Donations spotlight: Help the ACLU defend the rights of immigrants

Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This March, American Civil Liberties Union is among three amazing groups that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will be vital to the nonprofit as it continues to fight to defend the rights of immigrants.

Read this important blog post from ACLU, then visit CREDO Donations and cast your vote to help send much-needed grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding March grantees.

Protecting immigrants’ rights is a core priority of the ACLU, which was founded amid an outbreak of anti-immigrant government raids during the first Red Scare, in the 1920s. The ACLU is dedicated to defending the constitutional rights of immigrants, and has been at the forefront of almost every major legal struggle on behalf of immigrants’ rights through impact litigation and other advocacy.

In just its first few days, the Trump administration issued executive orders that attack immigrants’ rights and it has not ceased since then. But with your support, our lawyers and advocates have sprung immediately to action to defend immigrants’ rights—and the rights of all Americans—against these attacks. This is not only the just thing to do, it’s also the necessary thing to do if we are to defend our nation. Because first they will come for the immigrants, then they will come for all of us who don’t fall in line.

Birthright citizenship

The ACLU and our partners sued the Trump administration over its executive order seeking to strip certain babies born in the U.S. of their citizenship. This is a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and an executive order does not have the power to override it. Trump’s claim that many immigrants aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and, therefore, aren’t protected by the 14th Amendment is flatly inconsistent with the Constitution, federal statutory law and Supreme Court precedent.

On February 10, we won a preliminary injunction blocking this executive order, the latest in a series of court rulings rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to ban birthright citizenship.  No politician or president has the authority to decide who is “worthy” of citizenship.

Alongside our lawsuit, the ACLU published the briefing paper President Trump’s Attack on Birthright Citizenship, which outlines potential threats to states and recommendations for Congress and state and local officials.

Right to asylum

On January 20, President Trump shut down the phone app CBP One, the last remaining way for people on the southern border to seek asylum, canceling thousands of appointments that had already been scheduled (and that people had already made immense sacrifices to be able to attend). The ACLU asked a federal court to immediately hold a hearing on the Trump administration’s abrupt shutdown of CBP One and consider our arguments showing why, with CBP One now gone, the existing border restrictions are even more clearly illegal.

Just a couple of weeks later, we and our partner organizations filed another lawsuit over the president’s proclamation aimed at completely shutting down asylum at the border, a move that puts thousands of lives at risk.

Ensuring due process to prevent mass deportations

We’re challenging the Trump administration’s plan to massively expand fast-track deportations without a fair legal process. The expanded, expedited removal mimics a similar policy pushed by the first Trump administration, which the ACLU and our partners Make the Road New York also challenged.

The new policy means that Border Patrol agents can pull someone over and determine whether they should be deported in less than an hour. This is less due process than when people get a traffic ticket—and with far greater consequences.

Justice for immigrants detained at Guantánamo

The Trump administration has begun detaining immigrants at Guantánamo Bay and is providing virtually no information about their status, including how long they will be held there, under what authority and conditions, subject to what legal processes or whether they will have any means of communicating with their families and attorneys.

The ACLU and our partners are suing the administration to ensure that those detained in Guantánamo have access to legal services and demanding that any further transfers of immigrants to Guantánamo be halted.

A plan for justice beyond the courtroom

The ACLU has created a playbook for states that want to safeguard our rights. It’s called Firewall for Freedom and it includes practical guidance and policies for state advocates to protect our immigrant communities and our constitutional rights. We are working with our state-based affiliates nationwide so that their governors, attorneys general, state legislatures and local officials act as bulwarks even amid these assaults on our freedoms.

At the same time, ACLU organizers are on the ground in communities, sharing Know Your Rights information regarding interactions with ICE and organizing volunteers nationwide.

With your support, we’ll be able to continue fighting—and winning—to protect immigrant communities and all of us.

Learn more about the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights project here.