One of the biggest myths the anti-immigrant movement floats is that undocumented workers are just destroying the country by burdening its social services systems. It conjures notions of hospitals and other facilities overrun with foreigners demanding services - services they didn’t pay for, because they aren’t paying taxes.

This just isn’t true, as yet another report has found. ThinkProgress noted Tuesday the release of a study by the UCLA’s School of Public Health “that finds that illegal immigrants do not pose as significant a burden on U.S. Health Care resources as is often claimed.”

The UCLA study echoes many similar recent findings. Last December, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn released similar findings in her report “Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State and Budget and Economy.” She takes care to note at the top of the report:

The absence of the 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received.

As for taxes, not only do documented and undocumented workers pay significant taxes, but undocumented workers often get less for their money. A 2005 article from The New York Times found “the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the [Social Security] system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year” - money that’s automatically taken out of the paychecks of undocumented workers who are not entitled to Social Security when they retire.

This morning ACLU Legislative Director Caroline Fredrickson participated in an online chat on Firedoglake about the ongoing FISA fight and upcoming Senate floor debate. The discussion includes a list of phone numbers of the senators who need to hear from their constituents. You can also use our FISA Flood petition to contact them, which can be found at action.aclu.org/fisaflood.

RH Reality Check’s blog posted a letter yesterday that 10 prominent researchers in the field of adolescent sexual and reproductive health sent to Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid expressing concern over the recent increase in funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. I’ve posted some excerpts below:

By design, abstinence programs restrict information about condoms and contraception - information that may be critical to protecting the health of young people and to preventing unplanned pregnancy, HIV infection, and infection with other sexually transmitted organisms. They ignore the health needs of sexually active youth and youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning for counseling, health care services, and risk reduction education. Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions.

Abstinence until marriage is another stated goal of the federal program; however, evidence from the past several decades indicates that establishing abstinence until marriage as normative behavior would be a highly challenging policy goal.

Importantly, the emphasis on abstinence-only programs and policies appears to be undermining critical public health programs in the U.S. and abroad, including comprehensive sexuality education and HIV prevention programs. During the period of increased state and federal emphasis on abstinence, declines have occurred in the percentage of teachers in U.S. public schools who teach about birth control and the number of students who report receiving such education.

The recent Congressional testimony of former Surgeon General Richard Carmona underscores these critiques from mainstream health organizations. Dr. Carmona’s testimony confirms the political motivations behind abstinence funding and the failure to address issues of efficacy and scientific accuracy. He suggested that ideology and theology have taken priority over women’s health in the current administration. Dr. Carmona reported that the Bush administration “did not want to hear the science but wanted to, if you will, ‘preach abstinence,’ which I felt was scientifically incorrect.”

You can read the full text of the letter here.

What’s good enough for the federal government isn’t good enough for the state of Missouri. Christopher Hill, State Strategies Coordinator for the Capital Punishment Project, points this out in today’s HuffingtonPost in the case of Dr. Doe:

He is a doctor from Missouri called Dr. Doe. He has been barred from practice in two hospitals, been the subject of numerous malpractice lawsuits and has been forbidden by a federal judge from “participat[ing] in any manner, at any level, in the State of Missouri’s lethal injection process.”

…Where has Dr. Doe ended up now that he no longer executes prisoners in Missouri? Astoundingly, the federal government has made him as part of its execution team. Although the U.S. Bureau of Prisons cites a policy of not publicly disclosing the names of staff members involved with lethal injections, we know that Dr. Doe will possibly replicate his abysmal performance in Missouri on the national level because he testified about his new job in the inmate’s lawsuit.

In other lethal injection news, the oral argument in Supreme Court case Baze v. Rees has been set for January 7, 2008. The ACLU filed its amicus brief earlier this month.

We were all at home, some of us enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers, when the government’s attorneys quietly filed a motion to put a hold on our lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security’s No-Match rule. The government has all but admitted the current rule breaks the law; they say they’ll get it right when they reissue the rule in March, but we highly doubt it.

We doubt it because Homeland Security is still trying to use the Social Security Administration’s database as a tool for immigration enforcement. The problem is that the no-match rule will end up ensnaring millions of workers who are fully authorized to work in the U.S. The SSA’s own inspector general found that more than 70 percent of the discrepancies in the SSA database involve U.S.-born citizens. That means that Homeland Security’s plan is threatening a whopping 12.7 million Americans’ ability to get and keep their jobs. As Lucas Guttentag, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told the New York Times, the government’s attempt to rewrite this wrongheaded rule is “like putting lipstick on Frankenstein.”

Jennifer Chang, one of the ACLU staff attorneys working on this case, spelled out just how wrong and misguided this rule is in a September blog post. We’ll keep you posted on developments in the case.

