Today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) sent a letter to the Kent County Sheriff and Kent County Board of Commissioners, demanding an investigation into how an American citizen and decorated veteran was taken into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for deportation.

On December 14, 2018, the Kent County Sheriff’s Department handed a United States citizen and decorated Marine combat veteran over to ICE officials so that he could be deported. The veteran, Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, was born in Grand Rapids, grew up here, and bravely served our country in Afghanistan.

Read our letter

Mr. Ramos-Gomez was born in Grand Rapids in 1991. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the marines, serving from 2011-2014 as a lance corporal and tank crewman. He was decorated with a national defense service medal, a global war on terrorism service medal, an Afghanistan campaign medal, and a combat action ribbon, among other awards. But when he returned home, he was a shell of his former self, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after what he had seen. His family reports that he is focused on returning for his marine brothers in Afghanistan. He has episodes where he disappears and when he is found again, he often has no recollection of where he has been.

One such incident happened at the end of last year. Mr. Ramos-Gomez was arrested on November 21, 2018 after apparently damaging a fire alarm at Spectrum Health and trespassing on the heliport. The police report shows that Mr. Ramos-Gomez had his passport on him when he was arrested. He pled guilty to a trespassing charge, and the judge ordered him released on a personal recognizance bond on Friday, December 14, 2018, pending a pre-sentence investigation.

At that point, the Kent County Sheriff’s Department should have immediately released Mr. Ramos-Gomez. Instead, the Sheriff’s Department worked with ICE agents to enable his transfer to an immigration detention center in Calhoun County to start the deportation process. Publicly available jail records show that Mr. Ramos-Gomez was subject to a detainer, i.e. an ICE hold, and that the jail turned him over on December 14, 2018. It is unclear how that was possible or why the jail believed it should hand Mr. Ramos-Gomez over to ICE, rather than release him as required by the court order.

We are outraged, and demand that the Sheriff’s Department conduct an immediate investigation and report its finding at the next County Commission meeting on January 24, 2019. This terrible incident is the predictable consequence of the Sheriff’s Department’s decision to volunteer its resources to support ICE’s efforts to deport Kent County residents, a policy that the community has repeatedly and persuasively asked the Department to end.

Read our letter with MIRC sent to the Kent County Sheriff and Kent County Board of Commissioners on January 16, 2019.

Today the ACLU of Michigan sent a letter to Utica Academy for International Studies urging school officials to rescind a rule barring students from holding “political” signs during demonstrations against gun violence. The letter also encourages the principal to apologize to students who were suspended after displaying gun reform signs at the March 14 protest, and to honor students’ free speech rights during future protests.

Read our letter

 “School officials should be praising, not punishing, students for engaging in the democratic process and seeking reform following the massacre of their peers in Florida,” said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan. “It’s hard to imagine a more unconstitutional school rule than one that punishes students for displaying political signs during demonstrations.”

Leading up to the national student walkout on March 14, the Utica Academy administration sent a letter to students setting forth rules for the event, including pre-approved chants, slogans and posters. The letter said signs with alternative messages had to be approved by school officials and that “NO political messages will be allowed/approved.” The letter said that any students violating these rules could “face disciplinary action.”

A handful of students peacefully carried signs advocating gun control that had not been pre-approved. One sign, carried by junior Meghan Biernat, said, “Thoughts & Prayers Don’t Save Lives. Gun Reform Will.” Another sign, carried by junior Elizabeth Voytas, urged students to call U.S. Senators Stabenow and Peters and gave their phone numbers.  The school suspended Biernat, Voytas and several other students who did not conform to the protest rules.   

"Students across the country are making a difference by standing up and demanding action to prevent more mass shootings,” said Ms. Biernat. “We have a right to demand gun reform without school administrators censoring our speech and sanitizing our protests. Although our school mantra is about creating leaders, the administration made it clear when they suspended us that they would rather mold the student body into sheep. We hope the school does the right thing and repeals the ban on political signs before Friday's protest."

