LOS ANGELES - Nearly six months after hundreds of people were arrested outside of bus stations, schools and hospitals for alleged immigration violations, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit seeking Border Patrol records after the agency repeatedly ignored requests for records related to the raids under the Freedom of Information Act. The suit was filed in federal court in the central district of California.

In June the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), formerly the Border Patrol, arrested more than 400 people in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties during immigration raids in predominantly Latino communities - far from its usual jurisdiction near international borders.

The ACLU made an initial request for the records in July to ensure that the Border Patrol was acting within the law, not violating Californians' constitutional rights and not engaging in racial profiling since the majority of those stopped, including U.S. citizens and permanent residents, were Latino.

"Questions like why the raids occurred, whether they were authorized, and whether people's constitutional rights were violated remain unanswered," said Ranjana Natarajan, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. "The answers to such questions will likely be found in the Border Patrol's records."

After the raids began schools reported higher than usual absence rates and medical clinics saw a temporary decline in the number of patients seeking services.

"We have no way of knowing if the Border Patrol targeted people because of their race, the language they speak, or the community in which they live," said Esther Portillo of the Libreria del Pueblo, a community group in San Bernardino. "Here, the fear caused by the raids kept many people in their homes, afraid to go into the streets. To this day no one knows why the raids happened and we have the right to know."

Under the FOIA guidelines, the CBP, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, had 20 days to respond to the ACLU's request. The agency did not respond and after an appeal by the ACLU, the agency blamed a lack of resources and a backlog of requests for not responding and did not say whether or not it planned to answer the request. Because the agency kept its records secret and the public in the dark about its practices, the ACLU filed suit.

In response to a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Housing Authority of Santa Monica today agreed to allow a gay man on disability to live with his partner of 10 years.
"I'm extremely relieved that my partner and I will no longer have to live apart," said Gene Boccia. "He's my life support system, helping me with everything from doing the grocery shopping to taking me to the doctor. It's a great comfort to know that from now on he'll be by my side around the clock."
Boccia, disabled since a 1974 hate crime in which he was shot in the face, has been living in the same housing complex since 1999, using Section 8 housing vouchers. This fall he learned from an unmarried, cohabitating heterosexual couple that he could apply to the Housing Authority to have his life partner Brett Crowley share his apartment with him. Crowley is a disabled veteran who also relies on public assistance. Although the couple has been together over 10 years, they have always lived apart in fear of violating rules that would jeopardize their assistance.
The couple applied to live together almost immediately after learning that they could do so, but the Housing Authority failed to act on their request. Boccia contacted the ACLU, which submitted letters to the Housing Authority in October pointing out that both state and local law prohibit housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Today the Housing Authority notified Boccia that his request to share his apartment with Crowley was approved.
"We're very pleased that the Housing Authority has decided to do right by this couple," said Christine Sun, a staff attorney for the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the ACLU. "Their story illustrates all too painfully what happens when the relationships of same-sex couples - especially those with limited incomes -- aren't respected."
Because Boccia and Crowley could not live together, they were also unable to apply to the state to become domestic partners. Now that this hurdle has been cleared, they plan to register with the state and take advantage of the expanded protections afforded to domestic partners that are scheduled to take place on January 1, 2005.
A copy of one of the letters submitted to the Housing Authority is available at http://www.aclu.org/LesbianGayRights/LesbianGayRights.cfm?ID=17179&c=100.

LOS ANGELES - The California affiliates of the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit today stating that Proposition 69 is unconstitutional. The case challenges those portions of the law that require DNA testing of people who are arrested for a felony and never charged or later found innocent, and people who have been convicted of a felony but have already served their debt to society and are no longer under any supervision by the criminal justice system.

Because of Proposition 69, people who are arrested for felonies will be subjected to DNA testing under the law, even if they are found innocent of the crime. This includes victims of identity theft; political protestors; lawful medical marijuana users; victims of domestic violence, who are arrested for violence committed in self-defense and who either have the charges against them dropped or are subsequently acquitted; and people who were arrested for felony drug offenses and who upon successful completion of treatment programs, have had their convictions expunged under Proposition 36 or other state laws. Proposition 69 also mandates the sharing of DNA samples with law enforcement and private laboratories nationwide and globally.

"DNA reveals highly personal medical information like if a person is HIV-positive or predisposed to Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis or even certain forms of cancer," said ACLU Staff Attorney Ricardo Garcia. "It contains a wealth of intimate information, much more than a fingerprint."

"Collecting DNA through Prop. 69 is a direct violation of a person's Fourth Amendment and due process and privacy rights," added Garcia. "Californians should be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. It's our constitutional right to privacy of our personal medical and genetic information."

Reuben Rivas, a former legal observer for the 2000 Democratic National Convention, joined the lawsuit after being swept up while observing a protest and arrested for a felony that a judge determined there was no evidence to sustain. Under the law, Rivas will be required to be tested for his DNA.

"I was treated like a criminal and arrested for a crime that I didn't commit. And now under the passage of Proposition 69, I will be subject to have my civil rights violated again by having to submit my DNA to law enforcement, even though I was never convicted of any crime."

Proposition 69 was passed by California voters on Nov. 2, 2004 and is known as the California DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act. Before passage of Prop. 69, California law provided for mandatory DNA testing only of individuals who had been convicted of serious and violent felony offenses and the inclusion of their DNA in a statewide database.

The suit, filed jointly with Covington & Burling in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, seeks a permanent injunction against DNA extraction and retention from Californians arrested but not convicted and those who have completed probation and parole.