News & Commentary

I was 23 years old when I crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with my husband, aunt, and cousin.

While the American workplace is often notoriously inhospitable to transgender Americans, the federal government last month moved decisively to change that. In a new memorandum, the Department of Justice explicitly clarified that gender identity discrimination claims are covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. This is another important step forward in the ongoing fight for basic fairness and equal treatment under the law for transgender Americans.

On January 11, 2002, the first prisoners were slammed into hastily assembled cages at the Guantánamo Navy base, and men then streamed in from across the globe. Typically brought into custody without even the most basic due process review, the newly arrived detainees included large numbers who had no reason to be in any prison, much less Guantánamo. Yet they were all now caught in a prison that one Bush official called "the legal equivalent of outer space" – a place where no laws were intended to apply.

The tragic killing of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August has brought much needed attention to the epidemic of racialized policing in America. In Ferguson and cities throughout the country, police stop, search, and arrest black people and other communities of color at rates grossly disproportionate to their population.

What happens when a prison for profit loses one of its main moneymakers?

Many people recognize the names Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice, African-American men, and a child, killed by the police.

Ada Morales, a long-time resident of Rhode Island, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1995. Yet in 2009, when she was arrested by Rhode Island authorities for an unrelated state charge, Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued an immigration hold, or "detainer," against her. Explaining that an "investigation had been initiated" to determine her immigration status, ICE asked the Rhode Island authorities to keep her in jail even after her local custody ended.

Wedding bells have begun ringing out across the Sunshine State.

This piece originally appeared in Spanish at El Nuevo Herald.