Celia Banos calls her son, Jhean, a born musician. Ever since he was a little boy, Jhean loved music. He learned the guitar, and after high school, he played in a band called The Parallels. At the age of 21, Jhean had his first episode of schizophrenia.

Jhean is 28 now, and — like thousands of people with serious mental illness — he cycles in and out of the Los Angeles County jail system. This cycle repeats itself because the county does not fund robust mental health services and alternatives to incarceration. Jhean’s family has tried to get him the help he needs, but they cannot find affordable, quality care for him. In moments of crisis, the family’s only option has been to call the Los Angeles Police Department.

Calling the police, however, causes the family even more trauma. In one recent incident, LAPD officers tased Jhean multiple times. In another incident, Celia says the police made fun of Jhean and laughed at him.

“This is someone’s son. Someone’s brother. He’s our family member, and he’s sick,” said Celia. “Being sick doesn’t mean that he is a criminal, and you have no right to laugh at someone like that, especially in front of a mother.”

Credit: Tara Pixley

I met Jhean and Celia over the summer while investigating conditions at the LA County jail.

Every day, I get updates from the jail telling me how many people are stuck in processing at the Inmate Reception Center (IRC) for more than 24 hours.

I get these updates because, since 1978, the ACLU has served as a court-appointed monitor of the LA County jail system. In that capacity, we gather information from the county and from incarcerated people in order to advocate on their behalf when jail conditions fall below basic constitutional standards of safety, hygiene and decency.

Earlier this summer, one of these daily updates showed exceptionally long wait times at the IRC. On that day in June, at least 28 people had been stuck at the IRC for more than 49 hours. That same day, I went down to investigate.

What I saw shook me.

The IRC was filthy. My shoes stuck to the floor. Two toilets were overflowing with human waste. More than a dozen people were trying to sleep on the floor. In an area known as the “front bench,” five individuals were sitting chained to their chairs as is required. The daily report noted that two of those five had been chained to the front bench for more than 24 hours. People called out to me that they had only been given peanut butter sandwiches to eat. Others called out that they hadn’t been provided with their medication and were awaiting psychiatric evaluations.

Over the next few weeks, I went back to the IRC with my ACLU colleagues to investigate the conditions, talk to people detained at the IRC, and talk to the LA County Sheriff Department’s staff about improving conditions.

Conditions worsened throughout the summer, and by August people were stuck in the IRC for four to five days, and some chained to the Front Bench for over 72 hours.

This is when Celia called the ACLU, and I eventually met Jhean. Celia was concerned that Jhean had been arrested and taken to the IRC but had not received housing for days, even though he had been diagnosed with a severe mental illness. I checked our reports and discovered that Jhean had spent almost 100 consecutive hours chained to the front bench. I went to visit Jhean, who had finally been transferred to a cell in the Twin Towers Jail. I saw that his wrists were swollen, cut and bruised — consistent with being handcuffed for so many hours.

Tragically, Jhean was just one of many who suffered from pervasive abuse in the IRC in late summer. My colleagues and I saw and heard reports of:

• People with serious mental illness chained to chairs for days at a time, where they slept sitting up.
• Dozens of people crammed together, sleeping head-to-foot on the hard concrete floor.

• People defecating in trash cans and urinating on the floor or in empty food containers in shared spaces.
• Unhygienic conditions, including floors littered with trash, overflowing sinks and toilets, no access to showers or clean clothes for days, and lack of adequate access to drinking water and food.
• Lack of adequate health care, including failure to provide people with serious mental illness or chronic medical conditions their medications, or to provide care to people dangerously detoxing from drugs and alcohol.

Ultimately, the ACLU of Southern California and the ACLU National Prison Project sought an emergency order from a federal judge to make LA County and the LA sheriff limit wait times and provide adequate hygiene and medical care at the IRC.

The level of daily suffering and misery experienced by people in the IRC is unspeakable. The LA County Board of Supervisors — the people ultimately responsible for the jails — know about the suffering, and the county’s attorneys even conceded in court that the horrors we recounted were true.

This level of suffering and misery could be avoided.

Years ago, the LA County Board of Supervisors committed to a “care first, jails last” approach to mental health treatment and meeting the needs of our unhoused community. But the Board of Supervisors has yet to commit to a timeline for establishing the thousands of community beds and services needed to reduce overcrowding and stop the cycle of people coming in and out of jail because they cannot access necessary mental health care, substance use treatment, or housing.

Credit: Tara Pixley

Jhean remains in jail, as of this writing. Celia hasn’t been able to visit him, because the sheriff’s office keeps canceling her visits. She believes it is in retaliation for speaking out about Jhean and the nearly 100 hours he spent chained to a chair in IRC. Celia wishes her family could access consistent treatment for Jhean.