It’s been a big year for civil liberties, with issues like waterboarding, spying, and executive abuse of power in the news almost every day. In advance for the big ’round-the-turkey family discussion, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero has prepped some talking points in HuffPost for those of us who might face some disagreement in between bites of bird. It’s perfect reading (and re-reading) while you’re waiting for your plane to take off. Or the train to leave. Or traffic to clear.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A voting rights victory in Georgia was long overdue, but now there’s cause for celebration.

Ever since the state enacted its draconian voter ID law in 2005, Georgia has been at the center of the voting rights storm. Recently, a group of local activists (laughably) calling themselves the Statesboro Citizens for Good Governance set out to strip the voting rights of nearly 1,000 students at Georgia Southern University by claiming that, as students, they were not technically Statesboro residents.

Not long after Laughlin McDonald, Director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, publicly exposed this effort as the thinly veiled fraud that it is, the so-called Statesboro Citizens for Good Government quietly withdrew its voter challenges. Now, the blocked ballots from this month’s election will be counted and these students will have an equal say in how their community is governed. This is great news, as another shameless assault on the right to vote has been defeated.

There is still plenty of work to be done. Procedural restrictions like the Statesboro residency challenge have been used by partisans to disfranchise voters for years. And with next year’s election fast approaching, there will certainly be more of the same. As Laughlin wrote:

Unfortunately, our nation has a long and shameful history of targeting various groups and denying or suppressing their right to vote. The South disfranchised blacks in the aftermath of Reconstruction through such devices as literacy tests, poll taxes and durational residency requirements… In the last several years we have seen a wave of laws passed by states requiring voters to present a photo ID at the polls on Election Day. The laws were enacted ostensibly to redress the nonexistent problem of fraudulent in-person voting.

In the absence of meaningful federal rules governing elections, the ACLU will continue to stand up to the anti-democratic interests that continue to suppress electoral participation under the guise of procedural restrictions.

Stay tuned as one of our voting rights cases comes before the Supreme Court: Crawford v. Marion County Board Election Board, which will determine whether Indiana’s voter ID law unconstitutionally burdens citizens’ right to vote.

Check out a few stories that have hit the headlines over the past week. They are just a snapshot of the injustices that occur every day in America when known criminals work as informants to do the work police should be doing:

• The Associated Press reported this past week that while one South Carolina police department was paying an informant to participate in drug deals, another local sheriff’s department was expending resources to bust the same informant for committing the very same drug offenses! After the informant was caught in the sheriff’s sting, the informant accused several sheriff deputies of beating him and breaking his teeth by shoving a shotgun barrel in his mouth. Even though a state agency cleared the deputies of the beating, it does not appear that anyone is looking into how to keep law enforcement agencies from working against one another when it comes to informants.
• The San Antonio Express News reported that Texas’ highest criminal appeals court issued a decision that, in effect, allows police officers to give illegal drugs - even when the drugs are evidence in a case - to informants for their personal use! In this case, a police officer caught the potential informant with drugs, but before booking the evidence in her case he gave some of the drugs back to her so she could get high. The officer’s defense to the tampering-with-evidence charge? “I was trying to create a snitch.”
• The Asbury Park Press reported that a New Jersey police officer was accused of regularly having sex with a married informant, and at least once brutally raping her, which resulted in her bearing his child. The informant has accused the police department of permitting and encouraging police officers to sexually harass and have sex with female informants and other women they encounter while on duty. The Mayor proclaimed “no wrongdoing,” and the police officer who fathered the informant’s child is back on patrol - apparently with a free pass to “work with” informants.
• The Daily Southtown News in Illinois reported this past week that an informant was sent to prison for fraud, impersonating an FBI agent and lying to federal authorities. The informant fraudulently schemed to extort money from several individuals, and when one of his victims refused to give him money, he reported him to the FBI and claimed that he was a terrorist! Unfortunately, the Illinois State Police, the FBI, and the DEA all used this paid informant for years to convict people and put them in prison. Even though the informant was convicted of falsely accusing people, it does not appear that anyone is looking into whether innocent people are in prison today because of his lies during his years as a supposedly “reliable” informant.
• The Ledger-Enquirer in Georgia reported last week that after an informant drew narcotics officers into a deadly shootout where they killed a civilian, the informant’s testimony will determine whether the police are in fact liable for the killing. Unfortunately, the informant has changed his story too many times to know what actually happened. First he denied that he worked as an informant in the past. Then he said he had. He then denied knowing specific things about the drug supplier that was being investigated. He later said he did. He then said the drug supplier was armed and dangerous. Later he said he was not. How can we make such life-and-death decisions without requiring that information from informants be corroborated?

The way our government uses informants is so ripe for abuse even law enforcement officers and courts aren’t capable of finding the truth anymore. Whether each of these cases is the police officer’s fault or the informant’s fault - or both - one thing is clear: our nation’s informant system is broken.

