Pass the yams and the politically-fraught chatter, everyone — it’s that time of year again. We know many of us will find ourselves gathering around tables this holiday season with a wide range of folks in our lives — loved ones, friends, chosen family, and the family you'd only choose to spend one day a year with. We also know not everyone in our lives will agree on the issues that we so firmly believe in. Trust us, we get how challenging those conversations can be. That’s why our experts put together a guide to help you navigate some of the issues that are most likely to get brought up at the holiday dinner table: free speech, abuse of power, immigrants’ rights, federal law enforcement and military deployments, and trans justice. We hope this guide helps you have productive conversations this holiday season. If you're looking for more ways to celebrate with your loved ones, consider giving the gift of an ACLU membership . And if the conversation wasn't as productive...

At the largest immigration detention site in the country, officers beat up Samuel, a detained teenager who uses a pseudonym, so badly, he had to go to the hospital. His right front tooth broke, and he said one officer “grabbed my testicles and firmly crushed them,” while another “forced his fingers deep into my ears.” He added that weeks after the beating, damage to his left ear was so severe that he now has trouble hearing. Samuel’s is just one of dozens of accounts of abuse from the immigration detention site at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas. These accounts reveal an unfolding humanitarian crisis at the military base — one which may spread across the country as the Trump administration expands detention dangerously, recklessly and with unprecedented speed. Human rights organizations, including the ACLU, sent a letter Monday to U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) detailing accounts of violent assaults and sexual abuse by officers. It also reveals detai...

Searching for an apartment online, applying for a loan, going through airport security, or looking up a question on a search engine – you might not think anything of these exchanges other than that they are mundane things you do, but, in many of these instances, you’re actually interacting with artificial intelligence (AI). Avoiding AI in our quotidian activities feels impossible nowadays, especially when it is now used by public and private organizations to make decisions about us in hiring , housing , welfare , budgeting , and other high-stakes areas. While proponents of AI usage boast about how efficient the technology is, the decisions it makes about us are oftentimes uncontestable , discriminatory , and infringe on our civil rights. However, inequity and injustice from artificial intelligence need not be our status quo. Senator Ed Markey and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke have just re-introduced the AI Civil Rights Act of 2025 , which will help ensure AI developers and deployers ...

Subscribe to the Free Future Newsletter Free Future home When ICE agents swarmed a man in the parking lot of Downey Memorial Christian Church in Los Angeles, the church pastor told the officers that they didn’t have permission to be on church property. When they wouldn’t leave or show her any identifying information, she pulled out her phone to record the arrest. In response, an agent pointed a gun at her . Days later, while a man was videorecording a raid outside a Home Depot, DHS agents tackled him to the ground, arrested him and held him in detention for more than twenty-four hours. These aren’t isolated incidents . Across the country, masked, armed federal agents in combat gear are snatching people from homes, workplaces, parks, and places of worship — and attacking those who attempt to film or document their activity. The First Amendment protects the right to record and disseminate footage of law enforcement officers carrying out their official duties in public — that includ...

Gary Tyler, 67, spent more than four decades on death row in one of the most notorious prisons in the country for a crime he didn’t commit. In 1974, Tyler was one of a group of Black students bused into a formerly all-white Louisiana high school under court-ordered desegregation. When a white mob attacked their bus on October 16, a white boy was killed. Tyler became a suspect, was tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder by an all-white jury. Tyler received a death sentence and was sent to Angola, the largest maximum-security prison in the country, at only 17. Tyler’s case represents how racial discrimination and systemic injustice continue to infect our legal system. As a new ACLU report explains, the modern death penalty grew directly out of the racist legacy of lynching, and that history continues to shape who is charged, convicted, and sentenced to die today. Since 1973, shortly before Tyler’s arrest, at least 200 people have been exonerated from death row. More...

Troops do not belong on our streets. That’s what more than 40 of my brothers and sisters in arms will tell Congress today. The ACLU, Common Defense, and the Chamberlain Network join these veterans on Capitol Hill, where they’re urging all our elected representatives to stop the Trump administration’s misuse of the military. We know that putting troops in our communities for political purposes breaks public trust and is disrespectful to their service. Guided By Service This mobilization on Capitol Hill is a seminal moment for those pushing back on the Trump administration’s abuses of power -- and it’s one I relate to. My family has served this country for multiple generations. I’m a veteran myself, a former U.S. Army captain, and someone who feels strongly that we need to go to congresspeople, not wait for them to come to us. When I was commissioned in 2000, it was uncommon for women to be assigned to combat arms branches, and I was one of only a handful of women assigned to the...

