ACLU
Tony –
It's Friday. And we have not one, not two, but three meaningful victories to share with you from this week. Each is a result of years of work from lawyers, organizers, policy experts, our partners, and civil rights activists like you.
Customs and Border Protection changed its policy to require consent to board buses like Greyhound. After a multi-year campaign to stop the harmful practice of allowing CBP raids on Greyhound buses, the largest federal law enforcement agency in the nation caved. Greyhound has a responsibility to make it clear that it does not consent to CBP boarding its buses. It has the power to stop the racial profiling, harassment, and wrongful detention of its passengers. It must use it.
A court ruled against Florida's wealth-based hurdles to voting. After we mobilized to restore voting rights to people in Florida with a past conviction, the state enacted a law requiring payment before restoring this right. This wealth-based hurdle to voting significantly curtailed the reach of Amendment 4, which would have restored voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians. We challenged the law, and won – the Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with the district court that a person's right to vote cannot be contingent upon their ability to pay.
A private equity firm behind Aladdin bail bonds, the largest bail bond company in the country, will divest from for-profit bail. Endeavour Capital had been one of the biggest proponents of for-profit bail since 2012, funding much of the opposition to bail reform and pushing to expand for-profit bail around the country. We teamed up with Color Of Change to take on Endeavor, targeting their major investors and working with lawmakers to elevate scrutiny of for-profit bail. Endeavor had enough of us and, last weekend, finally decided to throw in the towel and sell off its share in Aladdin.
Good news is always worth celebrating, and a time to give credit where credit is due. Thanks for all you do to make wins like these possible – whether you've signed a petition, called your legislator, donated, or joined us out in the streets. We're lucky to have you with us
Happy Friday!
The ACLU Team
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It is awesome that the ACLU helped to stop the boarding of Greyhound buses by ICE, and Border Patrol, etc, I have seen them do it on my way to San Diego on Greyhound, they used to board the buses and look for Spanish speaking Brown people, it was very racist, and it went against all that we stand for as Americans, I am glad that Greyhound buses will now be safe for everyone.
The ACLU is doing a lot of great work.
Salute,
Tony V.
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