ACLU Storms D.C. This Week

The company’s default agreement with police departments grants the company license to share people’s license plate data

Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national and former professional soccer player who was acquitted of terrorism-related charges over two years ago, has finally been flown home to Belgium and released to be reunited with his wife and children. This comes after years of lawsuits challenging his prolonged unlawful detention and inhumane treatment by the United States. “I am so blessed to finally have my freedom after 24 years,” said Mr. Trabelsi. “My family has been waiting so long and we can now be together and start a new chapter in our lives” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States, where he spent almost 10 years in solitary confinement while in pretrial detention. After being cleared of all charges by a federal jury in July 2023, the U.S. immediately transferred him to immigration detention and wrongly treated him as an applicant for admission awaiting deportation. In fact, it was the United States that brought Mr. Trabelsi to this country against his will for prosecution over a decade ago. He spent more than two additional years in immigration detention despite being acquitted. “Mr. Trabelsi’s legal ordeal has finally come to an end,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He will be able to do what he should have been able to do years ago – rebuild his life with his family in Belgium.” Mr. Trabelsi was kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, unable to communicate with his family, read books, or practice his religion. These conditions were even more restrictive than those he experienced during his 10-year-long pretrial detention, and his mental and physical health were deteriorating by the day. The Belgian government issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return to Belgium, but the U.S, for years, refused. Instead, the government tried to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born, but where he is likely to face torture. “The government demanded Mr. Trabelsi’s extradition from Belgium for criminal prosecution, and when it failed to convict him, it forced him to suffer more than two years of extremely harsh detention for essentially no purpose at all,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “We’re thrilled that he is finally free again after all this time.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. "Mr. Trabelsi’s inhumane treatment in immigration detention is just the latest in a long string of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s violation of both the law and its own policies,” said Sophia Gregg, senior immigrants’ rights attorney at ACLU of Virginia. "Mr. Trabelsi's reunion with his family comes after being held in detention in the U.S. for years even after being cleared of all charges. That should never have happened."

What President Donald Trump’s latest memorandum targeting civil society does, does not, and cannot do.

NEW YORK – The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) guidance and other related documents regarding President Trump’s lethal strikes on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean. Testifying last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to confirm the existence (or nonexistence) of such guidance. But the same day, in a different hearing, Charles Young, who is nominated to serve as the U.S. Army’s general counsel, acknowledged the existence of this opinion in an exchange with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, explaining that the “opinion was derived through an interagency lawyers working group” including representatives from the White House and several executive branch agencies. Public reporting also indicates that the OLC has issued an opinion, and that it asserts sweeping, unprecedented claims of presidential authority to use military force against people alleged to be affiliated with drug cartels. “All available evidence suggests that President Trump’s lethal strikes in the Caribbean constitute murder, pure and simple,” said Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The public deserves to know how our government is justifying these attacks as lawful, and, given the stakes, immediate public scrutiny of its apparently radical theories is imperative.” Since early September, President Trump has ordered five strikes on private boats traveling in international waters, reportedly killing at least 27 people. Attempting to defend the legality of the strikes, the administration has stated that drug cartels designated as terrorist organizations are “non-state armed groups” whose “actions constitute an armed attack against the United States.” But the United States is not in an armed conflict with drug cartels, and the people the government’s strikes have killed are civilians under international law. For this reason, members of Congress from across the political spectrum, former government officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations, legal experts, civil society groups, and international bodies say the attacks appear to violate both international and domestic law. “In a constitutional system, no president can arbitrarily choose to assassinate individuals from the sky based on his whim or say-so,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of Center for Constitutional Rights. “The Trump administration is taking its indiscriminate pattern of lawlessness to a lethal level. The public understanding of any rationale supporting such unprecedented and shocking conduct is essential for transparency and accountability.”