American Civil Liberties Union Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

International Students Can Stay In US After Federal Government Restores Visas

Two international students studying in West Virginia will be permitted to stay in the United States following new visa developments on the federal level.

Two international students attending West Virginia universities will be permitted to stay in the United States following visa concerns, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia (ACLU) announced Friday.

In recent weeks, more than 1,200 international students across the United States had their visas revoked for appearing in criminal record checks, including at least 10 students in West Virginia. But an outpouring of lawsuits has led the federal government to reverse course.

Federal immigration officials announced Friday it will restore the visa status of students flagged in its record check, at least temporarily. ICE plans to revisit its review process and reconsider individual cases after an outpouring of similar lawsuits.

“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for … record terminations,” government lawyers said in statements obtained by the Associated Press. “Until such a policy is issued…. plaintiffs in this case and other similarly situated plaintiffs will remain active, or shall be reactivated if not currently active.”

Two of the lawsuits came from the state’s ACLU chapter. The first was filed April 18 on behalf of a Marshall University graduate student whose visa had been revoked over a 2020 misdemeanor charge for driving under the influence of alcohol. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order this week allowing the student to remain in the United States.

The second lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of Sajawal Ali Sohail, a computer science major at West Virginia University (WVU) from Pakistan.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, that lawsuit challenged the grounds for revoking Sohail’s F-1 student visa, because he has never been convicted of a crime.

In 2023, Sohail’s family was scammed into paying a man who offered to front Sohail’s college tuition — unknowingly using stolen credit cards. He was initially charged for the scam, but the charges were later dropped when police determined Sohail to be a victim of the fraud, not its perpetrator, according to the ACLU.

In the lawsuit, the ACLU asks the northern U.S. district court to assume jurisdiction over the case and restore Sohail’s student visa status.

“We’ve heard time and again from the Trump administration that they only want to remove criminals from the country, but we know that simply isn’t the case,” said ACLU Executive Director Eli Baumwell in a Thursday press release. “It’s obvious the administration has embarked on a policy of mass terminations regardless of the facts.”

“This is positive news not just for our two clients in West Virginia, but for international students across the country,” the state’s ACLU chapter said in a subsequent press release Friday. “We are continuing to monitor the situation closely, particularly the announcement that ICE will be developing new policies for revoking legal statuses.”

Traveling African American History Exhibit Heading To Charleston

A traveling museum spotlighting Black history across generations is headed to Charleston for an exhibition this month.

A traveling museum that spotlights African American history across generations is making a pit stop in Charleston next week for a two-day exhibition hosted by West Virginia State University (WVSU).

On March 9 and 10, the WVSU Center in Charleston will be filled with artifacts, informational displays and live presentations from the Sankofa African-American Museum on Wheels.

Since 1995, the mobile museum has traveled the United States to share glimpses into Black history in the United States, from the antebellum era to the Civil Rights Movement to the contemporary moment.

The free-to-attend exhibition is cosponsored by WVSU, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of West Virginia, the Black Voter Impact Initiative (BVII) and the West Virginia-based Black By God newsroom.

Shanequa Smith is an organizer for the BVII, a West Virginia community organization that aims to “embrace, educate and empower Black people to vote,” according to its Facebook page. Smith said she was inspired to invite the museum to Charleston after seeing its exhibition in Charleston several years ago.

“It was just more than a museum. It was an experience,” she said.

Smith said she began contacting community partners about the possibility of bringing the exhibit to Charleston. Her organization often hosts community events and youth programming, but a museum exhibition was relatively new territory for them, she said.

“It’s important for us to learn our history and how we got here,” she said. “Many times when we hear history, we hear it from the media, which maybe only tells our history from one perspective. But I think the museum brings a joy to our history, which a lot of times is not told.”

Now in its thirtieth year, the Sankofa African-American Museum on Wheels will visit Charleston for a free exhibit March 9 and 10.

*Photo Credit: Sphinx Media*

The exhibition also coincides with West Virginia’s fourth annual Black Policy Day, an annual lobbying event that aims to highlight issues impacting Black West Virginians and urge lawmakers to address them. The campaign is led by the BVII.

“In the past, they have brought hundreds of community members and students into the Capitol to talk about a whole variety of issues, particularly issues that impact Black communities here in West Virginia,” said Eli Baumwell, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia.

Baumwell said the ACLU has helped sponsor museum exhibitions in the past, and saw hosting the Sankofa Museum as urgent for the current political climate.

“We wanted to do this particularly right now, when there’s this backlash and this attempt to censor American history, particularly Black history,” Baumwell said. “To treat it as somehow divisive, rather than an important part of understanding where we are and how we got here.”

