $100,000 to be directly approved by her before taking effect. Noem, who has said she wants to eliminate FEMA entirely, described it as a way of limiting "waste, fraud, and abuse."
Under this policy, Noem allowed other critical parts of the flood response to wait for days as well. Earlier this week, multiple officials within FEMA told CNN that she waited more than 72 hours to authorize the deployment of search and rescue teams and aerial imaging.
Following The Times' piece, DHS put out a statement claiming that "NO ONE was left without assistance, and every call was responded to urgently."
"When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase," DHS said. "Despite this expected influx, FEMA's disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance. No call center operators were laid off or fired."
This is undercut, however, by internal emails also obtained by The Times, which showed FEMA officials becoming frustrated and blaming the DHS Secretary for the lack of contracts. One official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues: "We still do not have a decision, waiver, or signature from the DHS Secretary."
Democratic lawmakers were already calling for investigations into Noem's response to the floods before Friday. They also sought to look into how the Trump administration's mass firings of FEMA employees, as well as employees of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may have hampered the response.
Following The Times' revelations, outrage has reached a greater fever pitch.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called it "unforgivable and unforgettable" and an "inexcusable lapse in top leadership."
"Sec. Noem shows that dismantling FEMA impacts real people in real time," he said. "It hurts countless survivors & increases recovery costs."
In response to the news, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) simply wrote that "Kristi Noem must resign now."
Others pointed out that Noem has often sought to justify abolishing FEMA by characterizing it as slow and ineffectual. They suggested her dithering response was deliberate.
"She broke it on purpose," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in an interview on MSNBC. "So that when it fails this summer, she can say, 'Oh, see, we told you—FEMA doesn't work.'"
"It's not really incompetence because they know what they are doing," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). "They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis."
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LA Judge Orders ICE to Stop 'Indiscriminately Rounding Up' Immigrants Using Racial Profiling
"No matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops," said an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.
Jul 12, 2025
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the Trump administration to stop carrying out indiscriminate immigration raids in the city and its surrounding areas, citing its use of "unconstitutional tactics," including racial profiling and denying the right to an attorney.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California wrote that there is a "mountain of evidence" that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents are "indiscriminately rounding up numerous individuals without reasonable suspicion" in violation of the Fourth Amendment during their "roving patrols" in the region.
She issued two temporary restraining orders against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). One bars agents from targeting individuals based on race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or English with an accent; presence in specific locations such as bus stops, car washes, or agricultural sites; or type of employment. The second requires DHS to provide access to attorneys for those who are arrested.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other local legal organizations on behalf of five plaintiffs who said their rights were violated by immigration agents.
According to the complaint:
The raids in this district follow a common, systematic pattern. Individuals with brown skin are approached or pulled aside by unidentified federal agents, suddenly and with a show of force, and made to answer questions about who they are and where they are from. If they hesitate, attempt to leave, or do not answer the questions to the satisfaction of the agents, they are detained, sometimes tackled, handcuffed, and/or taken into custody.
In these interactions, agents typically have no prior information about the individual and no warrant of any kind. If agents make an arrest, contrary to federal law, they do not make any determination of whether a person poses a risk of flight before a warrant can be obtained. Also contrary to federal law, the agents do not identify themselves or explain why the individual is being arrested.
Two of the plaintiffs were U.S. citizens.
One of them, a dual U.S. and Mexican citizen, said he was questioned and detained by unidentified officers on three separate occasions while working at a car wash in Orange County. Agents insisted that his passport was fake and repeatedly asked if he was American.
Another U.S. citizen was told he was arrested because he "looked like an illegal alien." Agents with military-style rifles and handguns repeatedly asked him, "What hospital were you born at?" When he could not answer the question, an officer grabbed him and shoved him against a metal fence. After he showed the officers his Real ID, he says they took it and never returned it to him.
"No matter the color of their skin, what language they speak, or where they work, everyone is guaranteed constitutional rights to protect them from unlawful stops," said Mohammad Tajsar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
"While it does not take a federal judge to recognize that marauding bands of masked, rifle-toting goons have been violating ordinary people’s rights throughout Southern California, we are hopeful that today’s ruling will be a step toward accountability for the federal government’s flagrant lawlessness that we have all been witnessing," he added.
Since early June, Southern California has been the epicenter of the Trump administration's "mass deportation" push, with thousands of immigrants detained—often by unidentified, masked agents—in sweeping raids that have traumatized Latino communities across the state.
Despite the administration publicizing the arrests of violent criminals, the vast majority of those arrested have no criminal history. More than 1,500 people have been disappeared, the ACLU said last week, "in order to meet arbitrary arrest quotas set by the Trump administration."
"Due process, access to counsel, dignity, and respect were not afforded to our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors as ICE plowed through our community in their obsessive, racially motivated quest for quotas," said Angelica Salas, executive director at Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). "No one is above the law, and today’s decision reaffirms that President Trump and all its immigration enforcement apparatus must follow the Constitution."
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