News

Five people detained at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, Calif., and the Golden State Annex in McFarland, Calif., have filed a class action lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and GEO Group, the private, for-profit prison company that owns and operates the detention centers. They allege that they and other detained people have faced retaliation, including ... Read More

Seventy-seven individuals detained at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield and the Golden State Annex in McFarland launched a joint hunger strike demanding the immediate release of all individuals detained at the facilities and the shutdown of both detention centers, owned and operated by the private prison contractor GEO Group. Read More

The Sikh Coalition and the ACLU Foundation of Northern California sent a letter urging the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to revise its discriminatory policy prohibiting full beards to accommodate staff who are either unable to shave due to a medical condition or who must maintain facial hair for religious reasons. Read More

The contract between the Department of Homeland Security and the Yuba County Sheriff's Department, which was set to expire in the year 2099 and generated over $8.6 million a year for the county, officially ended Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. Read More

Today, the Board on Geographic Names (BGN) voted to officially rename Sq___ Valley, California, to Yokuts Valley. “Yokuts” means “the people,” and honors the land's first inhabitants, its present community, and welcomes future visitors and residents.  Read More

Sacramento resident Misael Echeveste and two local nonprofit organizations, United Latinos and NorCal Resist, today announced a settlement in their lawsuit against Sheriff Scott Jones for illegally transferring immigrants from the county jail to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Read More

The ACLU Foundation of Northern California filed an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights on behalf of the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria regarding repeated acts of discrimination against Native American students and students with disabilities in Loleta Union School District. The complaint reveals troubling patterns of racial hostilit... Read More

The Supreme Court is preparing to hear oral arguments this upcoming Wednesday, Nov. 9th in Brackeen v. Haaland, a case that could gut the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — a law which establishes basic requirements to protect Native American children from continued forced removal from their families, tribes, and tribal culture.  Read More

The ACLU of Northern California releases the third episode of Gold Chains, our podcast about California’s hidden history of slavery. It connects the dots between an early California law that allowed white settlers to enslave Indigenous children and a current U.S. Supreme Court case Read More

An ACLU lawsuit challenges a Sebastopol ordinance designed to drive unhoused people out of town by banning vehicles "used for human habitation" from parking anywhere within city limits during the day. Read More

For years, San Francisco has claimed that it is taking steps to address the City’s homelessness crisis. But in fact, the City is forcing unhoused people out of sight—destroying their survival belongings and citing and arresting them for sleeping in public when they have no shelter. Read More

An ACLU lawsuit urges the court to prevent the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office from requiring that individuals agree to unconstitutional “four-way” searches and GPS location data-sharing as conditions of pretrial release on electronic monitoring. Read More