News & Commentary

In January 2017, after traveling nearly 90 miles to cheer on their children, Brandy and Elsworth GoesAhead, Whitney Holds, and Emerine Whiteplume — known as the Pryor Four — were denied entrance to the Reed Point gymnasium by Athletic Director Teresa Bare. Waiting outside the school in cold winter weather, the Pryor Four knocked on the door seeking entrance.  Ms. Bare opened the door for another individual and announced, “we don’t have any workers yet, so we are only letting white people in.” Read more about their lawsuit. 

With the mid-term election right around the corner, the ACLU of Montana is working to ensure that all eligible voters can exercise their fundamental right to vote.

Many commentators express astonishment that deliberate misinformation and broken promises are now the hallmarks of American government. Indigenous communities and individuals, however, don’t share that surprise. For them, the last two hundred years are filled with broken promises and deliberate misinformation from a government hell-bent on occupying every corner of the continent. This fall, the United States Supreme Court has a chance to finally hold the government accountable for the promises that it made to the Crow Tribe in Montana. Those promises, ratified in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, guarantee the right of the Crow to hunt and fish on all “unoccupied lands” of the United States.

My name is Melissa Smylie. I am a mother, a former AmeriCorps member, and student. I also have three felony convictions and a hefty handful of probation violations. I have reclaimed my life, but re-entry into life after being convicted and incarcerated was hard. The barriers the probation system created made recovery nearly impossible. I was successful because I found ways to get active, volunteer, and be of service to others. I filled my days with this, so that I wouldn’t be thinking about giving up.

Two months ago, the ACLU of Montana, Montana Human Rights Network, and 10 other organizations sent a letter to Senator Tester detailing CBP abuse in Montana and demanding that he stand up for immigrants and American citizens living in Montana. He has yet to respond or take any action to stop egregious CBP behavior on the Hi-Line – his own back yard.

Over the past sixteen months, many Americans have grown used to the Trump administration’s racist and xenophobic immigration policies. After all, Trump’s presidential campaign was built on the promise of an unnecessary southern border wall. In Montana, we may feel insulated from those anti-immigrant policies. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I was traveling along HWY 12 to Helena from Missoula. My coworker was driving our rental vehicle, and we were headed there for meetings. About five miles outside of Avon, a Montana Highway Patrol car driving in the opposite direction made a swift U-turn in the middle of the highway after passing us. The patrol car’s lights flashed. We knew we were about to be stopped.

El pasado miércoles, dos residentes Estadounidenses de Montana fueron detenidas e interrogadas por agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza después de que él las escucho hablando en español en una gasolinera en Harve. El agente dijo: “La razón por la que te pedí tu identificación es por entré aquí y vi que ustedes estaban hablando español, lo cual es muy raro por aquí.”

On Wednesday, two Montana residents and U.S. citizens were detained and interrogated by a Border Patrol agent after he heard them speaking Spanish in a Havre gas station. The agent stated: "The reason I asked you for your ID is because I came in here, and I saw that you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here."