A few months ago, the ACLU released it’s memo on Trump’s candidacy that outlined some of the concerns it had over his policies. Today, they released their memo on the concerns with Clinton. Unsurprisingly, they focus on immigration and national security, two issues which progressives have complained about throughout the election season.
The ACLU is urging Clinton to end the detention of immigrant families, halt large-scale immigration raids and ensure immigrants receive proper legal counsel. The group is also asking Clinton to commit to bringing unlawful targeted killing drone programs to a stop, repeal provisions that allow illegal surveillance of Americans’ communications, and reform counterterrorism programs in order to protect civil rights of American Muslims and to keep America safe. The analysis acknowledges Clinton’s strong record on women’s rights, LGBT equality, and reproductive freedom and offers a roadmap for Clinton, if elected, to become a civil liberties champion. Clinton can improve her platform by:
- Ending the unnecessary and destructive practice of family detention by closing existing family detention facilities, halting the procurement of new facilities for family detention, releasing all detained families, and prioritizing alternatives to detention that accord with civil libertarian principles.
- Following the rulings of two U.S. Courts of Appeals on a nationwide basis and ending the practice of detaining immigrants for prolonged periods without any individualized custody hearing while they fight their deportation cases by giving people a hearing after they have been detained for six months.
- Ending the use of profit-motivated private prison corporations for the detention of immigrants.
- Ending large-scale, often militarized, immigration raids that routinely violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections again unreasonable searches and seizures.
- Guaranteeing that immigrants receive adequate counsel during deportation proceedings in accordance with U.S. immigration law and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
- Ending a targeted-killing program that violates international law and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
These are positions we should all support and hopefully, when she is elected President, she will as well.