May, 02 2014, 04:02pm EDT
ACLU of Florida Celebrates Legislature Passing Tuition Equity Bill for Immigrant Students
Today, the Florida House of Representatives passed a tuition equity bill, HB 851, which ends the practice of requiring thousands of Florida students to pay out-of-state tuition - rates three to four times higher than in-state tuition rates - simply because of their immigration status.
ACLU of Florida Executive Director Howard Simon said the following regarding the legislature's passage of the bill:
TALLAHASSEE, FL
Today, the Florida House of Representatives passed a tuition equity bill, HB 851, which ends the practice of requiring thousands of Florida students to pay out-of-state tuition - rates three to four times higher than in-state tuition rates - simply because of their immigration status.
ACLU of Florida Executive Director Howard Simon said the following regarding the legislature's passage of the bill:
"After years of effort, fairness in college tuition is finally on its way to the governor's desk. This is a victory not only for the thousands of Florida students who are now being given a fair shot at the dream of a college education, but for every Floridian who will reap the benefits of a more fair higher education system and a smarter Florida workforce.
"The votes in the Senate yesterday and in the House today also mark a breaking down of the rigid political opposition that too many in the Florida Legislature have long held for anything that would benefit our state's immigrant community. Florida's immigrant community has for too long been used as a political punching bag, and that tide is finally turning. Tallahassee politicians have begun to recognize that Florida benefits when it is a welcoming place for everyone and when our state's policies no longer discriminate against Florida's immigrant community. We'd like to thank those leaders in the legislature, especially Senator Latvala, who challenged traditional political thought and forged a coalition standing up for fair opportunities for immigrant Floridians.
"Multiple groups including Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER), and Reform Immigration For America (RI4A) joined ACLU supporters in calling for passage of tuition equity. Ultimately, over 18,000 people from across the state and throughout the U.S. signed a petition urging passage. The ACLU of Florida joins our coalition partners in celebrating a rare and hard-fought victory for freedom in the Florida legislature."
A press conference regarding passage of the bill will be held at 5:00pm today, May 2ndin front of the Freedom Tower at 600 Biscayne Blvd. in downtown Miami. ACLU of Florida spokesperson Carolina Gonzalez will be present and available to give comment to press.
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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Alcatraz Push 'No More Than a Sensational Distraction' From Trump's Attack on Public Safety
Less than two weeks ago, Trump's DOJ slashed nearly $1 billion from existing public safety grants that experts warn will "imperil public safety, not promote it."
May 05, 2025
Add "distraction" to the list of words being used to describe President Donald Trump's "psychotic," "deluded," and "unbefuckinglievable" talk about reopening the island prison of Alcatraz in California's San Francisco Bay.
In a statement to reporters on the White House lawn Sunday night, Trump said the idea for reopening Alcatraz—which he first floated in a social media post—was "just an idea I had" and that the prison was a "symbol of law and order."
But less than two weeks ago, the Trump administration ordered the cancellation of an estimated $811 million in grants for public safety from the Justice Department that experts and advocates say were proving successful at reducing crime and curbing harm in communities nationwide—all with bipartisan support.
"Alcatraz," said civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger in response to Trump's social media post—which sparked no shortage of headlines across the news media—is "no more than a sensational distraction from this: Trump just cut nearly $1 billion from bipartisan, proven, successful anti-crime, violence prevention programs around the country."
The various programs impacted by the grant cuts—including gun violence prevention and law enforcement trainings—said Hechinger, were designed to prevent crime "before people were ever harmed."
Arguing that Trump has made the country less safe, not more, by his policies, Hechinger added, "now he's stomping and parading around with big words and sensational capital letters about a wasteful reopening of a domestic torture complex that will never actually happen and do nothing to keep America safer. All while claiming to care about violence prevention. What a dangerous joke."
Lamenting the public safety grant cuts in a blog post last week, the Brennan Center for Justice's Rosemary Nidiry, senior counsel in the group's justice program, detailed how the grant funding slashed by Trump "filled critical gaps" in the nation's public safety infrastructure.
The grants, she noted, "supported victims of crime, trained law enforcement, offered treatment to people with behavioral health and substance issues, and helped people reintegrate into society after incarceration. They also promoted research used to create and guide effective policies. Many if not all were ended immediately and without warning, in the middle of a typical 3-year grant period, disrupting programs and creating financial strain for nonprofits."
"The slashed programs have been proven to make communities safer," wrote Nidiry, "and their end will in fact imperil public safety, not promote it."
When Alcatraz was closed by the Bureau of Prisons in 1963, the cost of running the crumbling facility was the primary driver of that decision.
As Newsweek reports, "Operating Alcatraz proved to be significantly more expensive than other federal prisons. In 1959, the daily per capita cost at Alcatraz was $10.10, compared with $3.00 at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, making it nearly three times more costly to operate. This high expense was largely due to the island's isolation, which necessitated that all supplies, including food, water, and fuel, be transported by boat. For instance, nearly one million gallons of fresh water had to be barged to the island each week."
