Good morning. I want to thank the ACLU of Southern California, CHIRLA, NILC, MALDEF and the National Day Laborers Organizing Network for holding this press conference today to highlight the serious problems the Secure Communities program is having on Los Angeles County residents. I wish I could be there in person to add my voice to all of your concerns.

I want to begin by stressing that I support the stated goals of the Secure Communities program. Anyone who is undocumented in this country and who has been convicted of a serious, violent offense should be removed from the country. Period.

But that’s not what’s happening. When you look at the numbers, nearly half of the undocumented individuals from LA County who have been taken into ICE custody have not committed or been convicted of a serious, violent offense.

And it gets worse. Native born American citizens are being illegally detained by the Secure Communities program – right here in LA County. In fact, during November alone, three American citizens born right here in the US were imprisoned in LA County because the Secure Communities Program mistakenly believed they were undocumented immigrants. This is unacceptable.

It is clear this program doesn’t work. Not only is it entrapping native citizens, it has driven a wedge between the Los Angeles law enforcement and immigrant communities. This jeopardizes police work and public safety. That is why the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General investigated this program.

 And now, the imprisonment of native born American citizens is more compelling proof that Secure Communities is wrong for LA City, wrong for LA County and wrong for our country.

That’s why today, I sent a letter along with other LA Area Members of Congress calling on the City and County to take steps to limit the impact of this program. They should immediately adopt policies that restrict the circumstances in which local authorities will agree to enforce ICE’s request to detain individuals under the Secure Communities Program.

 And if similar measures have been taken in New York City, Santa Clara County and Cook County, Illinois recently, well it is time for the City and County of LA to limit its participation as well, until the concerns being raised about Secure Communities are properly addressed. It is simply the right thing to do to protect the safety and welfare of all of our residents, and to truly ensure that we have safer, more secure communities.

By Hector Villagra, Executive Director
It’s a hard video to stomach, I know.
Seeing it always reminds me of what Dostoevsky wrote:
"The degree of civilization in a society can be measured by entering its prisons."
I think the point is this: if you want to judge the soul of a society, you see how it treats the weak, the vulnerable, and, yes, even the scorned. That's the true test of how good and just a society is.
Tonight, let’s consider three stories, and let’s hold a mirror up to our society.
Seth Walsh was thirteen, and he found obstacles at school. Seth loved dogs and Pokémon, riding his bike and listening to music. But Seth couldn't see past the pain at school.
Seth came home from school one day and told his mom he was going out to the backyard to play with his dogs. His mother later found him hanging from a large tree – unconscious. He died days later.
Seth had endured years of harassment for the way he walked, the way he talked, and the way he dressed – even before he came out. It only got worse after he came out – he got tripped, he got pushed, he got shoved, he got stalked. Teachers knew, school officials knew, but they did nothing about it.
Our military service men and women hear the call of duty and they answer it. They go off to fight for their country in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. They expect to struggle to survive on the streets of Kabul and Baghdad.
They do not expect to struggle to survive on Main Street when they come back home.
Los Angeles now has 8,500 vets living on its streets. The VA runs a property in West LA that covers a massive 387 acres of land – that’s half the size of central park.
Prominent families deeded that land to the federal government -- in 1888 -- for one purpose – to provide a permanent home for disabled U.S. soldiers.
Today, the VA provides no permanent or even long-term housing for veterans. Instead, the VA has leased out nearly one-third of the property – to house rental cars, buses, baseball fields, a hotel laundry, and a dog park.
Robert Rosebrock, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran, protested for two years at the property. Outraged, he decided to hang the U.S. flags upside down – a distress signal. The VA repeatedly cited him for this and took the flag down.
Last, as the court-ordered monitor of the LA county jails, we have long pointed out the inhumane conditions there. Four years ago, Judge Dean Pregerson, who oversees the case, visited the jails. He saw grossly overcrowded jails that provided inmates limited – and often late – access to medical care and little – if any – exercise or other out of cell time. He said the jails violated basic human values.
In the past few years, we have become more and more worried about the rising level of deputy-on-inmate violence in the jails. This past year, as you saw in the video, civilians – including chaplain Paulino Juarez – saw deputies brutally beat defenseless inmates.
Some say that if you break the law, you deserve whatever you get. But the great majority of people held in la county jails are simply awaiting trial – they have yet to get their day in court and we must presume them to be innocent. And we, as a society, reject cruel and unusual punishment. No civilized society makes beatings at the hands of jailer’s part of the penalty for breaking the law.
My fellow card-carrying members of the ACLU – I presume you are all members – we are blessed to call Los Angeles home. We live here because it's a world center. Because our to-do options include surfing in Malibu, hiking the Griffith Park trails, or shopping on Melrose and, let's not forget, it is December and – typically -- 75 degrees.
We pride ourselves in calling Los Angeles home, but we must ask ourselves some questions.
Do we need any more kids to take their lives before we all agree that our schools must stop and prevent bullying?
What right does the government have to punish a vet – a vet who has risked life and limb for his country – for hanging the flag upside down?
Can we call ourselves the home of the brave when so many of our brave are homeless?
Do we accept Rodney king-like beatings – week in and week out in the jails – just because there is no videotape to remind us of the brutality?
Ideally, the government would always respect individual rights. But we know reality is different, far different.
We know all too well that individual rights – although guaranteed by our constitution – are never finally and completely secure. Our rights are timeless, but we must defend them in the here and now.
So, as we celebrate the 220th birthday of the bill of rights, the best gift we as Americans can give it, and keep on giving it, is a healthy defense.
We at the ACLU, fight to defend the bill of rights for everyone.
We arm people – on street corners and in community centers – with knowledge of their rights and how to use them.
We fight at the city council, we fight at the Board of Supervisors, we fight at the state legislature, we fight in congress. And, when needed, we fight in the state courts; we fight in the Federal courts.
And we will fight so long as there is a bill of rights to fight for.
This year, we pushed for the state to pass Seth’s law and we strengthened anti-bullying policies in California schools.
And we launched the Seth Walsh students' rights project to help teachers, counselors, and principals know what they can do to address bullying, to investigate incidents of harassment, and to make sure all students have a safe learning environment.
And we sued the VA for Robert Rosebrock, we got his citations dismissed, and we upheld his right to free speech – to hang the flag upside down.
And we sued the veterans' administration for failing to take care of our wounded veterans when they come home.
And, of course, we have been very loud in asking for reform of the jails and a full-blown federal investigation as well as the resignation of Sheriff Lee Baca. He has said he didn't know about the violence in the jails. This is no excuse; it's an indictment.
People just like us founded in 1923 – not by super humans, but the ACLU of Southern California. People with the same beliefs, the same convictions, and the same hopes for southern California.
We will continue the fight our founders started. And we will succeed because we have the brightest and most dedicated team of individuals defending our rights. Staff whom brave men's central jail to report on what's going on behind closed doors. Staff who stay out until 4am to monitor the occupy la evacuation. Staff who spend their nights and weekends gathering signatures so we can abolish the death penalty in California. Staff who do all they can to help lead freedom forward.
I want to thank our staff for the battles they have fought, and the sacrifices they have made. If our staff members would please stand, I’d like to give you the chance to help me thank them.
We are a dedicated but small group, and we alone are not nearly enough to do this work.
We rely on you. We rely on your activism – marching, chanting, writing, petitioning and advocating to those in power.
We rely on your donations, your support, and sometimes even your prayers.
We rely on people like our distinguished honorees. People who put the precious principles -- of liberty, justice, and equality -- into practice. Through their teaching and writing. Through their music and films. And through their advocacy and philanthropy.
Most of all, we rely on the courage of those who see wrong and say, "no, I will not stand for this!"
Please help me salute one such person.
Robert, would you please stand up?
We at the ACLU of Southern California, live with our bull horn volume turned up high, our backpacks filled with pens and petitions, and our faith in the bill of rights held close in our hearts.
The courage that it took Robert and Paulino to take a stand against injustice – it lives in all us.
So, I ask you – all of you – to call upon that courage and help us lead freedom forward.

