The Myth of the "Bad" Immigrant

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced it will began using Fort Dix, a U.S. Army installation that is part of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in South New Jersey, to hold potentially thousands of people while ICE attempts to deport them. This is another disturbing expansion of the Trump administration's use of the military domestically and its rapid build out of immigration detention, coming on the heels of the newly-passed budget reconciliation bill's $170 billion to turbocharge deportations and detention. While the military base will initially hold 1,000 immigrants, the Department of Defense has reportedly approved an expansion to detain up to 3,000 immigrants. The Department of Defense has reportedly also agreed to allow the Department of Homeland Security to use its bases to detain 400 immigrants at the infamous Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, at least 1,000 at Camp Atterbury in Indiana, and 5,000 at Fort Bliss in Texas. Media reports also indicate that the Trump administration will deploy 2,000 National Guard troops to ICE detention centers nationwide – including at military bases. For months Trump has been setting the stage to repurpose the military domestically as part of his own deportation force. Sarah Mehta, deputy director of policy and government affairs for the Equality Division at the ACLU, issued the following statement in response: “President Trump’s use of military bases for his cruel deportation drive is as disgraceful as it is reckless. Detention camps on military bases harken to some of the worst chapters of American history, including Japanese internment, and are a total affront to the values of this country. "President Trump’s personal deportation force is now roping in the armed forces. Detaining immigrants on military bases will only make it more difficult to access lawyers and see family members. ICE detention camps are already notorious for violating detainees’ due process rights; these cruel practices should not extend to Fort Dix or other ‘novel’ detention sites. Members of Congress stop the use of the military – including its bases – for the Trump administration’s cruel immigration practices."

SAN DIEGO — A federal court in California again found the Trump administration breached the settlement agreement stemming from the American Civil Liberties Union’s family separation lawsuit. At issue is the administration’s sudden termination of two contracts guaranteeing legal and social services to clients covered in the 2023 agreement. The ACLU filed a motion in April after the Trump administration abruptly notified the Acacia Center for Justice, the main contractor that oversees the legal services program serving those clients, that it did not intend to renew its contract. On June 10, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw of the Southern District of California, ordered the government to reinstate its contract with Acacia so the organization can provide the required legal services under the settlement. He stressed that the Trump administration cannot “just simply disregard” a settlement the U.S. government agreed to. Late yesterday, the judge rejected the administration’s request to evade that ruling, and also found a second major breach by the government when it abruptly terminated its contract with Seneca Family of Agencies, which provides social services to the separated families, without securing any replacement contract. In this latest ruling, the judge wrote that the Trump administration “forced the separation of thousands of immigrant parents from their children, many of whom have yet to be reunified, and it caused profound, devastating, and lasting damage to those families.” The settlement agreement, he wrote, was the result of “painstaking negotiations” aimed to “address that damage” done to these families under the policy. The judge reiterated the policy was “one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country,” and again ordered the government to stop breaching the agreement and adhere to the settlement terms. ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt, lead counsel in the family separation lawsuit, had the following reaction: “Rather than acknowledge the horrible abuses inflicted by the family separation policy, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to avoid its responsibilities under the settlement. Fortunately, the court has squarely told the administration, for the second time in six weeks, it cannot simply walk away from its obligations.” The ruling is here.

NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union today announced that award-winning fashion designer Willy Chavarria will join the organization’s Artist Ambassador Program to advocate for immigrants’ rights and LGBTQ rights. He joins the Artist Ambassador Program during a pivotal year for both immigrants’ rights and LGBTQ rights, marked by several high-profile legal challenges, among them the fight to protect gender-affirming care for trans youth in U.S. v. Skirmetti; litigation against the Trump administration’s illegal deportations without due process under the Alien Enemies Act; and efforts to stop Congress from banning gender-affirming care from Medicaid to supercharge the mass deportation machine. Chavarria is a proud Mexican American and founder of the eponymous fashion label, WILLY CHAVARRIA. Throughout his career, he has woven politics, race, and sexuality into his designs, using his platform to advocate and raise awareness for social justice causes. His work with the ACLU has been wide-reaching, from his collaboration at New York Fashion Week with an ACLU-branded T-shirt, to hosting a pre-election conversation for voters called America: Real Talk at Parsons, to helping to launch Creatives for Freedom. Statement from Willy Chavarria, award-winning fashion designer and ACLU Artist Ambassador for Immigrants’ Rights and LGBTQ Rights: “The ACLU uses every tool they’ve got to fight for the rights of immigrants and the LGBTQ community, and I’m honored to be able to support them in that work. I’m Mexican American and I grew up in a farming community in California powered by immigrants; all of us exposed to the harsh realities of racial and economic injustice. My work as an artist and designer has been a dialogue between identity and art. My own Chicano culture, queer culture, and my family’s immigrant roots are intertwined in the fashion that my team and I create and in our activism. I believe in using our creative gifts to defend the rights of humanity and all impacted communities not given the same rights as others for who they are or because of where they’re from. I’m so grateful to join the ACLU in the fight for our rights.” In addition to his many accolades, Chavarria was honored in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025 list and his namesake label won the 2023 and 2024 CFDA Award nomination for menswear designer of the year. More about the ACLU’s immigrants’ rights work: Using targeted impact litigation, advocacy, and public outreach, the ACLU protects the rights and liberties of people who are immigrants. For more than 25 years, the ACLU has been at the forefront of almost every major legal struggle on behalf of immigrants’ rights, focusing on challenging laws that deny immigrants access to the courts, impose indefinite and mandatory detention, and discriminate on the basis of nationality. In addition, the organization has challenged constitutional abuses that arise from immigration enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels, including anti-immigrant “show me your papers” laws at the state level and unconstitutional enforcement tactics by the federal government and local agencies. More about the ACLU’s LGBTQ rights work: The ACLU has been counsel in seven of the nine LGBTQ rights cases that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided, and bring more LGBTQ rights cases and advocacy initiatives than any other national organization. The ACLU’s current priorities are to end discrimination, harassment and violence toward transgender people, to close gaps in our federal and state civil rights laws, to prevent protections against discrimination from being undermined by a license to discriminate, and to protect LGBTQ people in and from the criminal legal system. Statement from Jessica Herman Weitz, national director of artist & entertainment engagement at the ACLU: “Willy’s passion and steadfast commitment to supporting immigrants’ rights and LGBTQ rights is evident in everything he does. His work tells the story of who he is as the son of immigrants and a proud member of the LGBTQ community, but rather than just letting his work speak for itself, he uses his platform and privilege to make the connections for why representation is important, and how the fabric of our nation is built upon all of the different people who come to this country seeking a better life. We are honored to have Willy join the ACLU as our newest artist ambassador.” The ACLU Artist Ambassador Project ties influential creative artists and influencers in film, television, music, comedy, fashion, sports, and literature with public education and advocacy for key ACLU issues. Each ambassador works with the ACLU on specific civil liberties issues, which include immigrants’ rights, voting rights, rights of LGBTQ people, women’s rights, reproductive rights, reducing mass incarceration, racial justice, and privacy and security. Other examples of how artists work with the ACLU include: Joining Creatives for Freedom, which was launched by Gabriela Hearst, Willy Chavarria, and Padma Lakshmi in April 2025 Racial Justice Artist Ambassador, W. Kamau Bell, hosts long-form conversations on the ACLU’s podcast, “At Liberty” Immigrants’ Rights and Women’s Rights Artist Ambassador Padma Lakshmi traveling to the southern border to meet with people seeking asylum Videos to combat book bans and classroom censorship, like these with Jessica Williams, Tom Morello, Randall Park, and Pamela Adlon Supreme Court advocacy, like Annette Bening speaking on the steps of the Supreme Court in defense of gender affirming care; Laverne Cox, Miss Peppermint, and others for ACLU client Aimee Stephens; and Ike Barinholtz around the 2020 census Social posts like Judy Blume for National Librarian Day