Kevin Jones* is sitting in a jail cell because of a faulty battery. Jones, a Black man, was released on a pending criminal charge and probation supervision and ordered by officials in Oakland County, Michigan to wear an electronic location monitoring device while he awaited further hearings in his cases. Yet, through no fault of his own, the device (called a “tether” in Michigan) failed to keep a charge due to an inexplicable malfunction. In November 2020, Jones was sleeping in his home when police officers broke in, woke him up, and arrested him for violating the conditions of his release. The violation? A dead battery.

Jones grew up in Canton, Michigan with a single mother who worked tirelessly as an EMT. He is a father of three young children who live in Ohio. When his children were newborns, he would often drive hours to pick them up, bring them back to Michigan, and keep them for two to three months at a time. His mother, Ms. Jones, recalls, “He would bring them by and asked me to babysit them and I would give him a time to get back to pick the kids up, because I have a strict bedtime regimen. If I told my son to be at my house by 9:00 p.m. to pick up the children, he would show up at 8:58 p.m., always on time.” Now that he is incarcerated, Jones’ children are missing a father. This past Father’s Day weekend, they were not able to enjoy quality time with their dad.

Jones recounts the day it all happened — the day that triggered his loss of freedom:

“My tether died when I was asleep … Police came to my home to verify that I was there, and they woke me up. I looked [and realized that] the tether had died and [so I] charged the tether back up. A week or two later, I went in for a violation hearing and the judge said they were revoking my bond, even though I was at home [where I was supposed to be] when the police found me.”

Unfortunately, that was not the last time Jones had charging difficulties. The judge gave him two weeks after the violation hearing to turn himself in. During that two-week period, the same tether died a second time, in late December 2020. Then, despite diligent his efforts to charge it, the ankle monitor died a third time, the day before Jones was supposed to turn himself in.

Throughout the various instances of battery failure, Jones kept in touch with the tether company and cooperated with authorities, informing them about the device’s malfunctions and explaining the charging problem. Despite his efforts to comply with the terms of his pretrial release, it was abruptly terminated, and he was sentenced to two years in jail without having a chance to speak at the violation hearing.

To make things worse, Jones was moved from the Oakland County Jail — a facility the ACLU has sued for its mismanagement of the pandemic — to a prison in Jackson, Michigan. Following the transfer in March 2021, Jones contracted COVID-19. Jones has underlying conditions, including asthma and a heart murmur, that make catching COVID-19 particularly dangerous. Since catching the virus, Jones reports suffering from “major headaches, coughing, and scratchy throats.” The conditions of his incarceration are poor; Jones says after employees move infected people out of the general population, “they don’t clean the cells that we were in before we were moved to the COVID-19 unit.”

Throughout this ordeal, Jones was set up to fail: ordered to wear a faulty device, and punished when the battery died — not only with incarceration, but with a deadly virus. Prior to the battery failure, Jones was merely a man on pretrial release. He was not convicted of his pending firearms charge — he was merely accused of a crime while trying to navigate the terms of his probation. Yet the repeated battery failures landed him in prison, making it all but impossible for Jones to lodge an effective defense against his pending charge.

Restrictive pretrial monitoring should alarm us all for several reasons. First, it infringes due process rights, because monitoring is often imposed by judges who do not consider whether the accused person poses a risk of failing to appear for court, or otherwise poses a danger to the community. Second, it undermines the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Third, monitoring creates an unchecked privacy intrusion by private companies (often working at the behest of, or in partnership with, the government), and amounts to an unreasonable, warrantless search. Fourth, it impedes movement, freedom, and autonomy — preventing people from obtaining employment, finding housing, and participating in everyday social and family life. In short, once a person is accused of a crime and released on a pretrial electronic monitor, they are treated as if they committed the alleged offense, and are stripped of fundamental rights and freedoms.

As with all aspects of the criminal legal system, these burdens are disproportionately imposed on Black and Brown people. Unfortunately, Jones’ story is not an outlier: Across the nation, malfunctions areBlack Lives Matter activist Jeremy “Mohawk” Johnson has documented, via TikTok, that his ankle monitor falsely reported him away from home more than 60 times while he awaited trial in Chicago. Johnson emphasized that monitors make it difficult to find jobs, attend medical appointments, go grocery shopping, take care of family, and sleep (sometimes the device emits voice alerts in the middle of the night).

Abolishing restrictive monitoring is the next frontier of criminal, economic, and racial justice. Once touted as a reform or alternative to incarceration, the use of ankle monitors is instead helping to fuel mass incarceration and expand its reach. Ankle monitors both create circumstances where people feel pressured to plead guilty, and subject people to a long list of onerous technical violations. In many places, individuals have to pay for their own monitoring, racking up considerable costs or facing incarceration if they can’t afford them. And there is no evidence that these devices confer any benefit to public safety or prevent flight. No wonder experts like Michelle Alexander call such monitoring “the newest Jim Crow” and “e-carceration.”

