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On April 22, the Supreme Court will hear the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass, the most significant court case about the rights of people experiencing homelessness in decades. At its core, Grants Pass will decide whether cities are allowed to punish people for things like sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket—even when there are no safe shelter options—posing potentially great risk to the 250,000 Americans who sleep outside on any given night.

This case comes at a time when the affordable housing market is strapped with a deficit of 6.8 million affordable housing units needed nationwide for extremely low-income families. Moreover, according to a recent Harvard study, one in four renters, or 11.2 million households, are “severely burdened by rents that took up over half their incomes.” These millions of renters living paycheck to paycheck are at significant risk of losing their home at the turn of a rainy day, with Americans of color, disabled Americans and queer and trans Americans at even greater risk. With so many folks on a razor thin edge of experiencing housing instability these days, all eyes are on Grants Pass.

Joining us to talk more about the case and the broader systemic issue of housing instability, homelessness, and what it would take to make a meaningful dent in both, is Jennifer Friedenbach, the Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco.

From the ACLU, this is At Liberty. I'm Kendall Ciesemier, your host.

A month ago, we visited one of our favorite spots, the library. You know, at the ACLU, we love a good library. So much so that we even spent a recent Saturday night at the Brooklyn Public Library, along with some 5,000 others, for their annual enrichment event, Night in the Library.

The theme for this year's event was Out of Darkness, and it included an all-night lineup of performances and conversations focused on what it means to face hardship head-on, and what we gain from confronting life's challenges with honesty, curiosity, and compassion, and understanding. When we were invited to host a conversation during the event, we knew immediately who we wanted to share with our neighbors in Brooklyn: Ian Manuel.

You might remember Ian from our episode back in January when he joined us to talk about juvenile life without parole, solitary confinement, and restorative justice. Ian is an author, poet, activist, and absolute visionary, working to change our criminal legal system after facing 18 years in solitary confinement himself and 26 years in prison, beginning when he was only 14 years old.

He knows firsthand what it's like to face darkness in life and move through it and he credits his practice of magical thinking for helping him. 

This is the idea that we used as the basis for our Night in the Library conversation. And with it being both National Library Week and National Poetry Month, right now, I can't think of a better time to share it.

So I invite you to cozy up with us between the bookshelves and enjoy the highlights from The Light of Magical Thinking, live from the Brooklyn Public Library.

Last December, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 4, one of the most extreme pieces of anti-immigrant legislation to emerge from any state legislature. Under S.B. 4, local and state law enforcement can arrest people they suspect to have entered Texas without federal authorization. It also permits Texas judges, who are not trained in immigration law, to order the deportation of migrants to ports of entry along the Texas-Mexico border, regardless of which country they are from.

Additionally, individuals may face charges under a new state crime of “illegal entry,” or “illegal re-entry,” as well as refusal to comply with deportation orders, with some charges carrying penalties of up to 20 years in prison. Since S.B. 4 passed, a whirlwind of court orders have stopped it from being enforced or allowed it for a very short time, which has caused widespread confusion. States do not have the constitutional authority to deport people, and an unconstitutional law like S.B. 4 only imposes added threat to migrants’ livelihoods and path to asylum. 

Here to give us the latest news on S.B. 4 and our fight against it is David Donatti, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas working on immigration.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will determine if nationwide restrictions are imposed on access to mifepristone, a safe medication used in more than half of all U.S. abortions, and for miscarriage treatment. What the court decides later this year will have significant implications on our ability to access abortion, no matter where you live, even in states with legal protections for abortion.

The decision could also impact how other medications are protected from interference -- that is, the court could decide that anyone who doesn’t like a certain medication can levy a lawsuit to block access to the drug.

To unpack what we heard, we have Julia Kaye, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project who is on site in Washington, D.C. and is joining us just hours after hearing the arguments live.

The United States is home to the largest immigrant population in the world, with hundreds of thousands more seeking asylum and citizenship. America would not be what it is today if not for immigration and the contributions of millions of those who have come here, bolstering the population, strengthening the economy, and weaving their cultures into the fabric of this nation.

And yet, despite this truth, many immigrants in the U.S. and those seeking entry at our borders continue to face a bureaucratic, dangerous system that often casts them aside. From the costly and complicated citizenship process to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that plagues today’s politics, immigrants often find themselves jumping through hoops to stay in this country. That’s the situation that Alejandro Martinez, an aspiring toymaker and Hasbro hopeful, finds himself in when he moves from El Salvador to New York City. One mistake puts him out of a job and left to scramble for new employment that will sponsor him for a work visa. The journey to get a work visa is anything but conventional. This is the basis of “Problemista” a new A24 movie starring, written and directed by comedian Julio Torres. Torres, who is an immigrant himself, plays Alejandro and through his trials, offers a glimpse into a dizzying and absurd reality of the immigration process. You may also know him from his Emmy-nominated writing for SNL, the show “Los Espookys,” and his comedy special “My Favorite Shapes” on HBO.

Today, he joins us to talk about “Problemista” and the experiences that led to its creation.

The “American dream” has long been regarded as the pinnacle of success, rewarded to all who display hard work and pick themselves up by their bootstraps when life knocks them down. This might be our culture’s prevailing narrative, but it actually rarely bears out this way. The truth is that our system is full of inequities that put large swaths of people in our country at significant odds with building wealth.

Intergenerational wealth, or the passing on of wealth within generations of a family, gives a notable advantage to those who have it, and often leaves those who don’t economically burdened. Income inequality in the U.S. continues to persist and the median income of white people largely outsizes that of people of color. This disparity has plagued generations, greatly reducing the ability of people of color to start businesses, pursue higher education, and buy homes.

Enter baby bonds, an economic policy in which every child at birth receives an income-dependent government-funded savings account, managed by federal, state, or local governments until adulthood. The end goal? Breaking the cycle of poverty and closing the racial wealth gap to ensure economic stability for future generations.

In this episode we’re exploring baby bonds and the national legislation that is seeking to create systemic equality nationwide. Joining us first is economist Darrick Hamilton, founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School, who has been at the helm of the progress on this idea. Then we speak with U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) about the American Opportunities Account Act, a bill introduced by her and Sen. Cory Booker that would implement baby bonds on a national scale.

To learn more about baby bonds and Darrick Hamilton's economic justice work, visit: https://racepowerpolicy.org/baby-bonds/