Alexandra Martinez

After an investigation into the inhumane conditions at the facility, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida activists demand that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cancel its contract with the Baker County Sheriff’s Office.

This article was originally published at Prism.

In November, a group of incarcerated women at Baker County Detention Center in Macclenny, Florida, filed a Prison Rape Elimination Act complaint with the ACLU of Florida.

This article was originally published at Prism

Drag performers and drag events have been under attack since Texas, Florida, and Arizona lawmakers moved to ban youth-friendly drag programming earlier this year. In recent months, at least a dozen drag events have caused outrage beyond Texas and Florida, whose governors are known for restrictive and punitive laws. In June, the Proud Boys stormed a San Lorenzo, California, library hosting a Drag Queen Story Hour event.

This article was originally published at Prism

After major corporations including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft announced plans to provide abortion-related travel benefits for full-time employees, workers across industries are fighting to make sure those benefits are provided to everyone and that the corporations take their investments out of the pockets of anti-abortion politicians.

On Aug.

This article was originally published at Prism

Corporations began introducing plans to pay for abortion travel across state lines shortly after the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked from the Supreme Court of the United States in May. Since the official ruling was handed down on June 24, the number of companies offering the benefit has grown, with over 40 companies announcing similar abortion travel policies.

This article was originally published at Prism

On June 15, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program officially turned 10. The program has allowed over 600,000 “dreamers,” young, undocumented immigrants who were largely raised in the U.S., to apply to work and study in the country without fearing deportation since former President Barack Obama signed the executive order in 2012. But the program has faced continuous legal challenges.

This story was originally published at Prism.

The historic migrant death crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border continues to grow. On Monday evening, 46 migrants were found dead in a semi-truck in San Antonio, Texas. As of Tuesday evening, the death toll had risen to 51, according to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

This article was originally published at Prism

Intellectually and developmentally disabled people have historically been weaponized against abortion rights by conservative politicians, or forced into sterilization by eugenicists. But a recent poll conducted by Data for Progress and shared with The 19th shows that 53% of Americans with disabilities want abortion to remain legal in most circumstances, in line with 55% of non-disabled people who want the same thing.

This story was originally published at Prism.

As the country waits for the Supreme Court’s final decision on Roe v. Wade, the plight of accessing abortion care for undocumented people and noncitizens will only become more challenging.

This article was originally published at Prism.

Conservative lawmakers are targeting contraception access in the latest fight over reproductive rights. Legislators in states like Missouri, Louisiana, and Arizona have been vocal about challenging access to contraception like intrauterine devices (IUDs) and emergency contraception like Plan B, claiming that life begins at the moment of conception.

This article was originally published at Prism.

Over 430,000 affirmative asylum-seekers have been subject to a processing policy referred to as “Last In, First Out” (LIFO) that prioritizes recently submitted applications over older cases. A person who applies for affirmative asylum this year should have their interview within 45 days, but the wait is averaging 1,621 days. For those who applied in 2015, 2016, or 2017 when the backlog began, the delay has lasted seven years.

This story was originally published at Prism. 

Marie “Mama” Nan Nfor has not seen her husband since 2018. Her husband, prominent Cameroonian revolutionary Nfor Ngala Nfor, has been imprisoned in Cameroon since 2018 as part of the “Nera 10,” a group of 10 Anglophone leaders who were abducted during the first year of the civil war.

Two months after the omicron variant peaked at over 1.3 million cases in a single day, cities and businesses across the country are beginning to lift mask and vaccine mandates.

This story was originally published at Prism.

President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address on March 1 to bipartisan support and applause, but advocates across some of the country’s most pressing issues, including immigration, reproductive rights, and police reform, were left disappointed. Prism spoke to advocates of some of the key issues Biden addressed during his speech and asked for their reactions.

This article was originally published at Prism

Teaching certain parts of history in Florida may be subject to a lawsuit next school year. Teachers in Florida face another set of legislations that will censor their work in the classroom. The Individual Freedom Act, which recently received approval from the state Senate Education Committee, will make it illegal for public school students to feel “discomfort” when they are taught about race.

This story was originally published at Prism.

Two days before Christmas last year, Rachel Rubí and her mother, Maria Rubí, learned their rent would increase by 65% beginning February 2022. The two tenants have lived in a decades-old, two-story apartment building in Hialeah, a blue-collar and predominantly immigrant city within Miami-Dade County, for 25 years. Maria, who emigrated from Nicaragua, earns $14 an hour as a cashier at a store in the city.

This article was originally published at Prism

In 2017, Beth Vial needed to have an abortion. She was 26 weeks into her pregnancy, and there was no legal cutoff in her resident city of Portland, Oregon, but she needed a simple majority vote from the department board at the hospital to approve her procedure. She was short one vote, and she was running out of time.

This article was originally published at Prism

At a time when abortion care providers are already overburdened, clinics across the country are struggling to operate amid staffing shortages caused by COVID-19 outbreaks among staff. Simultaneously, abortion funds are reporting that more people are seeking financial support for their procedures than they did last year, and patients who test positive for COVID-19 are having to push procedures back in order to quarantine.

by Alexandra Martinez

This article was originally published at Prism

From the outside, the Greenidge power plant in Seneca Lake, New York, looks like a 1950s-era relic of New York’s coal-fired past. But behind the facade of the once moth-balled power plant, there are now 8,000 churning high-powered computers running software 24/7 to solve complex math problems.

by Alexandra Martinez

This article was originally published at Prism

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would remove restrictions on medication abortions and permanently allow people to receive abortion pills by mail—a reprieve from the abortion care crisis playing out in the Supreme Court. The decision affirms the safety of medication abortions and ensures an alternative to procedural abortions where there are repressive state laws.

by Alexandra Martinez

This article was originally published at Prism

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s weekend announcement that he would vote “no” on the Build Back Better bill was a direct blow to caregivers, disabled coal miners, and anybody living below the poverty line in his home state. The Biden administration’s $1.

by Alexandra Martinez

This article was originally published at Prism

Six weeks after it began, the student workers’ unfair labor practices strike at Columbia University has become the largest ongoing labor strike in the nation. The union has been on strike since Nov. 3, with workers calling for higher wages and more protections for graduate and undergraduate student workers.

by Alexandra Martinez

This article was originally published at Prism

The Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness (LRIF) program is set to expire Dec. 20, leaving thousands of eligible Liberian nationals at risk of deportation by next summer when current Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) protections will also end. LRIF, which was passed in 2019 as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, provided permanent residency and deportation protection to Liberians in the U.S.

This story was originally published at Prism.

President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to end former President Donald Trump’s harmful “Remain in Mexico” policy was officially broken on Monday when the program was reinstated after a federal court order. The order even expanded the policy to include all asylum-seekers from the Western hemisphere, including Haiti.

The fate of Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance after last week’s Supreme Court hearing and the Supreme Court’s latest decision to allow Texas’ repressive Senate Bill 8 to remain in effect despite allowing abortion providers to sue state officials to block the ban. As a result, reproductive rights activists advocate for advanced provisions and abortion-by-mail options to sidestep repressive state laws on surgical abortions.

by Alexandra Martinez

This article was originally published at Prism

The World Health Organization has designated the new COVID-19 variant, omicron, as a variant of concern, with cases already being reported in California and Minnesota, adding another risk for educators in nine states where wearing a mask in the classroom is optional.