Press Release: ACLU of Massachusetts backs suit challenging Bush Administration travel restrictions on family visits to Cuba

Three state ACLU affiliates, Center for Constitutional Rights join first challenge to increased restrictions on family visits announced in 2004

BOSTON, MIAMI and MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Decrying the Bush Administration’s attack on families, American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Massachusetts, Florida, and Vermont, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), today filed a joint friend-of-the-court brief in Vilaseca v. Paulson, a federal lawsuit in Vermont against the Treasury Department, challenging severe restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on travel to visit close family members in Cuba.

The lawsuit is the first challenge to the U.S. government's increased restrictions on visits to family members which were announced in 2004. They are being challenged now by four individuals who have current urgent needs to visit with elderly or ill relatives. The regulations prohibit Americans from visiting close family members in Cuba more than once every three years, even in emergency humanitarian situations. Previously, Cuban-Americans could visit family every year or even more frequently in emergencies. For the first time, the regulations also prevent Americans from visiting aunts, uncles or cousins at all. Anyone who violates the rules could face fines of up to $1 million and up to ten years in jail.

"Shame on the Bush Administration," said Sarah Wunsch, Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts. "It apparently has no compassion for the need of families to gather together in times of death, illness, weddings, and births. Our government is playing politics with one of the most personal needs of human beings, to maintain their family relationships," said Wunsch.

According to John Reinstein, Legal Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, "these regulations gut the previous humanitarian rules allowing for close family visits and visits to Cuba in case of family emergencies." With major assistance from the national law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP, the ACLU argues that the due process right to preserve family relationships is deeply rooted in the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Further, the brief points to international human rights law that confirms that the preservation of family relationships is "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty."

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of four individuals, Armando Vilaseca, Yurisleidis Leyva Mora, Jared Kingsbury Carter, and Maricel Lucero Keniston, all of whom reside in Vermont. The parties are asking the court to enter an injunction requiring the Government to cease enforcement of the "Family Visit Regulations" and allow Vilaseca and other Cuban-Americans to resume annual and humanitarian travel to Cuba for family reasons.

The lawyers on the brief are James L. Messenger, Malick W. Ghachem, Okey Onyejekwe, Wasif Qureshi and Arthur D’Andrea, all of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, which represented the groups pro bono, and Mitchell L. Pearl, of Langrock Sperry & Wool, LLP in Burlington, Vt.; Randall Marshall, ACLU of Florida Legal Director; John Reinstein and Sarah Wunsch, ACLU of Massachusetts; and Darius Charney, Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City.

Download the original lawsuit at: http://www.aclufl.org/pdfs/vilaseca.pdf

Press Release: ACLU Report Exposes Unjust Detention Of Youth

Pre-Trial Juvenile Lockup In Massachusetts Disproportionately Impacts Youth Of Color

BOSTON - A widespread practice in Massachusetts of locking up youth accused of minor offenses and who pose little or no danger to their communities is unfair, threatens public safety and wastes public money, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union's Racial Justice Program and the ACLU of Massachusetts.

The report, entitled "Locking Up Our Children: The Secure Detention Of Massachusetts Youth After Arraignment And Before Adjudication," documents the use of detention by state judges as a rehabilitative tool to frighten youth never convicted of wrongdoing. The report also addresses the woeful lack of placement availability in the state's child welfare and mental health systems that leave detention as the only viable option for youth who cannot safely be returned to their homes.

"Massachusetts is simply locking up too many kids charged with delinquent behavior before a formal determination of their guilt or innocence," said Robin Dahlberg, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Project and the principal author of the report. "Thousands of youth who are neither flight risks nor dangers to their communities are detained while they await trial. This only exacerbates any existing behavioral problems or educational difficulties and is a significant and wasted expense to taxpayers."

According to the report, Massachusetts detains a higher percentage of youth pre-trial than 33 other states. The Commonwealth detains 5,000 to 6,000 youth in secure facilities each year, many of whom do not appear to be high-risk. Last year, 78 percent of them were charged with misdemeanors or low-level felonies, and more than 80 percent of them were eventually released back into their communities after spending an average of 25 days in lockup awaiting arraignment.

Additionally, youth of color make up 60 percent of those in detention, even though they comprise only 20 percent of Massachusetts' juvenile population.

The report also concludes that the overuse of pre-trial lockup wastes taxpayer dollars. In 2006, it cost roughly $16,000 to detain a youth for 16 days in a secure lockup. By comparison, it costs taxpayers less than $1,500 to provide six to eight weeks of supervision to ensure that youth permitted to remain at home return to court.

"Far from assisting youth in dealing with the issues that may have gotten them into trouble, secure detention is one of the most accurate predictors of future criminal behavior and other problems," said Amy Reichbach, racial justice advocate with the ACLU of Massachusetts. "This approach is failing both youth and our communities."

Key communities in Massachusetts are particularly affected by the over-reliance on detention of youth. For example, youth in Worcester County are detained at a higher rate than youth in other counties: 83 percent of detained kids are charged with misdemeanors or low-level felonies. In Springfield, 40 percent of all youth arrests are for misbehaving or acting out at school. And in Holyoke, 25 percent of all kids are arrested for school-based offenses.

"Massachusetts should create effective alternatives to pre-trial lockup and reserve secure detention for the relatively small number of children who truly need it," said Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. "We should invest our scarce tax dollars more wisely to keep our kids in school rather than in lockup and, in so doing, make our communities safer in the long run."

A full copy of the report can be found online at

http://www.aclu.org/crimjustice/juv/35216res20080514.html or
http://www.aclum.org/lockingupkids

Additional information about the ACLU Racial Justice Project can be found online at:
http://www.aclu.org/racialjustice/index.html

Additional information about the ACLU of Massachusetts can be found online:
http://www.aclum.org

Video: Interview with "The Visitor" filmmaker

Maybe you've already seen the film The Visitor, which is playing in theaters now. The story turns on the callousness of U.S. immigration policy after 9/11, and the ACLU has done a video interview with the film's creator, Tom McCarthy, here.

Video: Telling off the Supreme Court

Everyone in our office has been talking about this video clip from Boston Legal.