News & Commentary

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas in 2017 analyzed the legal liability of local law enforcement when they operate under the 287(g) contracts for ICE. Because they are free to disregard detainers, those agreements have not been found in court decisions to be a defense for unlawful detention, the ACLU said, listing lawsuits. “Jailers cannot evade responsibility for unlawful detention by claiming the federal government required them to hold the person on an immigration detainer,” ACLU’s report said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas last month warned that the state’s legislature is attacking elections and voter rights “from a multitude of directions.” The group called HB 2587 a “shell bill,” noting that it was originally drafted for an unrelated purpose. And in fact, the bill’s title is: “Authorizing a licensed private psychiatric hospital to maintain a stock supply of emergency medication kits for pharmaceutical emergencies.” Micah Kubic, the ACLU of Kansas’s executive director, claimed in a press release last month that the state’s politicians were eroding “Kansans’ ability to vote by obstructing voter registration, shifting deadlines, restricting mail-in voting, sharing sensitive data, fabricating the issue of widespread fraud in Kansas elections, and assigning blame to noncitizens. Legislators have opted to do all this before key primary and general elections in Kansas, giving county clerks and voters virtually no chance to adapt to or even understand these changes.”

The ACLU of Kansas has sued to block SB 244, though a district court judge denied a temporary restraining order and the case is not set for another court date until late September. By then, Kansas’ Aug. 4 primary will have passed, and Kansas elections officials will have already printed ballots for November, with actual voting soon to get underway. It’s not clear that any good voting options will exist for those targeted by SB 244.

Logan DeMond, director of policy at the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said the bill would have a chilling effect on the exercise of constitutional freedoms. “Protecting the right to worship is critically important, but it must be balanced with protecting the fundamental right to free expression,” DeMond said. “The bill’s civil enforcement provisions only heighten these concerns.”

“Transgender Kansans should have protection and dignity in our state instead of persecution,” said ACLU of Kansas Executive Director Micah Kubic in a January press release.

The ACLU posits that it becomes difficult to maintain educational or professional status due to the possibility of complaints, which will make employers and schools wary of keeping transgender people around.

Logan DeMond, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said mandating arrests and strict pretrial conditions based on the charge level rather than individualized risk to the public disproportionately harmed low-income Kansas because pretrial detention could result in job loss, eviction and disruption of child care. Judges ought to retain leeway to consider bonding based on prior record, flight risk and community ties, he said.

The ACLU of Kansas sharply criticized the measures, calling them an attack on voters’ rights ahead of the critical 2026 primary and general elections.

“This is an effort at death by a thousand cuts to Kansans' right to vote in one fell swoop. Politicians have grown impatient and hurried through a Frankensteined attack on the beginning, middle, and end of election administration and Kansans' ability to vote by obstructing voter registration, shifting deadlines, restricting mail-in voting, sharing sensitive data, fabricating the issue of widespread fraud in Kansas elections, and assigning blame to noncitizens.” — Micah Kubic, Executive Director, ACLU of Kansas