Hate symbols permitted by the Department of Veterans Affairs, a new voting rights lawsuit in Louisiana, a contempt action lodged against ICE, and other news we think you should know about this week.
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Veterans Affairs must remove hate symbols from national cemeteries
The SPLC joins the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and other civil liberties groups in calling for the removal of headstones bearing swastikas <[link removed]> on the graves of Nazi soldiers buried in national veterans cemeteries in Texas and Utah. Veterans Affairs’ refusal to replace these headstones comes at a time when documented antisemitic incidents in the United States have reached a new high: more than 2,000 incidents in 2019, a 12% increase over the prior year, according to the ADL’s Center on Extremism’s annual tabulation <[link removed]>. The SPLC’s Intelligence Project <[link removed]> has documented a 55% increase in the number of white nationalist groups since 2017, when Trump’s campaign energized the movement. The VA’s defense of the swastika – the preeminent symbol of antisemitism – only gives oxygen to the white nationalist movement.
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SPLC, allies file lawsuit in La. to expand absentee ballots and ensure safe elections
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a federal lawsuit <[link removed]> against Louisiana officials over the state’s lack of safe and accessible voting processes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit challenges Louisiana’s burdensome requirements surrounding absentee ballots that put voters’ – particularly older voters’ and African Americans’ – health and lives at risk.
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Contempt action lodged against ICE for refusal to restore access to parole for asylum seekers
The Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU of Louisiana filed a motion for contempt in our federal class action lawsuit <[link removed]> against the Department of Homeland Security and the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office. The motion challenges ICE’s unlawful denial of release on parole to detained asylum seekers. “Instead of having found safety in the U.S., asylum seekers are again fighting injustice – this time at the hands of the U.S. government, and from behind bars in fatal detention camps,” said Mich Gonzalez, a staff attorney with the SPLC’s Immigrant Justice Project.
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SPLC asks families to report impact of school closures
We launched a new survey <[link removed]> this week to find out how students and families are responding to school closures in response to COVID-19. In March, the pandemic forced schools across the country to close, displacing millions of students and laying bare inequities in resources as some schools and school districts continue to provide meals, education services, and social and emotional support remotely while others have not.
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News You Should Know

‘They had him handcuffed to the bed’: Family of inmate who died of COVID-19 speaks out as incarcerated cases in Florida mount <[link removed]> (ABC News)

Why anti-lockdown protests are a ‘magnet’ for white supremacists and far-right extremists <[link removed]>(Business Insider)

Conversion therapy is dangerous and deadly. How is it still legal? <[link removed]> (Vice News)

Novel coronavirus sickening more of Georgia’s poultry workers <[link removed]> (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Far-right groups are spreading racist, false claims about shooting victim Ahmaud Arbery, analysts say <[link removed]> (The Washington Post)

As inmate cases rise, civil rights group sues FL for information about COVID-19 in prisons <[link removed]> (Miami Herald)












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