© 2024 KRWG
News that Matters.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Demand For Know Your Rights Training Surges

KRWG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JWAC0hOvsU

What do you do when ICE agents knock on your door? Can law enforcement search through your phone? And what rights do you have if you are arrested at a protest?

These are the basics of the ‘Know Your Rights Training’ the ACLU has been offering for years. Vicki Gaubeca is the director of the ACLU Regional Center for Border Rights in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  She said demand for the training sessions increased dramatically after Donald Trump was inaugurated.

I think we would generally give maybe three or four a month in the past, but in this administration we are providing know your rights training at least once a day if not more, sometimes two or three times a day. Gaubeca said “There is a lot of fear in the community right now.”

About 50 people attended a Know Your Rights training session at New Mexico State University many of them immigrants, but most were just citizens interested in their legal rights during traffic stops and at political demonstrations.

“They have the right to remain silent in front of any law officer, they have the right from being unduly searched – or any of the things to be  unduly seized -  these are actual basic.. constitutional rights -  that will protect them- they have the right.. to contact an attorney Gaubeca said “That is just as much true for anyone regardless of their immigration status.”

Permanent Resident Fahimeh Foudazi was at the training.  She and her husband moved to the U.S. from Iran 9 years ago after friends told them how well Muslims were treated here. She said she hasn’t felt like that since the Trump administration pushed for a ban on travel by those from seven Muslim-majority countries including Iran or whenever she’s been stopped by law enforcement.

“I shook, I didn’t know what is going to happen what are they going to ask me-  you always don’t know what your right is exactly."

Foudazi said she doesn’t know what rights she and her husband have as permanent residents.
Gaubeca said that’s often what makes people vulnerable. Gaubeca said ICE officers were said to have taken advantage of that during recent ICE raids in Las Cruces neighborhoods

“It doesn’t matter who the law enforcement agency is, you don’t need to open the door” Gaubeca said ”They need warrants to go into the dwelling of somebody to get into a home they need a warrant – they can't just be knocking in peoples doors indiscriminately.”

Gaubeca points to interior checkpoints as a good example of how law enforcement overreach plays out when individuals aren’t sure about their rights. Constitutionally, law enforcement can’t stop and question you without reasonable suspicion you have committed a crime.

Foudazi said standing ground at a border check point might be easy for some U.S. citizens, but not for immigrants as long as ICE and Border Patrol can deny those with legal status entry into the country.  She said the USA might be about justice and liberty, but it is not for all.  

“There is a kind of argument going on in our house right now; should we stay or should we leave? Is here safe here any more or not?” Foudazi said “This country talking about freedom, talking about liberty but they are not acting in the same way they have a bias.”

Gaubeca said the ACLU is working on programs to broaden and fortify constitutional protections to all- especially people of different religious groups, people of color and immigrants.  And with the ACLU achieving record fundraising following President Trump’s election more funds are available to fight what may be a long and expensive battle.