The New York Civil Liberties Union today released a whitepaper documenting immigrants’ stories of inadequate medical care and staff mistreatment at the Varick Federal Detention Center in Manhattan.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has joined a coalition of community groups, legal service providers and advocacy organizations in calling for the timely release of immigrant detainees held at the controversial Varick Street Federal Detention Center in lower Manhattan. In a Feb. 1 statement delivered to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, 16 organizations, including the NYCLU, maintained that no person should remain at Varick Street or be transferred to another facility if they are eligible for release to their families in the New York area.

In his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama appealed for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The New York Civil Liberties Union applauded the president’s spoken commitment to fixing our nation’s broken immigration system, and called on New York’s congressional delegation to take up the president’s call for reform. Moreover, the NYCLU called on New York’s delegation to ensure that such legislation protects all Americans’ rights and liberties.

Immigrants’ rights and civil rights advocates rallied today in front of Oyster Bay Town Hall demanding the repeal of a town ordinance that discriminates against immigrant day laborers and violates everyone’s core constitutional rights. In late September, the Oyster Bay Town Board enacted a local ordinance making it a crime to stand on a public sidewalk and solicit employment. The law, purportedly a public safety measure, unfairly targets day laborers, who are often Latino immigrants. It violates everyone’s constitutional rights to free speech and equal treatment under the law.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) today introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP), the first comprehensive immigration reform legislative package introduced in this Congress. The following can be attributed to New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman:

On Monday, local immigrants’ rights advocates will rally at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Rochester for comprehensive immigration reform and the fair and equal treatment of the area’s farm workers. The demonstration will commemorate the 61st anniversary of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In calling for reform, the protestors will demand an end to unwarranted raids and needless detentions that have terrorized the local immigrant community.

Next Tuesday morning, the New York Civil Liberties Union will join local civil rights and immigrants’ rights advocates as they march from Centro Cultural Hispano de Oyster Bay to Town Hall in Oyster Bay where they will rally and call for the repeal of an unconstitutional town ordinance that discriminates against immigrants.

Families affected by deportation, advocates, judges, lawyers and New York elected officials will hold a town hall this Saturday in Washington Heights to highlight the importance of expanding judicial discretion in deportation hearings. Under harsh immigration laws enacted in 1996, thousands of long-time legal residents of the United States with extensive family and community ties in this country have been subject to mandatory detention and deportation if they have committed certain offenses, no matter how minor they were, including misdemeanor shoplifting or minor marijuana possession.

A long-time lawful permanent resident fighting deportation will finally get a bond hearing after being held in immigration detention for five and a half years. Late Friday, a district court ordered that the government must provide Errol Barrington Scarlett with a hearing within 60 days before an immigration judge where the government must demonstrate that he poses sufficient danger or flight risk to warrant his continued detention. In his request for a bond hearing, Scarlett was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and pro bono by Seyfarth, Shaw LLP. The ACLU and NYCLU lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court of the Western District of New York against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), charged that Scarlett’s prolonged immigration detention without a bond hearing violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and the right to due process under the U.S. Constitution.

As hundreds of New York students descend on Washington today to advocate for passage of the DREAM Act, the New York Civil Liberties Union urged strong and swift passage of the civil rights legislation. “Every child deserves to be judged on what she does and how she behaves – not on the accident of where she was born,” said Donna Lieberman, NYCLU executive director. “The DREAM Act should help end the education nightmare that has been a fact of life for a whole generation of hardworking and talented young people who have just as much potential as their peers. It is a step towards an immigration policy that respects families and allows all New Yorkers to contribute and become part of our society.”