LOS ANGELES - In pledging its support for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school reform bill, the ACLU of Southern California becomes the first major civil rights group to back the plan to improve Los Angeles Unified School District and increase accountability within the system.

The announcement comes after the Executive Committee of the ACLU/SC voted unanimously to support AB 1381, the Gloria Romero Educational Reform Act of 2006. The ACLU will deliver a letter in support of the bill to the Legislature Monday, Aug. 14 when hearings on AB 1381 are set to begin in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The following statement can be attributed to Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California.

Education reform has always been a cornerstone of the ACLU of Southern California's civil liberties work. It is the underpinning of everything we do and we are committed to improving education so that students have equal opportunities, each student's worth and potential is recognized and all are given the tools to succeed.

We are pleased to pledge our support to AB 1381, the Gloria Romero Educational Reform Act of 2006, because we are hopeful it will significantly improve the education of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. While we believe there are some changes that would improve the bill, it provides necessary reform of the governance of the district and it increases accountability within the system.

In its current incarnation LAUSD has failed generations of children and LAUSD has the state's highest drop-out rate - roughly 50 percent.

The status quo is unacceptable. We are encouraged that this bill, if passed, will hold the mayor of Los Angeles directly accountable for three clusters of very low-performing schools in different areas of the city. It is that direct responsibility that is necessary to improve LAUSD. The bill also properly strengthens the role and accountability of the District Superintendent, which is key to school improvement.

Reform of the LAUSD is long overdue and AB 1381 is an important step in the right direction. If passed, the mayor will have significant incentive to see real reform take place in the schools and that is imperative to the success of the district.

ORANGE, Calif. - On behalf of a Buddhist temple, the ACLU of Southern California sued the city of Garden Grove today demanding an injunction to stop the enforcement of an unconstitutional city code.

"Under the Garden Grove city code, city officials have full discretion to decide what religious institutions are allowed to practice in the city and where they are allowed to practice," said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, staff attorney for the ACLU/SC in Orange County. "We are challenging this unconstitutional code so that Quan Am Temple and other religious institutions in the future are legally allowed to practice their religion."

Quan Am Temple, or the Vietnamese Buddhism Study Temple, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Santa Ana today against the Garden Grove city council and planning commission for violating the Temple and its congregation's First Amendment rights to free religious exercise, their rights under the California Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

"It is very difficult for us to file this complaint, but we feel we have been left with no choice," said The Most Venerable Thich Dao Quang, the Abbot of the Quan Am Temple. "We have done everything possible to allay the concerns of the city. We reduced the size of the temple, we added extra parking, we offered to pay property taxes, we proposed a shuttle service for congregants on busy holidays and we even paid for a traffic study of the site that said traffic would be reduced, but still the temple has been denied. We now have nowhere to practice our religion."

Quan Am Temple opened in Garden Grove in 1999, but by 2003 the congregation had outgrown its building. The Temple began looking for a larger permanent site to house a monastery and a place of worship for the congregation of 150 to 300 area residents.

Current Garden Grove statutes require religious institutions to be housed in residential zones or seek a zone change from the city and obtain a conditional use permit prior to practicing their religion in the city. In 2004 a congregant loaned Quan Am Temple $1.95 million to purchase a medical building on 1.8 acres in an area zoned Office-Professional that had been on the market for 3 years. Before purchasing the property, the Abbot and two followers received assurances from members of the city council that the city would support the project, but despite a recommendation from city staff the planning commission and the city council denied permits for the project.

"The Temple is hanging on by a string, its congregation is unable to practice its religion and the temple is losing money and barely able to survive. They cannot even afford to keep all the lights on as they try to hang on to the building while this ordeal continues," Escobosa Helzer said. "The city says it's worried about losing its tax base, but the Temple has offered to pay property taxes even though religious institutions are tax exempt and the building has sat nearly empty for about three years."

The city has routinely allowed non-religious non-profits, including the Boy's and Girls Club, which neighbors the temple site, to be housed in commercial areas, and has granted zone changes to some religious groups in the city, Escobosa Helzer said.

LOS ANGELES - On behalf of a U.S. military veteran, a medical doctor, small business owners and others who have been illegally denied citizenship, the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a class action lawsuit today against the federal government.

"These are people who have spent virtually their whole adult lives in this country and who want to pledge their allegiance to the United States and participate fully in our society as U.S. citizens," said ACLU/SC attorney Ranjana Natarajan. "There is no reason why anyone should have to wait so long for citizenship after meeting all the requirements."

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal district court in Los Angeles against high ranking officials in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, seeks citizenship for ten legal permanent residents who have satisfied all the criteria for citizenship, but whose applications have not been acted upon for two years or more. The lawsuit also seeks a policy change so that no other residents are forced to wait for years after meeting all naturalization requirements.

U.S. immigration law clearly states that legal residents who have fulfilled all the requirements including passing a naturalization exam and interview must be granted or denied citizenship within 120 days of their naturalization examinations.

For Irvine resident and Air Force veteran Mustafa Aziz such delays have forced him to wait almost seven times the legal maximum after completing the entire naturalization process.

"Despite serving in the U.S. Air Force, I have been waiting for my citizenship for more than two years," said Aziz, who with his family escaped war torn Afghanistan and came to the U.S. as a one-year old. "It was important to me to serve my country, but now I want to do more and without citizenship I cannot contribute my fullest to our society. I am part of this lawsuit because I hope the government will mend its broken system so this does not happen to anyone else."

According to the lawsuit: "Despite the fact that Plaintiffs have been waiting for over two years since their naturalization interviews, Defendants have failed to provide any time frames by which they will adjudicate Plaintiffs' naturalization applications. Defendants, through their callous inaction, have deprived Plaintiffs of the rights and benefits of U.S. citizenship."

The purported reason for the delay is a background check known as a "name check," for which neither the CIS nor the FBI imposes any deadlines for completion.

'Longtime residents who have paid their dues and are contributing to our country deserve a timely decision as required by law,' said Cecillia Wang, senior attorney for the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. 'Our clients are among the hundreds or thousands of longtime residents around the country who have been waiting patiently for years. The time for fixing the system is long overdue.'

The Southern California residents who are part of this class action lawsuit represent dozens of other people throughout the region who are in similar positions.

"Regardless of whether this delay is due to incompetence or discrimination, the ordeal for law-abiding and patriotic residents has to end,' said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California CAIR chapter. 'The delay is causing a lot of distress to many Americans.'