“Why jail?” said Celia. “My son does not belong in jail. He has an illness.”

She worries for his safety. “I’m scared for my son,” she said. “This is an everyday thing.”

Learn more about Celia and her son’s story below:

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Rights Behind the Headlines is a new blog series from the ACLU of Florida that dispels misinformation and gives Floridians critical information about the most pressing issues facing our state. Read the full series at aclufl.org/rightsbehindtheheadlines  

Today, we’re dissecting Gov. DeSantis’ political stunt in which he sent asylum seekers to Massachusetts. Read the headline from the New York Times here: Florida Flies 2 Planeloads of Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

Over the past year, Republican governors in the South have transported migrants seeking asylum at the border to Northern cities. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has led the trend, creating an entire system bussing migrants to Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

During a press conference in late September, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took credit for flying to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts a group of 50 Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers, including families with young children–who were reportedly misled with false promises of housing and jobs. Americans across the country and the international community have denounced DeSantis’ move as a deceptive and cruel political stunt.

First, the migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard were picked up in San Antonio, Texas, and were never scheduled to arrive in Florida. They were lured with the false promise of expedited work permits and never told exactly where they were going. Families with children were assured they would receive assistance when they arrived. None of that was true. Instead, people working on behalf of the DeSantis administration gathered them on a plane with those false promises but without any plans for shelter, food or medical care. DeSantis’ proxies never alerted any first responders, members of the Massachusetts government, or the nonprofit community, which is usually instrumental in providing resources for asylum seekers, about the flight. The migrants arrived in Martha’s Vineyard alone and without help, without informed consent, coordination, or planning.

Florida state records show that Vertol Systems, the airline company used in this plot, received two payments of $615,000 and $950,000. This means that Gov. DeSantis used over $1.5 million taxpayer dollars to pull off this scheme, going out of his way to put families that had no contact with Florida at risk, by tapping into a $12 million fund that had been unnecessarily appropriated to transport migrants out of Florida.

DeSantis continues to target and denigrate immigrants for his own political gain. Yet, migrants are intrinsic to the fabric of Florida, making up 20 percent of all Floridians.

This much we know: the children and families transported in buses and flights have sought asylum. Asylum is a lawful process protected under both United States and international law. Seeking asylum is a legal right that is essential for people fleeing persecution, including violence and abuse, in their home countries. Asylum seekers, like those who were fraudulently lured  onto these flights, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Unlike Gov. DeSantis, the community in Martha’s Vineyard fortunately came together to support the families and mitigate further trauma. They offered them temporary shelter, food and water, and legal assistance.

The flights are now the subject of a criminal investigation and three lawsuits. One lawsuit was filed by several of the migrants, who are represented by Lawyers for Civil Rights, and another was filed by State Senator Jason Pizzo (in his personal capacity) who challenges DeSantis for misusing state funds for the flights.

The Governor exploited human beings lawfully seeking asylum to appeal to his political base and divide Floridians. He was also attempting to distract from his many policy failures on the real issues impacting Floridians, including desperately underfunded public schools, the elimination of access to abortion care, a lack of gun safety measures, the number of teacher vacancies across the state, the rising costs of housing, making Florida schools a political battlefield by banning conversations about race and gender discrimination, and blatant discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities.

Across Florida and the country, the message from Americans is clear: no one should be used as pawns, especially not for political gain. 

Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and it’s past time politicians like Gov. DeSantis stop scapegoating immigrants to further divide our state and country. Florida’s communities thrive when all people seeking a better life are welcomed.

With the midterms coming up, we are chatting with some of our great affiliate volunteers about what issues are most important to them, and how they motivate voters to cast their ballots. We hope these conversations inspire you to vote for your values and join us in this once-in-a-generation battle to protect our nation.

American Civil Liberties Union

Vote Your Values | American Civil Liberties Union

This election, join us by pledging to vote for your values, and fight for your rights by encouraging your friends and family to do the same.

This week, we spoke to Connie Horton-Kross, a retired nurse from Holland, Michigan, who worked in reproductive health her whole career and now volunteers with the ACLU of Michigan. Through the determination of Connie and countless other abortion rights advocates, the Reproductive Freedom for All ballot committee, supported by the ACLU of Michigan, rallied and got more than 750,000 petition signatures to put Proposal 3 on the ballot this November, which would restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in the Michigan Constitution. Connie tells us what motivated her to get involved, why she is voting Yes on Proposal 3, and why talking to her friends and family about voting is so important.