Subscribe to the Free Future Newsletter Free Future home Who controls what you can do on your mobile phone? What happens when your device can only run what the government decides is OK? We are dangerously close to this kind of totalitarian control, thanks to a combination of government overreach and technocratic infrastructure choices. Most Americans have a smartphone, and the average American spends over 5 hours a day on their phone . While these devices are critical to most people’s daily lives, what they can actually do is shaped by what apps are readily available. A slim majority of American smartphone users use an iPhone, which means they can only install apps available from Apple’s AppStore. Nearly all the rest of US smartphone users use some variant of Android, and by default they get their apps from Google’s Play Store. Collectively, these two app stores shape the universe of what is available to most people as they use the Internet and make their way through their daily ...

Across the country, voters took to the ballot box to make their voices heard on Tuesday. The results overwhelmingly demonstrate that voters want leaders who will push against the Trump administration’s cruel policies and abuses of power and work to make life better for the American people. Voters are fed up with fearmongering in place of policy proposals and came out in record numbers to create sweeping victories for civil liberties. Tuesday’s results made clear that the people want real solutions for the economy, support for access to abortion, and protection for other freedoms for every person in the country. Democracy depends on every level of government protecting our rights, and as we build on the energy of the 2025 elections, the ACLU will work to keep defending key civil liberties issues in the elections ahead. Here’s what we learned in the 2025 election. Voters Showed Up for Abortion Rights and Reproductive Freedom In response to consistent attacks on reproductive right...

The ACLU marks this Veterans Day with a continued commitment to advancing the rights of veterans, servicemembers, and their families. We have a long, proud history of litigation and advocacy on behalf of those who serve, as reflected in a new report released today. Our commitment to the fundamental freedoms of veterans, servicemembers, and their families is unwavering. Military life in many ways can mirror civil society, often making explicit the segregation, discrimination, and other indignities of the time. By breaking down barriers in the military, we ensure that those who serve their country are treated fairly. And, in doing so, we challenge the assumptions that undergird similar forms of unfairness in civilian life as well. Dissent and Discrimination: Early Battles for Equality and Justice in the Military In 1917, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, Congress passed the Selective Service Act requiring men to register for the draft and leaving few avenues to o...

In a major overhaul of immigration enforcement leadership, the Trump administration is replacing nearly half of top leaders at ICE offices across the country with current or retired Border Patrol officers. For months, masked immigration agents have brought terror to communities across the U.S., arresting parents in carpool lines, dragging people into unmarked vans, threatening protestors, and arresting elected officials. So far, there has been no governmental accountability for these tactics. Instead, the Trump administration is ramping up enforcement by pulling in staff from an even more aggressive agency. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has long been criticized for its culture of cruelty, racism, and impunity for human rights violations. Its subagency, Border Patrol, has been at the center of these complaints. This is the same agency that implemented President Donald Trump’s 2017 family separation policy, where infants and toddlers were stripped from their parents’ arms...

The First Amendment is a cornerstone of American democracy. It allows us to express our views, challenge authority, and engage in public debate. In recent years, however, these freedoms have come under intense scrutiny; from debates over protests on college campuses to concerns about government retaliation against journalists and activists. Understanding what the First Amendment protects is more important than ever. Today, Americans face new challenges to free expression: increasing restrictions on the right to protest to government censorship, and limits on free speech in schools and on campuses. Immigrants, students, and public employees have all faced threats to their rights, highlighting the need to stay informed about what the Constitution guarantees. We know you have questions. Below, you’ll find answers to some of the most pressing questions we’ve received about the First Amendment in our series “Your Questions Answered.” Hanna Stolzer/ACLU What Does the First Amendm...

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has decided to muster the full power of the federal government to threaten and persecute his perceived political enemies. Many of America’s crown jewel cities – like Chicago , Los Angeles , Portland , and Washington, D.C. – have been threatened with or endured the unjustifiable deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents, including masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. Current and former law enforcement officials who dared to cross the president, like former FBI Director James Comey and current New York State Attorney General Letitia James , are now being indicted based on trumped up charges that career federal prosecutors previously rejected as meritless . And the number of groups and communities -- such as immigrants , transgender persons , journalists , and human rights protestors --Trump has targeted because he either deems them insufficiently subservient to his administration or believes such attacks ...