Palantir Technologies is one of three sponsors of the 2019 Annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference at U.C. Berkeley, a conference of privacy scholars from across the world that brings together computer scientists, economists, philosophers, political scientists, advocates, lawyers, and many others. Palantir, a Palo Alto data-mining firm founded by Peter Thiel, has a contract with ICE that has aided in family separation by helping ICE arrest the parents and other relatives of children who crossed the border alone. Palantir's contract has been called "mission critical" to ICE's efforts by government documents. We're asking that scholars from across the country denounce this partnership with Palantir. Academic conferences should not be sponsored by firms engaged in human rights abuses, as denounced by the United Nations and dozens of civil society organizations. That a conference focused on privacy is sponsored by a firm whose profits derive from the mass accumulation of personal data for sale to law enforcement agencies is patently absurd.

For the better part of a year, Jesús Lorenzo-Ávila suffered multiple instances of physical and retaliatory abuse at the hands of El Paso Service Processing Center detention facility staff. Verbal harassment and vindictive retaliation now continue at the Otero County Processing Center. For his safety, we demand the immediate release of Jesús from ICE custody. Last year at the El Paso Service Processing Center, Jesús was falsely accused of breaking facility rules and placed in prolonged solitary confinement on multiple occasions. At this detention facility, local advocacy groups have documented a recurring pattern of false accusations and retaliatory use of solitary. Targeted for his sexual orientation, and for his courage to assert his rights, Jesús suffered multiple instances of solitary confinement. In January of this year, the retaliation reached a crescendo when Jesús was beaten by a guard and taken to the hospital. Upon his return to the facility, staff falsely accused him of having assaulted the guard. Jesús was placed back into solitary, denied friend and legal visits, and on one occasion left in his cell in his underwear for not donning the red uniform indicative of high security individuals. Jesús refuses to be treated as a criminal by the very criminals who assault him, and covered it up. Now at the Otero County Processing Center, Jesús is again being targeted for retaliation. At Otero, he spent 30 days in solitary confinement, was released for a single day, again falsely accused by facility staff, and placed back into solitary for at least another 15 days. Right now he is in solitary confinement. Facility staff at both El Paso and Otero rely on fear and intimidation to keep people quietly compliant when their rights are violated. When someone like Jesús courageously stands up without fear to speak up for himself and those around him, the consequences are violent. Clearly Jesús is not safe in a detention facility. He has been discriminated against, violently beaten, and psychologically tortured in solitary confinement by privately contracted detention center staff. ICE is fully complicit with this treatment. For his own safety, Jesús must be released from detention. We also demand an investigation into the abuses at both the El Paso and Otero facilities, and for those who are responsible to be held accountable. ____________________________________________________________________ UNIVISION story covering Jesús “Esto es tortura”: Así hablan los inmigrantes que han sido aislados por tiempo prolongado en celdas de castigo | “Victims of torture?” Immigrants complain of lengthy punishment in solitary confinement cells". https://tinyurl.com/y428qkb2 Recent News about conditions impacting the safety of LGBTQ persons detained at Otero ACLU-NM. Letter of Complaint. “Detention Conditions Impacting the Safety and Well-Being of LGBTQ Immigrants in the Otero County Processing Center.” Letter of Complaint, March 25, 2019. https://www.aclu-nm.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/advance_copy_of_3.25.2019_las_americas_santa_fe_dreamers_project_aclu-nm_letter_to_dhs_re_otero.pdf Bixby, Scott. “Trans Migrant Women in ICE Detention Allegedly Told to Bathe With Men.” The Daily Beast, March 27, 2019, sec. politics. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trans-migrant-women-in-ice-detention-allegedly-told-to-bathe-with-men Moore, Robert. “Gay, Transgender Detainees Allege Abuse at ICE Facility in New Mexico.” Washington Post, March 25, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/gay-transgender-detainees-allege-abuse-at-ice-facility-in-new-mexico/2019/03/25/e33ad6b6-4f10-11e9-a3f7-78b7525a8d5f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cd3ec8a69a9d

