News & Commentary

Former Gov. Jeb Bush showed himself to be out of step with the emerging consensus in Washington, D.C. that we should not address the presence of millions of undocumented immigrants, some of whom have been in the country for decades, by creating a permanent underclass.

The world got a glimpse this week into how the United States treats those we lock in solitary confinement, when the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights heard ACLU testimonies on how our treatment of vulnerable prisoners violates international human rights norms. The short story: we should be ashamed.

Note: The following blog post originally appeared on the National ACLU Blog of Rights. That post can be seen here

In Florida, incarceration is big business. So is college football. There might be some twisted logic, then, to the GEO Group, Inc.'s latest scheme to whitewash its public image.

Addr

"It

This week witnessed two steps forward in the movement for LGBT equality in Florida.

Right now, two sheriff's offices in Florida are participating in a program that has led to racial profiling and created fear in minority communities. This program goes beyond the infamous Arizona anti-immigrant law, not just involving local law enforcement officers in asking about immigration status, but actually deputizing these officers to perform immigration enforcement functions on behalf of the federal government. But like the Arizona law, this program is ripe for abuse.

In this election, we Floridians had to defend our constitution from assault by our own Legislature.

The defeat of Amendments 5, 6 and 8 is a major victory for the people of Florida over the legislature which tried to deceive us into voting to surrender our civil liberties with misleading constitutional Amendments. The fact that the legislature came up short is a triumph for the constitutional rights of Floridians.