The League of Iowa
Human & Civil Rights Agencies

Branstad: Immigrants should have to prove status

CLARINDA, Iowa (AP) -- Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad says people in Iowa stopped on traffic violations should have to prove their citizenship status.

Branstad made the assertion during a visit Wednesday to Clarinda. He said if a per...

SF police probe more hate crime BB-gun shootings

By Terry Collins, Associated Press Writer

Published March 12, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO -- Prosecutors who have charged three cousins with a hate crime for shooting a San Francisco man with a BB gun because they thought he was gay said Friday they're considering charging the suspe...

A Consumer Bill Gives Exemption on Payday Loans

By Sewell Chan, New York Times

Published: March 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation, pressed to remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered fe...

In Jury Selection for Hate Crime, a Struggle to Find Tolerance

By Manny Fernandez, New York Times

Published: March 8, 2010

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Over the last several days, Justice Robert W. Doyle has heard the typical excuses from potential jurors. One woman mentioned her husband’s medical problems. Another woman complained about her back.

But other prospective jurors, seeking to be excused, have bro...

Suicide Raises Legal Issues in Indian Artifacts Cases

By Kirk Johnson, New York Times

Published: March 8, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY — Every person’s life is a mix of the things revealed and unrevealed, secrets spilled or kept. Ted Gardiner, who committed suicide last week, was no exception. “He had a lot of demons,”...

Crimes distort reality of schizophrenia

By Tony Leys, Des Moines Register

March 7, 2010

Cedar Rapids, Ia. - A newspaper lying in Steve Miller's kitchen blared the latest front-page news about a person with schizophrenia. The big black headline announced: "Becker guilty." The paper showed a picture of a stone-faced Mark Becker, the ...

Census Confidentiality Assured 

By Julia Preston

Published: March 4, 2010 (New York Times)

The Justice Department reassured minority leaders in Congress on Thursday that confidential personal information gathered in this year’s census count would not be shared with the Department of Homeland Security ...

When the Obama administration vowed to overhaul immigration detention last year, its promise of more humane treatment and accountability was spurred in part by the harrowing treatment of two detainees who died in the Bush years. In one case, captured by security cameras in 2008, a Chinese computer engineer was dragged from a Rhode Island immigration jail and mocked by guards as he screamed in pain from undiagnosed cancer and a broken spine. In the other, a Salvadoran detainee held for two yea...

Two white suspects cleared in the death of a black man who was allegedly dragged beneath a vehicle are suing the Texas officials who kept them jailed for more than eight months. The federal lawsuit filed this week seeks at least $4 million for Shannon Finley and Ryan Crostley, once the main suspects in the 2008 death of their friend, Brandon McClelland.

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MIAMI — Marie Violande Guerrier-Cavalier arrived in Florida from Haiti on Jan. 16, with little more than her feverish infant son, Marcley, his tiny legs in casts because of a birth defect. She left her husband and four other children behind, living in the yard outside their broken house. Because Marcley is a United States citizen, born here, his mother was allowed to evacuate with him after the earthquake, and can stay in the United States for six months. But Ms. Guerrier-Cavalier has f...