Sergio Rodriguez is director of the WVSU Center, a university event space in downtown Charleston. He said the center was created roughly one year ago, and sees exhibitions like the Sankofa Museum as an opportunity to open the space — and the university’s educational programming — to the wider West Virginia community.

West Virginia State has “all these kinds of activities at the center so we can partner with the community, we can engage with the community,” Rodriguez said. “The center is working hard to get all these projects coming to the center.”

The March exhibition marks the museum’s first visit to Charleston, and Rodriguez said West Virginia State is eager to bring it to new audiences.

“We are excited because this museum is going to be 30 years old this year, and has been in 40 states,” Rodriguez said. “We want to highlight African American history… and I think this is a good way to promote history.”

The exhibition is open to the public and free to attend. It can be accessed at the WVSU Center in Charleston at 107 Capitol St. on Sunday, March 9 from 1 to 6 p.m., and on Monday, March 10 from 1 to 7 p.m.

ACLU Launches Online Tool To Report Religious Teaching In Public Schools

On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia launched an online tool for residents to report religious content being taught in public schools.

A new law that took effect in June could expand how West Virginia teachers respond to questions on the origin of life.

But the state’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chapter worries this could encroach upon students’ religious freedoms. With a new school year beginning for most West Virginia students this month, the organization has launched a new online tool for students, parents and guardians to report religious content being taught in public school classrooms.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia Legislature passed Senate Bill 280, which states that school and government officials cannot prohibit teachers “from responding to student inquiries or answering questions from students about scientific theories of how the universe and/ or life came to exist.”

An earlier draft of the bill explicitly sought to give teachers permission to “teach intelligent design as a theory.” Intelligent design theory states that life was created by a higher power, which overlaps with Christian belief in the existence of God.

But in a Friday press release, the ACLU of West Virginia said the initial draft of the bill was in conflict with a 2005 ruling from Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which found that intelligent design was not rooted in science. The ruling declared the theory could not be taught in public school classrooms because it therefore violated students’ constitutional right to religious freedom.

Any reference to intelligence design was struck from the bill’s final version. But the ACLU said this makes the purpose behind the new law, as well as its potential applications, hazy.

“It’s entirely unclear what exactly the final version of this bill seeks to permit, because it was already lawful for teachers to answer questions about scientific theories,” ACLU Legal Director Aubrey Sparks said in the press release. “What is clear, however, is the constitutional right to freedom of religion. The state may not push specific religious viewpoints onto students, period.”

Sparks said that the ACLU worries teachers might think the law grants them freedom to portray their religious views as science during class. This concern led the ACLU to launch the new online tool, where residents can report their concerns to the organization’s legal team.

The legal team will monitor the situation and review all submissions as the school year continues, Sparks said.

To access the new online tool, visit the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia website.

ACLU Receives Documents Regarding Recent Treatment Of BLM Protesters In Martinsburg

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia received documents from the City of Martinsburg Friday afternoon — all related to treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in late May.

The ACLU-WV filed a freedom of information act request more than a month ago, and having not received the documents within the legally mandated time frame, filed a lawsuit earlier Friday. The documents arrived thereafter.

The ACLU-WV filed a lawsuit against the city of Martinsburg in Berkeley County Circuit Court because city officials had notresponded to a public records request submitted more than 50 days ago, according to an ACLU spokesperson.

Within about an hour of filing the lawsuit, the City agreed to provide the requested documents. The ACLU-WV said they received documents late Friday afternoon related to police treatment of 11 protesters.

The organization required such records as bodycam and dashcam footage from Martinsburg Police officers involved in the arrest of 11 Black Lives Matter protesters on May 30 and 31. The request asks for names and badge numbers, official procedures when interacting with protesters, and use-of-force policies.

The request was submitted by the ACLU-WV on behalf of the Berkeley County Unity Coalition, a newly formed group of civil and human rights organizations, educators and faith leaders.

The group said the 11 arrested protesters were forced to sit in jail with excessively high bails amid a health pandemic, and that officers used excessive force and escalated tensions.

The ACLU-WV said they aren’t prepared to dismiss their lawsuit until the documents are reviewed.

The Martinsburg Police Department did not immediately respond for comment.

In an emailed statement from Kin Sayre, Martinsburg’s city attorney, he states the City of Martinsburg replied to the ACLU-WV’s FOIA on Jun. 23, 2020 acknowledging the request and indicating “the City would need time to assemble the data.”

Sayre also noted “the City has not been served on the lawsuit.”