December, 22 2011, 02:31pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Vesna Jaksic, ACLU national, (212) 549-2666 or (347) 514-3984; media@aclu.org
Victoria Middleton, ACLU of South Carolina, (843) 720-1424; vmiddleton@aclusouthcarolina.
Marion Steinfels, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), (334) 235.4029; marion.steinfels@splcenter.org
Adela de la Torre, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), (213) 400-7822; delatorre@nilc.org
Laura Rodriguez, MALDEF, (310) 956-2425; lrodriguez@maldef.org
Tammy Besherse, South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, (803) 779-1113; tammy@scjustice.org
John Garcia, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, (212) 739-7513; jgarcia@latinojustice.org
Federal Court Blocks Major Parts of South Carolina's Anti-Immigrant Law
A federal district court today blocked major parts of South Carolina's anti-immigrant law from going into effect Jan. 1 after a civil rights coalition recently argued the law is unconstitutional, interferes with federal laws and would cause great harm if implemented.
CHARLESTON, SC
A federal district court today blocked major parts of South Carolina's anti-immigrant law from going into effect Jan. 1 after a civil rights coalition recently argued the law is unconstitutional, interferes with federal laws and would cause great harm if implemented.
The court found that major sections of the law, SB 20, were likely to be found unconstitutional, including those mandating that police demand "papers" in virtually all traffic stops, make it a crime to transport and harbor undocumented immigrants and criminalize the failure to carry "papers" at all times.
The coalition filed a lawsuit against the law in October. A court hearing regarding the coalition's motion for preliminary injunction - which seeks to temporarily block the law pending a final ruling on its constitutionality - was held on Dec. 19. The U.S. Department of Justice, which also filed a lawsuit against the law, also argued that the law should be blocked because it will cause irreparable harm and interfere with federal immigration law.
Andre Segura, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, who argued the case in court Monday on behalf of the coalition, said: "Today's ruling blocking key provisions of South Carolina's anti-immigrant law recognizes that such legislation is unconstitutional and likely to lead to serious civil rights abuses. We have already seen the devastating effects of a similar law in Alabama, and are pleased South Carolina will not follow the same destructive path."
Victoria Middleton, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said: "The court's ruling means this draconian law will not immediately threaten the safety of innocent people, including victims of domestic violence and human trafficking and even asylum seekers. We hope the ruling means families will not be separated and South Carolina will not be turned into a police state."
Michelle Lapointe, lead attorney on the case for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said: "This decision provides a great deal of hope to the large numbers of South Carolinians - citizens and non-citizens alike - who would be impacted by this clearly overreaching and unconstitutional law. It's also another major blow to the national effort to pass these fundamentally un-American laws that are based on little more than ignorance and hate."
Nora Preciado, staff attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, said: "Today's decision rightly prevents SB 20 from unconstitutionally depriving all South Carolinians of their rights and dignity. We, along with our plaintiffs - and the thousands of people they represent - will not rest until this law is permanently stopped. Next year's legislature should work to find solutions to bring the South Carolina's communities together, not tear them apart."
Victor Viramontes, MALDEF national senior counsel, said: "Like similar laws across the county, South Carolina's anti-immigrant law has been blocked because it violates the constitution. We are pleased that the people of South Carolina will not be subjected to this destructive, racially polarizing law."
Diana Sen, senior counsel for LatinoJustice, said: "Today's decision is a victory for everyone in South Carolina. The Court upheld the constitutional mandate that states cannot regulate immigration by trying to expel undocumented immigrants. Latinos, the target of SB 20, can now go about their lives without the fear of arbitrary arrest and detention simply because they look Hispanic."
Tammy Besherse, an attorney with the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, said: "South Carolina's families will have something to truly celebrate this holiday season, thanks to a ruling that will keep families together and make our communities safer. Today's ruling is a victory for all those who believe in family unity and community safety."