The ACLU is working with lawyers, elected officials and in the community to promote awareness and to ask for accountability measures such as corroboration of information from informants, and reliability hearings to test the credibility of informants. You can help us out by reporting any experience you’ve had with the use of informants in your community by filling out this story collection form.

Ponder this: A U.S. citizen joins an organization to advance political goals. Some in the group engage in illegal activity but the citizen’s own goals and activities are legitimate. The government blacklists the organization and says that working for it or taking a leadership role in it is a crime. May the government prosecute the citizen for her activities even though she didn’t intend to do anything wrong? May the citizen challenge the blacklisting in her criminal trial? After all, if it weren’t for the blacklisting, her activity would not be criminal and would be protected by the First Amendment.

You might think the scenario Orwellian and the answers clear - no to the first question, and yes to the second. But the statutory scheme governing “material support” for a terrorist group, last amended by Congress in 2004, says otherwise, and a similar scenario is now playing out in federal district court in Brooklyn.

Zeinab Taleb-Jedi is a 52-year-old U.S. citizen who faces up to 15 years in prison for providing “material support” - in the form of herself - to the Mojahedin el-Khalq (MEK), a group that opposes the current regime in Iran. Her case is a striking illustration of the problems with the material support statute and the way it is applied by the government. In a friend-of-the-court brief the ACLU filed last week, we argued that Ms. Taleb-Jedi’s criminal indictment should be dismissed because the material support statute violates the First Amendment right to freedom of association and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.

Ms. Taleb-Jedi’s lawyers describe MEK as an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the government of Iran, and one with which the United States has apparently cooperated. The government designated MEK a foreign terrorist organization starting in 1997. But nowhere in the government’s charges against Ms. Taleb-Jedi is there any suggestion that she intended to support or to further any unlawful aim of MEK. In essence, the case is one of guilt by association.

The first major problem with the material support statute, therefore, is that the government doesn’t have to show intent to do wrong, so it can prosecute people like Ms. Taleb-Jedi for activity that would be protected by the First Amendment. But the First Amendment’s right to freedom of association doesn’t just protect attending a meeting or carrying a membership card, but also the right to work for a political organization, and to “organize, manage, supervise, or otherwise direct” the organization - the very activities criminalized by the material support statute. One person cannot be held criminally liable simply because someone else she associates with engages in criminal activity. In the United States, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, we do not criminalize guilt by association.

The second constitutional problem with the material support statutory scheme is that it specifically prohibits defendants like Ms. Taleb-Jedi from challenging the government’s designation - essentially blacklisting - of an organization. This is true even though the government’s designation is the predicate that determines whether the defendant’s behavior is lawful or not. In Ms. Taleb-Jedi’s case, if it weren’t for the blacklisting of MEK, she would be free to support, advocate for, associate with, volunteer under, organize and be a leader of MEK, even if it had unlawful as well as lawful aims. Essentially, the blacklisting exposed Ms. Taleb-Jedi to severe criminal penalties for exercising her First Amendment rights.

Despite the importance of the blacklisting to Ms. Taleb-Jedi’s criminal case, she does not have the right to challenge it in her own criminal trial. The provision prohibiting her from doing so violates the First and Fifth Amendments. As the Supreme Court has held, the Constitution mandates that a defendant in Ms. Taleb-Jedi’s position be able to challenge in a meaningful judicial proceeding the underlying designation that strips her of her rights. Simply put, no other party or person has as much at stake in her criminal trial as Ms. Taleb-Jedi does. Under the Constitution, she must be able to challenge the government’s blacklisting designation - the direct cause of her prosecution.

Opponents may argue, as they often do in cases like this, that civil liberties must give way to national security concerns. But the First and Fifth Amendments aren’t optional and security and rights do not have to be at odds. In fact, it is in the context of national security cases that the Supreme Court has developed the precedent that directly applies to Ms. Taleb-Jedi. In those cases, from the 1950s and 60s, the Supreme Court addressed the rights of people accused of supporting the Communist Party, thought to be the greatest national security threat to the United States during that time. As the court held in United States v. Robel, “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties … which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”

The government is due to reply to the court filings in December. We’re continuing to watch this case closely and will keep you updated about developments.

Today ACLU Legislative Director Caroline Fredrickson sounded the alarm in HuffPost on Congress’s next act of capitulation: approving and even expanding the White House’s warrantless wiretapping program:

Congress is under no obligation to pass this bad legislation, and can easily let the Protect America Act expire. FISA already gives the government all of the tools it needs to spy on terrorists and keep us safe. Clearly, this is about expanding the government’s ability to spy on innocent Americans who have no connections to terrorism.

To pour salt on the wound, the Senate is considering giving phone companies that colluded with the NSA immunity from the 40 or so lawsuits brought by its customers for violating their Fourth Amendment rights. “Customers who’ve had their rights violated should get their day in court,” she writes. “We’ll also never learn the facts about the warrantless wiretapping program if the telecoms are let off the hook.”