Criminal Legal System
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share Trump Administration Directs Judges to Deny Asylum Without Hearings A new Trump administration policy urges immigration judges to swiftly deny asylum to migrants whose applications they deem unlikely to succeed. The expedited dismissals would circumvent the normal hearing process, which typically takes years to wind through the backlogged courts. Trump Measures Make Life…
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VT Digger: Nikhil Goyal and Kerry Kennedy: Vermont can show that we can be smart on crime by treating youth like youth
Tags Share In a recent VTDigger commentary, Founder of RFK Human rights Kerry Kennedy and sociologist Nikhil Goyal highlight Vermont’s progressive juvenile justice reforms, particularly the “Raise the Age” law. This legislation allows individuals under age 20 to be tried in juvenile court for certain offenses, emphasizing rehabilitation over punishment. The authors argue that such…
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WBUR: Poor conditions at Louisiana ICE detention center holding Tufts student, advocates say
Tags Share WBUR has reported, former detainees have described punitive and unsanitary conditions at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, where a Turkish Tufts University student, Öztürk, is being held. In an August 2024 report, Anthony Enriquez—vice president of U.S. advocacy and litigation at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights—warned that Öztürk faces the…
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Kansas Reflector: CoreCivic plans for ICE facility in Kansas have generated public opposition. It’s plowing ahead.
Tags Share Writing in the Kansas Reflector, our legal fellow Medha Raman and two co-authors denounce the private prison company CoreCivic’s attempts to reopen a notorious Leavenworth jail as an immigration detention facility. The authors highlight CoreCivic’s past failures in the Leavenworth community and the long record of abuse at other CoreCivic-operated ICE facilities across the country. Read…
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share Trump’s Attacks On Press Freedom Are Paving The Way For Authoritarianism A leading global democracy research institute says democratic “backsliding” must be turned around quickly—warning that after 10 years, recovery is “close to impossible.” In 2024, the Democrats ran on the catchphrase “We are not going back.” Even after the party’s resounding defeat,…
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Al Jazeera: Mahmoud Khalil case—Judge rules activist’s case can remain in New Jersey
Tags Share Speaking with Al Jazeera, our client Daniel Cortes De La Valle recounts his experience in a notorious Louisiana ICE facility – the same facility where student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil is currently detained. While detained in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, Daniel was subjected to horrific abuse, including severe medical neglect, denial…
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share Trump Administration Advances Immigration Crackdown On Foreign Student Protesters The Trump administration is ramping up penalties against students who engaged in protests against the war in Gaza, revoking the visas of hundreds of alleged demonstrators. The Trump administration is ramping up penalties against students who engaged in protests against the war in Gaza, revoking…
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The Buffalo News: Migrant crime wave? Experts and statistics tell a different story
Tags Share President Trump’s claims of a “migrant crime wave” were a constant refrain during his presidential campaign. But as The Buffalo News reports, many studies in recent years have concluded that immigrants – including undocumented immigrants – are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. In this article, RFK Human Rights experts help…
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WXXI News: Lawsuit targets mail policy at ICE’s detention center in Batavia
Tags Share “ICE’s new mail policy is a flagrant violation of confidentiality and privacy.” On March 10, RFK Human Rights sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility over the facility’s failure to protect the confidentiality of legal mail. Speaking with Rochester Public Radio, attorney Sarah Decker comments on…
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This Week’s Spotlight on Human Rights
Tags Share Judge Rules DOGE’s USAID Dismantling Likely Violates The Constitution The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution, a federal judge ruled as he indefinitely blocked DOGE from making further cuts to the agency. The order requires the Trump administration to restore email and computer…
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Civil Rights Groups and Advocates Call on Vermont to Implement Raise the Age Law
Tags Share MONTPELIER, Vt, March 19- A new coalition of Vermont and national civil rights and criminal justice reform organizations, advocates, and public officials called Treat Youth Like Youth is urging lawmakers to support the implementation of Vermont’s Raise the Age law. Passed in 2018, Raise the Age legislation made Vermont the first state in…
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USA Today: You say you’re American? You’d better be ready to prove it to police, ICE
Tags Share “President Donald Trump, an avowed fan of stop-and-frisk policing, now aims to take those practices national. His executive order requires federal law enforcement to treat a non-citizen’s failure to register or to carry proof of registration as a civil and criminal enforcement priority, punishable anywhere from one to six months in federal prison.” In…
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