Despite their considerable harms, the use of electronic monitoring is on the rise, and has increased 140 percent in the U.S. between 2005 and 2015. If this is where criminal legal reform is headed, we need all hands on deck. That’s why the ACLU is fighting to reduce reliance on electronic monitoring, to ensure broader protections for people subjected to its restrictions, and for a world in which no one is subjected to the nightmare Jones is living through.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those who shared their stories.

“A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in March 2021 as unaccompanied children — many trapped in dangerous circumstances by Trump era policies — began crossing the border in increasing numbers due to the backlog created by President Trump’s shutdown of asylum.

We could not agree more.

Border Patrol facilities have been deadly places for children — notorious for their horrible conditions, mistreatment and verbal abuse by Border Patrol agents. Between January and March 2021 the number of children in Border Patrol facilities rose to a record high of over 5,000, with reported average time in custody topping 133 hours (over five days). In some cases children spent a staggering 18 or more days in Border Patrol facilities. Recent data shows over 1,000 children currently in Border Patrol custody, the highest since late April.

To address this unacceptable and life threatening reality, the Biden administration moved quickly to set up emergency intake site (EIS) facilities to get children out of Border Patrol custody and transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — the agency tasked with uniting children with sponsors in the United States. However, the administration’s efforts to protect the well-being of unaccompanied children requires further action to ensure humane conditions in these new facilities. Particularly in Texas, where migrant children have become the latest target of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s political boondoggle.

One of the largest EIS facilities was quickly constructed on Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, with an eventual capacity to hold some 10,000 children. Over 5,000 children were quickly moved to the Fort Bliss facility, despite a lack of case management services and housing conditions consisting only of massive tents holding upwards of 1,000 children each.

We toured the facility in April 2021, shortly after it opened, and again in May 2021. While we observed the masses of children housed in football field sized tents, noted the deficiencies in case management resources to reunite children with loved ones, and worried about the children’s health in the west Texas desert heat, we were not allowed to speak to children to get a full view of their experience.

In late May 2021, Rep. Veronica Escobar was able to speak with children held at Fort Bliss. Shockingly, children she spoke to had languished in the facility for over 40 days, boys reported only having one change of clothes, and children desperately sought updates on the status of their cases.

Declarations filed in court this week by Flores counsel included one 13-year-old girl held at Fort Bliss for 58 days, and data indicates that some 100 children had been at the site for over 60 days, some since it opened on March 30, 2021. Employees reported the level of distress among children at the facility was so alarming that children are constantly monitored for self-harm, panic attacks, and escape attempts. Federal officials have reportedly banned pencils, pens, nail clippers, and regular toothbrushes out of concern that children would harm themselves.

Just this week, staff at Fort Bliss levied new disturbing allegations of sexual assault, lack of medical care, and unhygienic conditions at the facility. As simply put by Rep. Escobar, the conditions at Fort Bliss are “absolutely unacceptable.”

The Biden administration must do better. To start, the administration should ensure basic standards are met at all EIS facilities. At minimum, HHS should immediately hire more case managers to reunite children, expand capacity at non-EIS licensed facilities, and co-locate HHS personnel in Border Patrol facilities to evaluate for release to sponsors prior to transfer to EIS facilities. Independent medical and child welfare experts should be consulted to ensure improved conditions.

Instead of supporting the administration’s efforts to improve the health and safety of these children, Texas is actively attempting to worsen care for children. On June 1, 2021, Abbott issued a proclamation targeting unaccompanied children by potentially shutting down licensed federal shelters for vulnerable children, further obstructing efforts to improve conditions for children in Texas.

Texas is home to approximately 30 percent of all state licensed shelters contracted to house unaccompanied children, according to a 2020 report. Requiring shelters to be licensed has historically provided for more humane and child appropriate conditions for youth waiting to reunite with sponsors. By potentially undermining federal efforts to move children to safer facilities, and out of EIS facilities like Fort Bliss, Abbott is placing children directly in harm’s way by shutting down facilities better equipped to care for children.

The Biden administration’s efforts to respect the rights of children, protect them from the horrors of Border Patrol custody, and reduce the number of children held at Fort Bliss are laudable aims, but it is past time to ensure humane conditions for children at Fort Bliss and other emergency facilities.

The Biden administration must stand steadfast in its commitment to children and find humane alternatives that do not result in longer stays in Border Patrol custody. And if Abbott’s effort succeeds in limiting licensed bedspace in the state, the administration must weather the political storm without sacrificing standards for the care of unaccompanied children in Texas.

