News & Commentary

U.S. citizens cannot be deported or held by immigration authorities. And yet we know that federal agents working for U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, or ICE, have been indiscriminately targeting them on a regular basis. SB 168 would lead to countless U.S. citizens being held for ICE.

Around midnight on Sept. 5, 2018, guards responded to prisoners banging on their cell doors inside a lockdown unit at Broward County Jail’s main facility in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. They went to the solitary cell of J.I.* and made a gruesome discovery.  

When children of color are disproportionately identified as needing special education, there are particular risks involved. Children of color with disabilities are more likely to be educated in segregated settings, leaving them with fewer opportunities to interact with nondisabled peers.

The conduct of the U.S. government in retaliating against journalists and activists at the border is disturbing and unacceptable.

Last Friday, a Honduran asylum seeker suffered an unthinkable tragedy when she had a stillbirth while in ICE detention in Texas. While the facts of this case are still coming to light, it is only one of many tragic incidents involving immigrants detained by the federal government in recent months.

We are concerned that the Florida First Step Act is less likely to benefit black and brown people and may exacerbate racial disparities in our prison population.

Our war on drugs has been a moral disaster, but even if prosecutors don’t think that decriminalization, or even outright legalization is the solution, they should put into place protections to ensure no one’s liberty is jeopardized based on a bad roadside drug test.

Florida policymakers continue to prioritize policing over supporting students.

In cities around Florida, people who benefited from the passage of Amendment 4 in the November elections are finding envelopes in their mailboxes bearing their spanking new voter identification cards.