Today's ruling comes shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take a case involving parts of Arizona's notorious anti-immigrant law, SB 1070. The coalition has pressed to continue with hearings over similar laws in South Carolina, Alabama and other states because these cases involve claims that are not before the Supreme Court, and because these states' laws will cause severe harms if they are allowed to take effect. It also comes on the heels of Alabama state leaders - including the governor and attorney general - acknowledging that Alabama's law has major flaws. That law also sparked a backlash from the state's business and economic leaders. In South Carolina's neighboring state of Georgia, farmers and other businesses have lost untold amounts in revenues despite a federal judge's ruling that blocked major parts of its anti-immigrant law.
South Carolina's law would have subjected South Carolinians, including U.S. citizens and legal residents, to unlawful searches and seizures and interfered with federal power and authority over immigration. The law attempted to require police to demand "papers" demonstrating citizenship or immigration status during traffic stops when they have "reasonable suspicion" that a person lacks immigration status, thereby inviting racial profiling. It also attempted to criminalize South Carolinians for everyday interactions with undocumented individuals, such as driving someone to church, or renting a room to a friend.
Arizona's SB 1070 inspired South Carolina's anti-immigrant law, as well as similar laws in Georgia, Alabama, Utah and Indiana. Federal courts have already blocked key provisions of these laws in Arizona, Indiana and Georgia. A federal court in Alabama allowed some parts of the law to take effect, leading to devastating humanitarian consequences. Other provisions of the Alabama law have been blocked by the courts. Members of the civil rights coalition also have a pending case against Utah's anti-immigrant law, which the court temporarily blocked pending a hearing now scheduled for February.
The coalition in the South Carolina case includes the ACLU, the ACLU of South Carolina, the National Immigration Law Center, MALDEF, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and the law firms of Rosen, Rosen & Hagood and the Lloyd Law Firm.
To see today's decision, go to:
www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/lowcountry-immigration-coalition-et-al-v-nikki-haley-decision
For more information about the case, go to:
www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/lowcountry-immigration-coalition-et-al-v-nikki-haley
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.
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Anti-Poverty Campaigners Cheer Spain-Brazil-South Africa Plan to Tax the Grotesquely Rich
"People are fed up with billionaires' greed eroding the environment and communities we depend on," said one supporter of the new initiative. "It's time for world leaders to listen and act."
Jul 01, 2025
A new plan backed by the governments of Spain, Brazil, and South Africa to tax the fortunes of the uber-rich drew hearty cheers from anti-poverty campaigners, environmental activists, and unions when it was announced on Tuesday.
As described in an announcement by the Spanish government, the initiative aims to create coordination between governments on the taxation of high-net-worth individuals to ensure they are not shuffling money abroad to avoid proper taxation.
"The proposal aims to incentivize and guide different countries to join the initiative and address policy, administrative, and data deficiencies, ensuring that high-net-worth individuals are taxed more efficiently in line with their wealth," the Spanish government explained. "To achieve this, it is necessary to foster international cooperation in multilateral forums to promote and facilitate the implementation of evidence-based reforms and ongoing experiences regarding the taxation of large fortunes in different countries."
The plan—crafted by the governments of Spain and Brazil and presented at the United Nations' Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development being held in the Spanish city of Seville—was quickly praised by an assortment of international nonprofit organizations as an essential tool for tackling global wealth inequality.
Kate Blagojevic, associate director for Europe campaigns for environmental the advocacy group 350.org, described it as "a bold move by Spain and Brazil" that she said could provide funding for clean energy investments around the world, including in countries that lack the resources to make such investments.
"We want more countries to join this coalition so that billionaires and multi-millionaires help to foot the bill for the climate damage they have caused and decrease the huge gap between the rich and the poorest," she said, while also calling for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to sign on.
Susana Ruiz, the tax justice policy lead at the anti-poverty organization Oxfam, emphasized that international coordination on taxation of high-worth individuals was a serious proposal to address a crisis in global democracy, which she said was being undermined by the corrupting influence of vast sums of money being held by a tiny number of people.