The movement for D.C. statehood has gained remarkable momentum in recent years. A bill to admit the district as the 51st state passed the House with unanimous Democratic support in April, and a hearing before the Senate is slated for June 22. As the hearing approaches, opponents of statehood are reaching back into history to bolster their agenda — but their interpretation may be misguided.

The movement’s adversaries have misleadingly cited a 1963 memo from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to argue that he believed statehood for D.C. would require a constitutional amendment. As his daughter recently reminded critics invoking her father’s name, this reading is false.

“No one can say for certain the position of someone no longer around to speak for himself,” said Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, “but … I can say with certainty what my father believed in: the equal right of every American to participate fully in our democracy.” Kennedy Townsend added: “Robert Kennedy wanted all D.C. residents to elect their federal representatives — the same as their fellow Americans. He said so repeatedly.”

Testifying in 1963 before the House Committee on the District of Columbia, Kennedy ardently supported self-government and representation for D.C. residents: “If we have faith in the strength of our form of government and confidence in our fellow citizens … then it follows that the government of the District will be improved if the officials are responsible to the voters who live here.”

In his testimony, Kennedy responded to a bill introduced by Rep. Jon Kyl of Iowa that would have retroceded most of the district to the state of Maryland. The bill carved out a reduced federal district, but did not account for the three electoral votes awarded to “the District constituting the seat of Government” by the recently ratified 23rd Amendment. Kennedy noted that the Amendment — and, specifically, the district’s three electoral votes — raised “serious questions and problems,” but did “not express any conclusion as to whether retrocession to Maryland is or is not constitutional.”

Kennedy’s 1963 memo has no bearing on the constitutionality of granting statehood to D.C. through the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which poses none of the constitutional concerns he identified in the Kyl bill.

In June 1960, the Senate and House passed a joint resolution with language of what would become the 23rd Amendment, which was then ratified on March 29, 1961. In April 1963, Rep. Kyl introduced his retrocession bill, which would have carved out a portion of the District of Columbia to remain as the federal area and retroceded the remaining area to Maryland.

The Kyl bill did not include a mention of the recently-passed 23rd Amendment. According to Rep. Basil Whitener of North Carolina, Kyl did not even consider the issue when drafting his bill.

Kennedy spoke of that omission, pointing out that without procedures to address the Twenty-Third Amendment, the Kyl bill raised significant constitutional concerns by granting three electoral votes to a reduced federal district with very little or no population.

However, despite his concerns as Attorney General, Kennedy still declined to pronounce it unconstitutional. His memorandum “did not express any conclusion as to whether retrocession to Maryland is or is not constitutional.”

The Washington, D.C. Admission Act does not work by retroceding land to Maryland, and solves the “questions and problems” Kennedy raised. The act does so by repealing the statute that provides for the District’s participation in federal elections — thus leaving it without appointed electors — and by kickstarting expedited procedures to repeal the 23rd Amendment.

As a recent letter from 39 leading constitutional scholars attests, “there is no constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth (the ‘Commonwealth’) entering the Union through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the Constitution’s Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other states that have been admitted since the Constitution was adopted.”

True, admitting a new state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth would raise questions about what to do with the district’s three presidential electors. But statehood critics are wrong to suggest that this can only be done by repealing the 23rd Amendment. As the constitutional scholars lay out, the question “is a practical, not a constitutional one.”

Similarly, Kennedy did not claim that granting statehood to D.C. would violate the 23rd Amendment or require amending the Constitution. He merely opined that creating a reduced federal district with a small population would “raise a question about where the three electoral votes would go.” The plain language of the 23rd Amendment makes the answer clear: Congress can decide, just as the Washington, D.C. Admission Act provides for.

When Kennedy was asked if the 23rd Amendment was the constitutional limit to granting to granting district residents “full citizenship” during the hearing, he replied, “This certainly is all that I have in mind at the present time. I have not heard anything beyond this [D.C. home rule bill] that has been advocated. I think it is a step forward; it is a step beyond what we have at the present time.”

D.C. statehood was clearly in the nascent stage of legislative consideration compared to the other options discussed during the hearing. Throughout his testimony, Kennedy made clear his belief that “[t]he history of our country has shown time and time again that the best government is that which is most responsive to the needs and wishes of the citizens,” even suggesting at one point, “why do we not just put it up to the people in the District of Columbia?”

Almost 60 years later, the nearly 700,000 residents of D.C. still lack full rights. In 2016, D.C. residents were asked whether they supported Washington, D.C. becoming the 51st state, and 85 percent said yes. Congress should heed Kennedy’s advice, and respond to the needs and wishes of D.C. residents. It’s time to finally take the next step forward and pass the Washington, D.C. Admission Act.