Image Courtesy of Connie Horton-Kross

ACLU: What motivated you to get involved with the ACLU of Michigan as a volunteer, especially around the Reproductive Freedom for All initiative?

Connie Horton-Kross: Nursing has been my passion my whole life. My public health career focused on reproductive health. I retired as a public health nurse in 2018, but stayed involved at the Michigan Family Planning Advisory Council as a private citizen. I also volunteered giving out COVID-19 vaccines, but still wanted to do more. That’s when I really started watching what was going on with the Dobbs decision. I’d never been really politically active aside from some volunteer work, but this time, I couldn’t sit here and let this happen. At first, I was just going to take a couple of petitions and have them signed. But then, I was creating events and mobilizing people and it just blossomed into this whole thing. I’ve spoken to professionals and during conferences before about abortion and reproductive health, but to get out there and talk to someone that may have an opposing opinion was frightening. But I have really gained confidence with that and I’ve never had any negative interactions this whole time.

ACLU: How do you reach out to folks to get them involved?

CH: Most of the outreach I do is specific to people. For example, I’ve got a group of friends that are retired nurses too. I got them all together and they ended up volunteering and collecting signatures with me. Now that they’ve gotten involved, we’ll go out to happy hour and we discuss the next steps. I also take part in activist groups to get people to mobilize. After the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, we actually had a march in Holland, Michigan with over 1,500 people. I met women in their early 20s with megaphones, marching. People had tears in their eyes because Holland is so conservative and to see that kind of support … I still get choked up. It was just amazing to see all walks of life, all ages, saying that we couldn’t let this happen.

ACLU: How do you explain to people why voting is important, and persuade them to take part in upcoming elections?

CH: I just start with a conversation. I make sure they’re registered. If they’re not, I keep the QR code to register to vote on my clipboard. I’ve met a lot of young people that hadn’t registered yet and that did it right on the site so they could sign the petition. I really push that and I tell them that’s their say in what happens. If you don’t stay involved, things will happen that you won’t have any control over. The perfect example of this is reproductive freedom. These people are going to be making rules and laws about you and your body. If you don’t get out there and vote, you really can’t gripe. That’s why I tell my kids, if you don’t vote, you just agreed to whatever happens.

ACLU: What would you say to people who feel like their vote might not matter, or who just feel disempowered?

CH: I tell them that if we give up, then they win, and they’re just going to keep taking more freedoms away. I just focus on that point, that this is taking your rights and choices away. On abortion for example, if they take this choice from you, what’s next? This is health care. It’s part of the decision between you and your doctor. It’s not meant to be political. I can be pretty persuasive that way and talk to people with the facts.

Image Courtesy of Connie Horton-Kross

ACLU: How do you motivate your own friends and family to get out there and vote?

CH: I talk to all my friends, especially about abortion. My mother-in-law is 86 years old and was staying at my house on the Fourth of July, during the last weekend of the petitions. She started seeing all these people come in, dropping off last-minute petitions, so I told her that I’ve been volunteering. She knows what my job was, so I explained to her that some women that have an ectopic pregnancy, can’t get a procedure to remove the tissue afterwards, other women suffer membrane ruptures prematurely and could get an infection, but they need to get very sick before they can get a termination. I’ve been hitting everybody strictly from a medical point of view and how this is going to affect women’s lives. I think that she’s willing to listen. My son also, who’s 25 and leans more conservative, didn’t sign the petition and we had some discussions about it. It’s interesting that we have such an opposite point of view, but it’s okay. We were able to talk openly.

ACLU: Has anything surprised you in your activism around this issue?

CH: It is surprising to see the amount of support and passion. Women that came out to sign petitions, many of them had their own abortion story. I didn’t know any of these people. They just came out to sign the petition and we were sitting there, my husband and I, and they opened up and told us their story. Stories on how they could have died without an abortion or how they would be living in poverty now. This happened at least a dozen or more times.

ACLU: Why did you decide to share your story? And what else do you want people to know about your experience?

CH: I want people to know that I really felt empowered by doing this, and I felt like I was empowering others to come out and help too. I learned that if I was passionate enough and not afraid to speak up, then I could motivate people to get involved. It was great to see my friends involved, and see that empowered women empower women. I’m looking forward to continuing fighting for this and getting this passed.

Interested in working with people like Connie to defend our rights? Find out more about how to get involved here.

American Civil Liberties Union

Midterm Elections: How These Offices Impact Your Rights | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union

Elected officials don’t have the final say when it comes to our rights — we do. Let the ACLU help you step into your power at the ballot box!

Paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc., 125 Broad Street, New York, New York 10004, in coordination with Reproductive Freedom for All.