In a letter on Friday, over three dozen Democratic lawmakers called on the Justice Department to reinstate $150 million in grants awarded for gun violence prevention.
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What the Israeli government is planning is "not an aid plan," said one legal scholar, but rather "an aid denial plan."
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Despite global outcry to end the "genocidal" assault on the people of Gaza, Israeli cabinet ministers early Monday approved a plan that could lead to the capture of the "entire Gaza Strip," prompting fresh warnings of a complete ethnic cleansing of the enclave coupled with outrage over a proposal to use U.S.-based mercenaries to be part of distribution of humanitarian aid.
One Israeli official familiar with the shift in military tactics toldHaaretz that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear to his Security Cabinet that the new approach in Gaza will be different from what's been going over the previous 18 months in that it will shift from what were described as "raid-based operations" to "the occupation of territory and a sustained Israeli presence in Gaza."
Another unnamed Israeli official told Agence France-Press that the plan "will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection."
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To support the occupation plan, the Israeli army, with the approval of the Security Cabinet, will be calling up tens of thousands of reservist soldiers, in the words of the IDF, to "intensify the pressure" on Hamas and "expand and intensify" operations in Gaza.
According to the Associated Press:
The new plan, which the officials said was meant to help Israel achieve its war aims of defeating Hamas and freeing hostages held in Gaza, also would push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, what would likely exacerbate an already dire humanitarian crisis.
Since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed in mid-March, Israel has unleashed fierce strikes on the territory that have killed hundreds. It has captured swathes of territory and now controls roughly 50% of Gaza. Before the truce ended, Israel halted all humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food, fuel and water, setting off what is believed to the be the worst humanitarian crisis in nearly 19 months of war.
The ban on aid has prompted widespread hunger and shortages have set off looting.
In addition to expanded military operations, the Israelis also presented a new approach to distribution of aid on Sunday that would include the use of private military contractors, also known as mercenaries. By relocating the civilian population to the south and forcing people to travel for food, water, and medicine only to designated "hubs" for relief, humanitarians said the plan violates all principles of human rights and the laws of war.
The Washington Postreports Monday that "American contractors" would be used to carry out the plan, which was presented to officials in the Trump administration on Friday.
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The companies, Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions, organized and staffed a vehicle checkpoint along a major north-south road through Gaza during the ceasefire.
SRS, which is to handle planning and logistics, is headed by Phil Reilly, a former CIA senior intelligence officer with extensive overseas service who has held senior positions in other private security companies. SRS is to subcontract on-the-ground security operations to UG Solutions, headed by Jameson Govoni, a former Green Beret whose service from 2004 to 2015 included tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The security contractors are to be armed and have their own force protection. They will not have detention authority.
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"I'm not a lawyer," the president said in a newly aired interview.
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U.S. President Donald Trump refused in an interview released Sunday to affirm that the nation's Constitution affords due process to citizens and noncitizens alike and that he, as president, must uphold that fundamental right.
"I don't know, I'm not a lawyer," Trump told NBC's Kristen Welker, who asked if the president agrees with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's statement that everyone on U.S. soil is entitled to due process.
When Welker pointed to the Fifth Amendment—which states that "no person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—Trump again replied that he's unsure and suggested granting due process to the undocumented immigrants he wants to deport would be too burdensome.
"We'd have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials," Trump said, echoing a sentiment that his vice president expressed last month.
Asked whether he needs to "uphold the Constitution of the United States as president," Trump replied, "I don't know."
Watch:
WELKER: The 5th Amendment says everyone deserves due process
TRUMP: It might say that, but if you're talking about that, then we'd have to have a million or two million or three million trials pic.twitter.com/FMZQ7O9mTP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 4, 2025
Trump, who similarly deferred to "the lawyers" when asked recently about his refusal to bring home wrongly deported Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has unlawfully cited the Alien Enemies Act to swiftly remove undocumented immigrants from the U.S. without due process. Federal agents have also arrested and detained students, academics, and a current and former judge in recent weeks, heightening alarm over the administration's authoritarian tactics.
CNNreported Friday that the administration has "been examining whether it can label some suspected cartel and gang members inside the U.S. as 'enemy combatants' as a possible way to detain them more easily and limit their ability to challenge their imprisonment."
"Trump has expressed extreme frustration with federal courts halting many of those migrants' deportations, amid legal challenges questioning whether they were being afforded due process," the outlet added. "By labeling the migrants as enemy combatants, they would have fewer rights, the thinking goes."
Some top administration officials have publicly expressed disdain for the constitutional right to due process. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, wrote in a social media post last month that "the judicial process is for Americans" and "immediate deportation" is for undocumented immigrants.
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