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Call ICE Director Henry Lucero at ICE headquarters at (602) 200-2215 to let her go home with her children. Sample Script: “I would like to leave a message to ICE Director Henry Lucero. I’m calling in support of Sandra Ramos, A# 078676226 she is a loving single mother of four children who are currently without a home right now. I’m aware that Ms. Ramos had a traffic violation but she has young children who need their mom home. Ms. Ramos’s case has garnered public attention and many are looking more closely into the case. I urge to use your prosecutorial discretion to keep Sandra home with her children. Thank you.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeFLgGZwcIE&feature=youtu.be

Donald Trump just announced executive action that threatens any city that seeks to protect immigrant residents from his deportation machine. What he’s trying to do is roll back the leaps forward we’ve made in recent years but we won’t let him. In 2017, it’s the efforts to defend Black lives and protect migrant rights that make our cities safer, not Trump’s extra enforcement promises. To keep us safe, we need to evolve our local policies to make our cities real sanctuaries for all residents, not cancel them because of the illegitimate President's latest actions. That means a commitment to separating police from federal immigration enforcement AND addressing the policing that funnels Black and other residents to jail and places criminal charges on immigrant residents, making them a target for ICE agents. Tell our mayor and city council to stand up to Trump and take action that doesn't just symbolically defend immigrants, but transforms our city's policies to stop targeting us for imprisonment, risk of removal, and state violence at the hands of police and aggressive immigration agents. The illegitimate President's threats should be cause to embolden our city leaders, not an excuse to abandon our potential progress.

Jose Montelongo is an immigrant from Arizona who just this January sued a local Sheriff for his 48hr detainer policy, that allows the re-arrest of undocumented people for up to 48-hours after they have been released on all state and local charges. ICE lifted the detainer on Jose after the jail commander informed their agency that Jose was likely to succeed on the merits of his emergency request for a Temporary Restraining Order on the Sheriff’s policy. Jose was successfully released on a $200.00 bond from the Coconino County Jail on February 14, 2019, and welcomed with open arms by his children, family, and community. Since his release, ICE has been surveilling the Flagstaff community. On April 18-19 agents targeted immigrant communities in the cities of Flagstaff and Sedona, searching for Jose. ICE detained and threatened loved ones of Jose, who were told that if they did not tell ICE agents Jose’s location, they would go after their family; ICE kept their promise. At least two who were detained were shown files on various members of the community full of information collected through heavy surveillance. Jose’s father was told, “The more attention this gets, the worse it will be for your family.” He refused to speak and is now in Eloy Detention Center awaiting a bond hearing. This is an egregious attack by ICE to chill undocumented people from exercising their civil rights and terrorize communities and organizers. https://youtu.be/eOsD9GO3xqU Jose has lived in Flagstaff since he was 9 years old, for close to 20 years. Last December he was booked into the Coconino County Jail after being pulled over for going 2 miles over the speed limit. He had a failure to appear warrant from 2016 that was unresolved due to a previous voluntary departure in 2016. Jose returned to the United States after his life was threatened and his children’s mother was having trouble caring for his two oldest children on her own. According to Jose, it was made clear to him by ICE agents that the raids and his detention were retaliation for his lawsuit, stating that he should not have let himself be convinced by others he could exercise his rights. After a heavily armed, warrantless and inhumane action led by ICE to capture Jose, agents pulled into a Home Depot parking lot in Cottonwood, Arizona, and thanked him for the raises they would receive, adding plainly that he had brought this upon himself for filing a lawsuit against the Coconino County Sheriff. As recently decided in a federal appeals court case, retaliatory actions towards undocumented activists and advocates are a violation of our first amendment rights.

