News & Commentary

Across the country, people are protesting police brutality and systemic racism. They are relentlessly demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the countless other Black people killed by police.

Police violence is one of the leading causes of death for Black men in America, and police officers who kill rarely face any type of accountability. This needs to stop.

People have a constitutional right to demand justice and express their views. If curfews must be implemented, the policies should meet strict criteria.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people locked up in immigration detention facilities have feared for their lives. Detainees have raised concerns over their inability to practice social distancing and lack of sanitation materials — even basic soap to clean their hands and cells.

The Trump administration optimistically projects that “substantially under” 100,000 people will die from COVID-19 in the United States. Horrific as that statistic is, a new model suggests it could be a huge underestimate.

Marijuana arrests clog the criminal legal system with people who should not be there. This puts even more people in harm’s way as COVID-19 threatens to devastate jails and prisons, where the virus can spread rapidly. Officials must respond by reducing both arrests and the incarcerated population.

COVID-19 is ravaging many parts of the United States, but nowhere more than in Black communities. Early data from the Midwest and the South reveal that Black people are contracting and dying from the virus at far higher rates than whites.