This post originally appeared in The Tennessean.
This week’s news of another suicide by a young student—brought about after years of anti-gay bullying at his school—reminds me of my own experiences attending schools in Tennessee twenty years ago. Unfortunately, it seems little has changed.
Back then, it was part of my regular school day to be called anti-gay slurs, to be pushed into lockers, and to have my books knocked out of my hands—apparently I carried them in a feminine way. I couldn’t wait to graduate so I could escape the constant fear I faced each time I boarded the school bus, or walked down the halls, out onto the playground, or into the cafeteria. Thankfully, I finished high school, went to college and law school, and ended up landing a dream job at the ACLU of Southern California.
Now I direct an anti-bullying project with the mission of stopping unlawful harassment and bullying in California schools and creating school communities that promote safety and respect for all students. Our project teaches school personnel about the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) students, and holds accountable those who allow anti-gay discrimination to go unchecked. Admittedly, the project’s goals are lofty, but they are made more attainable by the strong anti-bullying laws we have in California, including explicit protections for LGBT students.
If only LGBT students in Tennessee were as fortunate. Ninety-eight percent of the LGBT students in Tennessee report verbal harassment. Yet no laws exist in Tennessee specifically protecting LGBT students. That leaves students like Jacob Rogers to defend themselves when their teachers won’t step in to stop the bullying—or worse, when their teachers choose to bully them directly. Imagine how difficult that can be for a confused teenager, many of whom cannot rely on family for support.
Compounding the struggle our youth face, many teenagers who are questioning their sexual orientation and/or gender identity often feel isolated and alone. I was often reminded of this during the time I served as the executive director of Mid-TN Nashville Pride; after each year’s parade—which always made the local news and the cover of the Tennessean—I’d get at least one call from a local student, expressing thanks to the Pride organization for planning an event that proved LGBT people live in Tennessee too.
Through all of these experiences—from being bullied, to highlighting the rich diversity of Middle Tennessee’s LGBT community, to ensuring that the bullying stops here—I have learned that preventing future tragedies like what befell Jacob will require a community-wide conversation and response. It will require advocacy to ensure passage of strong local school board policies and statewide laws to protect LGBT students; it will require engaging the community to teach LGBT students about their rights, and to teach school personnel about their obligations to uphold those rights. And, in some instances, it may require litigation to force school districts to comply with the law. But together, we can stop bullying. I hope you will join us in this effort.
James W. Gilliam is the deputy executive director of the ACLU of Southern California and the director of the organization’s anti-bullying project. He served as executive director of Mid-TN Nashville Pride until 1999 when he moved to Los Angeles for law school.