Nicole Garcia Aguilar is a trans woman who fled Honduras after surviving a violent attack and death threats. Despite being granted asylum in the U.S., ICE detained her unlawfully and placed her in solitary confinement for months. Coverage by the Associated Press and the Guardian: https://apnews.com/04032e8265fe45789a581c2e7ada3823?fbclid=IwAR0tPJ5C-00AQiQ5kl7RK4k9rWbFJKuki5lo6HuhZOkUFptXjdP29Gj-XnI https://amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/19/honduran-transgender-woman-nicole-garcia-aguilar-freed-us-detention?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

Berwyn is a Welcoming City that should be a safe place for all people to live and thrive. Everyone who lives in and visits our city should be free from any type of racial profiling or discrimination. We strongly condemn any practice by the City of Berwyn to encourage the police force or residents to engage in any type of racial or ethnic profiling. In our current era of criminalization of Latinx and other communities of color, we in Berwyn stand strong with our neighbors, family, and community members of color. ****ESPAÑOL**** Berwyn es una ciudad santuario que debería ser un lugar seguro para que todas las personas vivan y prosperen. Todas las personas que viven y visitan nuestra ciudad deben estar libres de cualquier tipo de discriminación o perfil racial. Condenamos cualquier práctica de la Ciudad de Berwyn para alentar a la fuerza policial o los residentes a participar en cualquier tipo de perfil racial o étnico. En nuestra era actual de la criminalización de Latinxs y otras comunidades de color, en Berwyn nos mantenemos firmes con nuestros vecinos, familiares y miembros de la comunidad de color.

Last spring, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) took comments from the public on its proposed Criminal Enterprise Database (CED), beginning on April 11 through May 11, 2019. The comments obtained through the use of the Freedom of Information Act show major discontent with CPD’s plan to implement a new gang database. Alternatively, an overwhelming number of suggestions point to the need for solutions that center investment in public education and mental health resources instead of more systems of biased surveillance and criminalization. According to a memo prepared by the campaign to Erase the Gang Database, approximately 86% of the people who submitted comments opposed the creation of any database, including the Criminal Enterprise Database. A remaining 11% of the comments opposed the CED, but appeared open to the creation of a different database and 3% supported the CED as proposed by the law enforcement agency last year. Last spring the Chicago Office of Inspector General published a partial audit of the Chicago Gang Database, confirming the information that community organizations have been highlighting for years: That it mostly targets Black and Latinx people (at 95% of the list), that it shares information with over 500 agencies, and that instead of being a tool to make communities safer, it is used to criminalize, intimidate, and denigrate Chicagoans. In response, the Chicago Police Department stated that they will only comply with a partial list of the recommendations, by creating a new gang database that is supposed to follow the guidelines but ignoring any grievances of people for the current gang database, with plans of continuing to share the inaccurate data with over 500 agencies indefinitely. Read the public comments here: http://bit.ly/CEDPublicComments Read memo here: http://bit.ly/MemoCEDPublic Find full OIG report here in English and Spanish: https://igchicago.org/2019/04/11/review-of-the-chicago-police-departments-gang-database/

Luis has lived in East Austin since he was a baby; English is his first language. After Luis’s abusive father left the family, Luis’s mother raised him and his siblings as a single-mother. Luis struggled as a teenager, but after meeting his wife Ana Marie, he fell in love and became a father to her two little girls. They built a stable and loving home, and in 2017, Luis was overjoyed to learn that his wife was pregnant and their family would grow. Last year ICE began monitoring Luis on social media and asked the Austin Police Department for help surveilling him without a warrant. Instead of following their own protocols as a Freedom City, the Austin Police Department decided to proactively collaborate with ICE and used a mental health call at a wrong address in the neighborhood to get information on Luis and his family. APD’s unethical behavior helped ICE arrest Luis and he now faces prosecution for “illegal reentry.” If found guilty, Luis could face up to 20 years in prison. Luis is part of a growing trend. Currently, more than 63% of all federal prosecutions are for immigration related charges. Many immigrants facing prosecution feel like they have no support or options, so they plead guilty. But Luis has said “I was unjustly arrested in front of my 8-month pregnant wife. She had a seizure as I was being taken, and I haven’t met my son. I want people to know what APD is doing and how they are helping ICE separate families. I am fighting because I want nothing more than to go to my home in East Austin and hold my wife and son.” Please stand with him so that he knows he is not alone. Luis is a part of our community; he should be allowed to stay in the United States to meet his son and help raise him. Sign here to demand Assistant US Attorney Grant Sparks drop all charges against him, and call on the Austin Police Department to demand they stop doing ICE’s dirty work.

