[204.243.96.8]) by villa.fc.net (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP id PAA09365 for 
; Fri, 11 Oct 1996 15:47:51 -0500
951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/940406.SGI)
* Moved (from: NETMAIL) by Terry Liberty-Parker using timEd 1.10+.
From: ACLU Newsfeed Owner 
________________________________________
Sender: owner-news@aclu.org
Precedence: bulk
10/10/96
ACLU Newsfeed -- ACLU News Direct to YOU
_________________________________________
  
TODAYS NEWS
* U.S. Judge Bars INS From Denying Deportation Hearings to Immigrants
* ACLU Challenges Municipal Drug Testing Policy Before California Supreme
Court
* Mississippi Mom Who Lost Children Takes Case to U.S. Supreme Court
* Clinton Administration Seeks To End Amnesty Lawsuits
* High School Dogs Students in Drug Search
________________________________________
U.S. Judge Bars INS From Denying 
Deportation Hearings to Immigrants
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, October 9, 1996
SEATTLE, Wash. -- In a ruling that affects thousands of immigrants nationwide
who are facing deportation, a federal district court in Seattle has issued a
permanent injunction against the Immigration and Naturalization Service for
failing to inform individuals of their right to a hearing prior to
deportation.
"This decision reaffirms the fundamental, but often neglected principle that
everyone in the United States -- regardless of immigration status -- is
protected by the Due Process clause and must be given a fair opportunity to
contest accusations against them," said Lee Gelernt, a staff attorney with
the ACLU's National Immigrants' Rights Project.
In his decision last week, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, a Reagan
appointee, said that the INS had violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process
clause by failing to properly inform individuals charged with using false
documents that they have a right to request a hearing in order to rebut those
charges. 
The judge found that the INS had been using forms and procedures that were
"highly technical," "legalistic," and "confusing," and did not "adequately
apprise [immigrants] of their rights to hearings."  The judge also found that
since many of the charged individuals were Spanish-speaking, it was "simply
unacceptable" for the INS not to have provided forms in a language other than
English.
"As a result of the INS's misleading and confusing practices, many
non-citizens forfeited their right to a hearing, which automatically led them
to face permanent deportation," Gelernt added.
The ACLU said that the ruling should come as  welcome relief to thousands of
immigrants who were facing possible deportation, even though many have long
ties to this country, or are married to U.S. citizens, or have children who
are U.S. citizens.
The ruling came in response to a class action lawsuit brought by the ACLU,
the National Immigration Law Center, and others in 1994, after Congress
enacted legislation designed to curb the use of fraudulent documents by
immigrants.  Throughout the litigation, the INS had argued that individuals
who had forfeited their right to a hearing had done so knowingly and
voluntarily, a claim the judge soundly rejected.
The injunction permanently enjoins the INS from continuing its misleading
practices, and requires the agency to provide clear and accessible
information to non-citizens about their right to contest charges of document
fraud before an immigration judge.  Individuals who have already been charged
will now have the opportunity to request a hearing.
________________________________________
ACLU Challenges Municipal Drug Testing Policy
Before California Supreme Court
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, October 8, 1996
LOS ANGELES -- The California Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow in
an ACLU of Southern California case challenging a drug testing policy adopted
by the City of Glendale in 1986 that requires all job applicants and
candidates for promotions to submit to a drug test.
The policy would also require employees to disclose the medications they are
taking such as AZT, insulin or birth control pills.  Anyone who refuses is
automatically disqualified from taking the employment or promotional
examination for an unspecified period of time.
The ACLU charges that the policy violates the right to privacy and to be free
from unreasonable searches and seizures as guaranteed by the California
Constitution and is in violation of the Confidentiality of Medical
Information Act.  
On September 8, 1987 the California Superior Court granted a preliminary
injunction in Loder vs City of Glendale. After trial in 1991, Judge Williams
enjoined 150 job classifications from drug testing, amounting to roughly a
third of the city's jobs.
In September 1994, the California Court of Appeal established a standard that
sharply limited Glendale's drug testing and sent the case back to the trial
court for further opinion.  The Court of Appeal also called into question
approximately 150 more jobs, on top of those enjoined by the lower court.
 Testing was upheld only for employees whose job demands were such that
failure to meet them would jeopardize public safety such as police or public
transportation workers.
________________________________________
Mississippi Mom Who Lost Children 
Takes Case to U.S. Supreme Court
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, October 7, 1996
WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union today argued before the U.S.
Supreme Court that Mississippi may not deny a mother the opportunity to
appeal the termination of her parental rights solely because she could not
afford to pay $2,352.36 in court fees.
The plaintiff in the case, Melissa Lumpkin Brooks (known in court papers as
"M.L.B."), is seeking to overturn a ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court,
which had refused to waive an administrative court fee preventing her from
appealing the loss of her two children.  
The case may have an important impact on how lower courts will handle many
parental rights cases, since more than half of all poor families in the U.S.
are headed by single women, the ACLU said.
