News & Commentary

Everywhere you look—straight ahead, to the side and even skyward—uniformed officials in grim vehicles, and big objects fat with helium, are watching you. Watching you. Watching. You can always grab your cellphone, tap the camera app, and watch back. That’s what I’ve done since arriving in the Rio Grande Valley just before the Presidential election, to work as ACLU Texas’ reporter for immigration issues. My photos are piling up, especially since the election. Here are a few. If you don’t live here, in our country’s ultimate surveillance zone, give a look. Watch what it’s like to be watched.

The 85th Texas Legislature gaveled in today, and already over 1,300 bills have been filed. Many of those bills pose considerable threats to Texans’ freedom and equality. On LGBT equality, reproductive freedom, and immigrants’ rights, many of our lawmakers will stop at nothing to roll back the clock. Want to know what you can do to fight back? Keep reading.

The day after the Presidential election felt like a giant funeral in Brownsville, Texas—especially for people like Ninfa Alemán and her children.

This op-ed was originally published in the Houston Chronicle.

Over the next two months, we'll be hosting a series of webinars so we can spread the word about civil liberties issues that affect all Texans—LGBT rights, criminal justice reform, reproductive freedom, and immigrants' rights—and that will be hotly debated when the Texas legislature reconvenes early next year. Sign up below for any or all of them, and learn how you can help defend those freedoms you hold dear.

Last month the Department of Justice (DOJ) came to its senses and announced it would phase out its use of private prisons, citing inadequate services, safety, and savings. One week later, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it, too, would review its relationship with the private prison industry, and produce that review by November.

The government cannot round up 11 million undocumented immigrants without resorting to unconstitutional policing practices.

With an attorney general determined to make transgender youth second-class citizens, the ACLU's Rebecca L. Robertson is rolling up her sleeves.

The doctor-patient relationship is the cornerstone of medical practice, and the foundation of that relationship is trust. Doctors have the privilege of helping people through some of the most important and challenging moments of their lives. We earn patients’ trust by giving them our best medical judgment based on science. That’s why I became a doctor.