Carol Rose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, joined Boston Public Radio on Tuesday to go over the organization's priorities and ongoing cases this year.
The ACLU is working with the Lawyers for Civil Rights group to get more transparency about student information shared from the Boston Public Schools to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Documents obtained by the groups reveal that more than 100 cases since 2014 where student information was passed on to a regional intelligence-sharing network that included a Department of Homeland Security agent, contrary to what school officials previously said publicly.
"We need to understand the schools serve a purpose just like our public health centers serve a purpose, which is to serve our community, and by the way, our local police serve a purpose, which is to keep us safe and free, so what we don't want to do is collaborate with this really harsh and cruel deportation machine beyond which is required by law," said Rose. "Obviously if there's an actual crime taking place, or violence taking place, that's required by law to have sharing, no one is suggesting that shouldn't be, what we're talking about is, the sweeping up of people not because of what they've done, but because of who they are."
Rose also discussed the ACLU's transparency lawsuit against Boston Police for not making information publicly available about their street investigations, the Roe Act for abortion rights, and immigrant protections.