"This extreme inequality is being driven by a financial system that puts the interests of a wealthy few above everyone else," she said. "This concentration of wealth is blocking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and keeping over three billion people living in poverty: over half of poor countries are spending more on debt repayments than on healthcare or education."
Fred Njehu, the global political lead for Greenpeace’s Fair Share campaign, deemed the tax plan essential at a time when nations are behind their renewable energy goals and when wealthy elites such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos can go all-out for a lavish three-day wedding in Venice.
"Financing is urgently needed for climate action and public services, not for polluting space travel and luxury weddings," he said. "This new coalition of governments working to tax the super-rich adds to the growing global momentum to make the world’s wealthiest pay their fair share. People are fed up with billionaires' greed eroding the environment and communities we depend on. It's time for world leaders to listen and act."
And Leo Hyde, the campaigns and media coordinator at the Public Services International union, praised the plan and said that was the result of years' worth of advocacy by unions and other organizations.
"The initiative aims to ensure a progressive and efficient global tax system with the aim of reducing social inequality," he said. "This builds directly on years of union-led tax justice campaigning that has already yielded significant victories, including the OECD global minimum corporate tax, Australia's public country-by-country reporting initiatives, and the ongoing UN tax treaty negotiations."
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'All Are Now Vulnerable': Legal Scholars Alarmed as DOJ Begins Push to Denaturalize Citizens
"Anyone could be prioritized," a spokesperson for the ACLU told Common Dreams. "It's really chilling."
Jul 01, 2025
As the Trump administration has begun the push to strip citizenship from foreign-born Americans, legal scholars and advocates are calling it a dangerous step toward using citizenship as a political weapon.
On June 11, the U.S. Department of Justice issued an internal memo written by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate calling on DOJ attorneys to pursue "civil denaturalization" of foreign-born U.S. citizens.
"The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," the memo said, adding that it should be among the division's top five priorities.
It suggested a wide variety of citizens who could be targeted for denaturalization. This includes perpetrators of violent offenses like "torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations." But it also targets much broader groups of people such as those "who pose a potential danger to national security" or those who "acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations."
It also calls for "any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue."
Naureen Shah, director of government affairs for the ACLU's Equality Division, told Common Dreams that "it's another devastating attack by the Trump administration on people who they want to cast as not belonging here."
The memo's vague language has Shah and other legal scholars warning that denaturalization could become a tool to deport political opponents, an effort that would be harder for courts to stop following Friday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which hamstrung the ability of lower courts to stop illegal actions by the Trump administration using injunctions.
Joyce Vance, a former United States Attorney, who is now a law professor and a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC, warned Tuesday about the possible implications on her blog Civil Discourse:
"It could be exercising First Amendment rights or encouraging diversity in hiring, now recast as fraud against the United States. Troublesome journalists who are naturalized citizens? Students? University professors? Infectious disease doctors who try to reveal the truth about epidemics? Lawyers?" Vance wrote. "All are now vulnerable to the vagaries of an administration that has shown a preference for deporting people without due process and dealing with questions that come up after the fact and with a dismissive tone."
"Anyone could be prioritized," Shah said. "It's really chilling."
Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western University, told NPR that it was "especially concerning" that the administration would plan to pursue denaturalization through civil court.
"Civil denaturalization cases provide no right to an attorney, meaning defendants without resources often face the government without representation," she wrote in a 2019 study on the history of denaturalization along with her colleague Irina Manta. "There are no jury trials, with judges making citizenship determinations alone. The burden of proof is 'clear and convincing evidence' rather than the criminal standard of 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' Additionally, there is no statute of limitations, allowing the government to build cases on decades-old evidence that may be incomplete or unreliable."
Robertson said Trump's approach mirrors that undertaken during the McCarthy era, when those deemed "un-American" were stripped of citizenship due to their political views.
"At the height of denaturalization, there were about 22,000 cases a year of denaturalization filed, and this was on a smaller population. It was huge," she said.
