VICTORY! Historic Agreement Will Overhaul Puerto Rico Police Department Notorious for Brutality
The U.S. Justice Department and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico yesterday announced a legally binding consent decree that will require sweeping reforms to end widespread police brutality on the island, paving the way for long-overdue reforms of a recalcitrant police force that has resisted change for years. And because the consent decree is court-enforceable, the agreement will ensure that the Puerto Rico Police Department will be held accountable if it fails to follow through with the plan to overhaul its policies and practices.
Yesterday's announcement is the culmination of years of work by the ACLU, courageous advocates on the island, and the Justice Department to end the unconscionable abuse Puerto Ricans have suffered at the hands of their own police force, the second-largest police department in the United States.
I began investigating police abuse on the island in March 2011, when police were violently suppressing university student protests on a near daily basis. For years, the ACLU of Puerto Rico—one of the few human rights watchdogs on the island—had been documenting cases of police brutality against low-income and Black Puerto Ricans, but the outlaw police force had turned against nonviolent protesters in spectacular demonstrations of brutality, tear gassing and beating protesters outside the Capitol Building, courthouse, governor's mansion, and at the University of Puerto Rico. I made multiple trips to Puerto Rico to uncover and document the police force's systemic brutality, culminating in a 180-page report, "Island of Impunity," published in June of last year.
I interviewed Ruth Jiménez, whose son Jorge Polaco was delivered by police, dead and with seven gunshots in his back, to a hospital an hour and a half after arresting him a 10-minute drive away. I met Joel Félix, a young Dominican immigrant who was senselessly and savagely beaten by officers who stopped him while he was walking home and identified his foreign accent. The officers left him for dead on the side of the road, after fishing Félix's cell phone out of his pocket and calling his sister to collect her unconscious brother, who nearly died of his injuries. I uncovered the case of 19-year-old José Luis Irizarry Pérez, an unarmed 19-year-old beaten to death by officers responding to a neighbor's noise complaint about an election party the teen attended with his father. I interviewed numerous university students and union organizers who were beaten, tear gassed, and pepper sprayed when they attempted to peacefully protest mass layoffs of public workers and public university cutbacks.
I documented the cases of 28 men who were killed by police in recent years, and found that no officer was punished for these killings, with the exception of the case of an unarmed man executed by police on the street in front of bystanders, one of whom filmed the incident on a cell phone. I learned of Wanda Camacho Meléndez, a nurse who repeatedly sought the PRPD's protection from her increasingly violent and threatening ex-partner. Police failed to respond to her calls for help when he kept going to her house in violation of a protective order, and he stabbed her to death on Valentine's Day.
"Island of Impunity" documented rampant police abuse and a systemic lack of accountability in the PRPD, as well as the force's failure to crack down on sexual assault, domestic violence, and murders of women by their partners. Also in June, the ACLU and Kirkland & Ellis LLP sued the PRPD for violating the constitutional rights of peaceful protesters who were beaten and abused during demonstrations against controversial government policies. We are now close to reaching a settlement in exchange for a provision requiring the independent PRPD monitor to meet with civil society groups in order to obtain input on proposed policies and implementation plans.
At the same time, we pressured the Justice Department, which has the authority to investigate and sue local police departments found in systematic violation of the law, to take action against the PRPD. The Justice Department had investigated police abuses in Puerto Rico after they were highlighted by the ACLU, and in December 2012, the DOJ sued the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The ACLU filed two amicus briefs in the lawsuit to recommend reforms and suggest how to implement them.
Happily, yesterday's historic settlement is exactly what we've been seeking. The consent decree calls for a court-appointed independent monitor to enforce detailed reforms to police department organizational structures, operational policy and oversight mechanisms, training protocols, and accountability systems. While the consent decree is a huge step forward, it will take hard work and strong political will to turn the PRPD into an accountable police force that respects the human rights of all people on the island. Although the reform process will take years, and our work is far from done, the consent decree means that Puerto Ricans will no longer have to live in fear of their own police force. While Jorge Polaco and José Luis Irizarry Pérez did not live to see this day, others who have been victimized by Puerto Rico's police force can now hope for a future in which they can have confidence in a police department that protects, rather than harms, them.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.