After watching new sheriffs across the state reject local collaboration with ICE, Speaker Tim Moore and NC’s Republican Party want to turn sheriff deputies across the state into immigration agents. A veto by Governor Cooper may be our best and only way of preventing this anti-immigrant bill from passing. HB 370, also known as the “Show Me Your Papers” Law [1], would: - Require sheriff deputies to ask people about their immigration status regardless of criminal charge - Require sheriff deputies to report and detain individuals for ICE. Deputies would have to report the presence of undocumented people to ICE, hand them over to ICE, and comply with any ICE request accompanied by a detainer or ICE hold, which under federal law are voluntary administrative requests and are not the same as criminal judicial warrants. In the last 2 years, two people from North Carolina have died in ICE custody after being turned over by local law enforcement; this bill is literally a matter of life and death for our communities. [2] It would also dramatically increase racial profiling, detentions, deportations, and the separation of families and communities in North Carolina. Rep. Destin Hall who drafted the bill admitted he “took direction from ICE” in sponsoring it - literally working for ICE agents, not the people of the state. [3] The NC GOP wants to use this law to enlist the sheriffs of every county into Trump’s deportation force, and are retaliating against voters across the state who elected a wave of progressive sheriffs in November. They have a legislative majority, and want to use this bill to score political points. We won’t stand for this. On April 3rd the bill was approved by the House. We’re calling on Governor Roy Cooper to stand against it if it passes the Senate, using his veto to stop the bill, and we’re calling on every NC House Democrat to stand with him to sustain his veto. Sign this petition to take a stand against HB 370, to show House Republicans they don’t speak for us, and to demonstrate to Governor Cooper that he should veto this bill. #StopHB370 Coalition includes: Comunidad Colectiva CIMA (Compañeros Inmigrantes de las Montañas) El Pueblo Siembra NC ACLU NC Carolina Justice Policy Center Blueprint NC [1] Updated info & resources on HB 370: http://tiny.cc/HB370info [2] Macon Adkinson, “A Raleigh Man Died of an Apparent Suicide While in Solitary Confinement at a For-Profit Immigration Prison in Georgia” Indyweek, Jul. 13, 2018, available at: https://indyweek.com/news/archives/raleigh-man-died-apparent-suicide-solitary-confinement-for-profit-immigration-prison-georgia/; Jeremy Redmon, “ICE detainee who hanged himself had history of mental health problems,” AJC, July 11, 2017, available at: https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/ice-detainee-who-hanged-himself-had-history-mental-health-problems/MF8JWWpA8v3wefl5BjgLhO/ [3] Statement at 4:33: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/triangle-sandhills/capital-tonight-interviews/2019/03/21/rep--destin-hall-on-ice-cooperation-bill#

Last week members of the coalition to Erase the Cook County Gang Database known as RGID (Regional Gang Intelligence Database) learned of the Sheriff's Office plans to destroy the database before the Cook County Board of Commissioners holds a mandatory public hearing required by the Ordinance approved last month. This expedited approval and comments by the Sheriff's Office should raise red flags to anyone that believes in transparency and processes of accountability of law enforcement. Just because the RGID is destroyed doesn’t mean the harm stops to exist and the Sheriff’s department should follow the proper steps to dismantle the database. For criminalized communities, such as in the case of people included in RGID without due process, having knowledge of which agencies accessed their information can be instrumental to defend their rights in front of agencies such as ICE, FBI, DHS, and State’s Attorney among others. Check out the new report on the Regional Gang Intelligence Database (LINK). Sign and share the petition today.