The Supreme Court stepped in to reel back denaturalization in 1967, determining that, in Robertson's words, it was "inconsistent with the American form of democracy, because it creates two levels of citizenship." After that, the number of denaturalization cases plummeted to the single digits each year. The Trump administration seems to be hoping to reverse that trend.
Republican politicians have not been shy about calling for their political opponents to be stripped of citizenship. Last week, following Zohran Mamdani's shocking victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) called for the Ugandan-born state assemblyman to be stripped of his U.S. citizenship and "deported," referring to him as an "antisemitic, socialist, communist."
Ogles accused Mamdani of failing to disclose his political "affiliations or sympathies" during the process that led him to become a citizen in 2018. He singled out Mamdani's support for the Holy Land Foundation, whose leaders were convicted in a widely criticized "terrorism financing" case in 2008. Notably, the leaders of the group were never accused of directly funding terrorist groups or terrorist acts.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Ogles' call to deport Mamdani, and she did not shoot down the idea.
"I have not seen those claims, but surely if they are true, it's something that should be investigated," Leavitt said.
It was not the first time Republicans have called to deport leaders in the other party explicitly for their political views.
In June, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called for the Trump administration to "deport and denaturalize" Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia, after she criticized President Donald Trump's deployment of the military to quash protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles.
The Trump administration has already targeted lawful immigrants with deportation purely for their political views. In March, the administration abducted and attempted to deport pro-Palestine student activist Mahmoud Khalil, explicitly because he was a "threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States," similar language to what the DOJ now says is justification for denaturalization. The administration has also attempted to deport others, like Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, for as little as co-writing an op-ed calling on her university to divest from Israel.
"The way the memo is written, there is no guarantee DOJ will pursue cases against violent criminals," Vance said. "They could just do easy cases to ratchet up numbers, like we're seeing with deportation. Or they could target people who, they view as troublemakers."
There are more than 25 million people in the United States who are naturalized citizens.
"They should not have to live in fear that they'll lose their rights," Shah said.
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Senate Tosses 'Dangerous Provision' Preventing State-Level AI Regulation From GOP Megabill
"From the start, this provision had Big Tech's money and lobbyists all over it. This is a major victory for the American people over the AI industry," said one advocate.
Jul 01, 2025
With a 99-1 vote early Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Senate decided to remove a controversial provision that would have prevented state-level regulation on artificial intelligence for 10 years from U.S. President Donald Trump's massive tax and spending bill that is currently being debated in Congress.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) was the lone lawmaker who voted to keep the moratorium in the bill.
While far from the only controversial part of the reconciliation package, the provision drew opposition from an ideologically diverse group that included Democratic and Republican state attorneys general; over 140 groups working to support children's online safety, consumer protections, and responsible innovation; and faith leaders.
Senators struck Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) AI measure from the megabill by adopting an amendment introduced by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). They voted on Blackburn's amendment during a session known as a vote-a-rama. Blackburn introduced the amendment after considering an agreement that would have watered down the provision.
According to The Verge, the measure that was rejected on Tuesday required states to avoid regulation AI and "automated decision systems" if they wanted to get funding for their broadband programs.
The provision would have been a major win for Big Tech, which has made the case that state laws around AI are obstructing their ability to do business.
Advocates and Democratic lawmakers cheered the decision to strip the provision.
"From the start, this provision had Big Tech's money and lobbyists all over it. This is a major victory for the American people over the AI industry. It shows that Americans are aware of the proliferation of AI harms in real time," said J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said Tuesday that "early this morning, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to reject a dangerous provision to block states from regulating artificial intelligence, including protecting kids online. This 99-1 vote sent a clear message that Congress will not sell out our kids and local communities in order to pad the pockets of Big Tech billionaires."
In addition to concerns focused on Big Tech, experts recently told The Guardian that in the absence of state-level AI regulation, untrammeled growth of AI would take a toll on the world's "dangerously overheating climate."
Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, credited the "massive" defeat of Cruz's provision to the "incredible mobilizing by advocates to beat back Big Tech lobbying and last-minute bullying."
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