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“Police departments should not arbitrarily refuse to issue U visa certifications, and thanks to today’s settlement, immigrants in Roanoke will finally get what the law promises them,” said ACLU of Virginia Immigrants’ Rights Attorney Sophia Gregg.
“Now, thanks to the new biennial budget, thousands of people will finally receive the credits they have worked for years to earn while in prison. Virginia is safer because we give incarcerated people an incentive to rehabilitate themselves,” said ACLU of Virginia Policy Director Chris Kaiser.
“Police violence should never be a tool to crush dissent. We deeply disapprove of university leaders’ decisions to deploy state police and nonsensical disciplinary charges against student demonstrators," said ACLU-VA Executive Director Mary Bauer.
“Today’s order isn’t just the first lawsuit of its kind to ever be filed in the Fourth Circuit: it’s a first step towards getting justice for the dozens of people whom ICE has harmed here in Virginia," said ACLU of Virginia Staff Attorney Sophia Gregg.
“Universities are charged with creating environments that encourage students to exercise their First Amendment rights – not ones that have license to violate students’ civil rights and civil liberties,” said ACLU-VA Executive Director Mary Bauer.
"VDOC and the Attorney General are supposed to uphold and apply the law as written, but instead, they manufactured their own interpretation of it and hoped no one would notice,” said ACLU of Virginia Senior Supervising Attorney Vishal Agraharkar.