"The relationship between parent and child is among the most important that
can be adjudicated in a court of law," said Robert McDuff, an attorney from
Jackson, Miss., who argued the case on Brooks behalf in cooperation with the
ACLU of Mississippi.  "The question here is whether we really have equal
justice or whether we have separate systems of justice, one for the rich and
a lesser one for the poor."
The case began in 1993 when the plaintiffs former husband, "S.L.J.," filed a
lawsuit to terminate her parental rights, so that his new wife could adopt
the children.  The lawsuit made no claims of abuse or mistreatment, but only
that Brooks had failed to visit her children enough and was behind on child
payments.  Brooks countered that S.L.J. had prevented her from visiting the
children more often.
Nonetheless, a judge granted the request, severing all relationships between
Brooks and her two children, then aged seven and nine. Brooks attempted to
appeal the ruling, but was told that state law requires her to pay the cost
of transferring 1169 pages of court transcripts and other papers, which at
$2.00 per page, totaled more than two thousand dollars.
"Because she couldnt afford to pay for the court records, Melissa Brooks lost
all rights to her children -- even to visitation," McDuff said.
 Brooks applied for an exception to the fee requirement, but the state
supreme court denied her request, stating that poor people in parental rights
cases have no right to appeal without paying fees and costs, even if the
appeals process is the only means by which she could reclaim rights to her
children.
The ACLU today argued that the state court violated the Due Process and Equal
Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, which together guarantee that
all citizens -- rich or poor -- have a right to pursue their fundamental
interests through the court system.
Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLUs national legal director, said: "There are few
interests arising in civil litigation more important that the interest
implicated in parental termination cases.  The Constitution requires that a
poor mother has as much right to defend her parental rights as a rich one." 
________________________________________
Clinton Administration Seeks
To End Amnesty Lawsuits
LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Justice Department, citing the new immigration law,
is trying to dismiss lawsuits that claim 400,000 people were wrongly denied
amnesty in the 1980s, the Associated Press reports.
Attorney General Janet Reno filed motions in California and Washington state
to dismiss the class-action lawsuits following President Clinton's signing of
the new immigration measure last week.
"The bottom line is that they (the immigrants) have managed to stay here
based on legal action, without any kind of permanent legal residency,''
Carole Florman, a Justice Department spokeswoman, told AP.
The new law broadly restricts the power of federal courts to review
immigration cases.
"This is a radical attack on the courts and the Constitution,'' said Lucas
Guttentag, who heads the national immigrant rights project of the American
Civil Liberties Union.
In the past, immigrants have filed successful class-action lawsuits alleging
discrimination against Haitian, Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum-seekers;
claiming the Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted warrantless
searches of farm workers' homes and alleging that immigration agents
improperly interrogated people based solely on ethnic appearance.
INS officials say their agency is more professional and needs less judicial
oversight than in years past. But AP said others strongly disagree.
"It's ludicrous to believe that the INS can, or will, or has any interest in
policing itself,'' said Peter Schey, executive director of the Center for
Human Rights & Constitutional Law, which -- like the ACLU -- has sued the
agency repeatedly.
________________________________________
High School Dogs Students in Drug Search
YORK, NE -- State and local police staged a surprise raid on a high school
Wednesday, using drug-sniffing dogs to search lockers and vehicles for 45
minutes as school officials kept students inside classrooms, Associated Press
reports.
The search at York High School turned up a few marijuana seeds, ashes and
empty drug-related containers in four cars, as well as one small concealed
weapon that school officials said was neither a gun nor a knife.
School officials defended the search, especially after a student died after
using drugs last year. 
"We are not in the business of hassling kids," principal Scott Koch told the
AP.  "The message we want to send is first of all drugs are illegal, they are
not acceptable and they won't be tolerated in school."
But the executive director of the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union said the message being sent to students is that they have no
personal rights.
"This is a classic case of where students lose their rights as soon as the
enter the doors at school," said Matt LeMieux, Executive Director of the ACLU
of Nebraska.
The courts say that before police and school officials can search a locker or
vehicle they need reasonable suspicion that there is evidence of a crime or
violation of school policy, LeMieux told AP.
"I highly doubt they had reasonable suspicion that all of those students were
in violation of school policy or the law," he said.  
Koch insisted the search was legal and that students had been told that
lockers and their vehicles on school property were subject to search.  
________________________________________
ONLINE RESOURCES FROM THE ACLU NATIONAL OFFICE
________________________________________
ACLU Freedom Network Web Page:  http://www.aclu.org.  
America Online users should check out our live chats, auditorium events,
*very* active message boards, and complete news on civil liberties, at
keyword ACLU.
________________________________________
ACLU Newsfeed
American Civil Liberties Union National Office
132 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036
To subscribe to the ACLU Newsfeed, send a message to majordomo@aclu.org with
"subscribe News" in the body of the message.  To terminate your subscription,
send a message to majordomo@aclu.org with "unsubscribe News" in the body of
the message.
For general information about the ACLU, write to info@aclu.org.
________________________________________
This message was sent to the
news
---
--- Squish/386 v1.11
---------------