The ACLU letter reminded school officials that nearly 50 years ago, Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Tinker v. Des Moines School District that students don’t “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The decision established that students were free to engage in political speech, even if controversial, so long as it did not cause a “substantial or material disruption.”

Although the Utica Academy administration eventually removed the suspensions from the records of the suspended students, the ACLU letter states that the suspensions have had a chilling effect on freedom of expression at the school. As a remedy, the letter urges the administration to apologize to the suspended students, rescind the no-political speech rule, and honor the constitutional rights of all students at protests in the future. The next national school day of action to prevent gun violence is this Friday, the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre.

DETROIT - Attorneys for Flint schoolchildren have reached a historic agreement with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), Genesee Intermediate School District (GISD) and Flint Community Schools (FCS) to establish an unprecedented program to provide universal screening, and in-depth assessments when necessary, to all Flint children impacted by the Flint water crisis.

Read the settlement

The program will leverage the Flint Registry, a population-wide screening platform, and expanded assessment services by the Genesee Health System/Hurley Children’s Hospital Neurodevelopmental Center of Excellence (NCE). The program will be organized and operated under the leadership of Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Director of the Michigan State University-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, and will begin at the start of the 2018-19 school year.

“The children and families of Flint have lived with exposure to lead in their water and with schools unequipped to help students whose learning may be affected by this dangerous neurotoxin,” said Greg Little, Chief Trial Counsel at Education Law Center (ELC). “The program set up in the agreement announced today is a major milestone on the road to addressing the needs of children affected by the Flint water crisis.”

The settlement agreement is a major step in DR, et al. v. MDE, et al., a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Flint children asserting violations of federal and state special education laws. The settlement will be final after an April 12 court hearing in Detroit, subject to court approval.

The lawsuit challenges systemic deficiencies in Flint’s special education program, including failures to find and serve children with special needs and to address the impact of the water crisis, which potentially put thousands of children at risk of developing a disability or worsening an existing disability. The settlement addresses a major aspect of the special education failures in the Flint schools: the need to identify all students with disabilities and properly evaluate them.

The agreement has several key elements:

1. The state of Michigan will provide more than $4 million to get the program up and running by September 2018. Families of Flint children exposed to elevated lead levels in the Flint drinking water can enroll their children in the Registry, complete a screening, and have their children referred for further assessment by the NCE. The battery of available assessments will include neuropsychological testing, which is important for evaluating the effects of lead on cognitive development, memory and learning.

2. The state, city and school district will provide staff to facilitate and maximize participation in the program and collaboration between the program and the schools.

​3. Training and professional development will be provided for administrators, teachers and staff on the availability of the program and how to recognize children potentially harmed by lead who may need to be referred for assessments.

Importantly, results of the assessments will be sent to the schools to be used in the process of evaluating students for special education services.

“The settlement is a critical first step in creating a system to identify the needs of the children of Flint,” said Kristin Totten, ACLU of Michigan Education Attorney. “However, the heart of this lawsuit remains, which is ensuring kids with disabilities receive the education guaranteed them by law. As we move forward, we are fully committed to protecting those rights.”

“This is a groundbreaking program, using the most advanced testing available, that represents the first step in an unprecedented solution to an unprecedented crisis,” said Lindsay Heck, an attorney at White & Case. “The partnership created between the medical profession and the schools recognizes that education is the antidote to the crisis that Flint children have endured. In the next phase of the lawsuit we will work to ensure that FCS schools have the resources to provide the children of Flint with the educational opportunities they deserve and to which they are entitled under the law.”

The agreement is a partial settlement of the lawsuit. The attorneys for the Flint parents and children will continue to pursue additional claims, including the provision of appropriate special education services and proper student discipline procedures. 

The legal team representing the students pro bono includes attorneys from the ACLU of Michigan, Education Law Center, and global law firm White & Case LLP. The team is headed by ELC Chief Trial Counsel, Greg Little.