Pictures of migrants whose relatives have no news of since they left for the US © Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

Despite a violent “war on drugs” that started five years ago, Mexicans are experiencing an increase in organized crime and drug-related violence along the Mexican border. Other criminals are not the only, perhaps even primary, target of violence.

As it has become more difficult to conduct drug trafficking due to efforts from the Mexican government, organized crime is targeting migrants from Southern Mexico and Central Americans who are attempting to reach the United States.

Already poor, migrants are kidnapped, some are tortured and many are held hostage until their families in the United States provides tens of thousands of dollars, raised in communities and second mortgages on their homes. If a migrant does not have family in the U.S. who can pay for her/his release, the migrant may well be tortured and killed as an example to other kidnapped migrants and their families on the phone.

After two years of extensive research, Amnesty International found that six in ten female migrants traveling through Mexico are likely to be raped on the journey. Kidnapping is not targeted only at those moving north, however, Mexican immigrants being deported at the southern border are also expressing fear of a serious threat to their human rights.

On July 8, 2011, at least forty-one people were killed in a twenty-four hour period in three concurrent attacks. In Monterrey, in northeast Mexico, twenty people were massacred in a popular nightclub. Hours later, eleven people were found shot to death outside of Mexico City. The next morning, ten decapitated bodies were found in the truck of a car in Torreon, a city in the center of the country.

In the last five years, 40,000 people have been killed in the “war on drugs” in Mexico. The violence, however, is deeply concentrated in a few different cities. As of 2010, 20 percent of murders occurred in Ciudad Juarez, while another 16 percent occurred in Culiacan, Tijuana and Chihuahua, all areas near the southern border of the U.S. While spillover violence into the U.S. does not seem to be occurring, in these areas, the government does not seem able to protect the human rights of all residents to life and liberty.

Even though Chihuahua was the deadliest city in Mexico in 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to deport Mexican nationals to this city. The State Department has also issued a travel advisory against non-essential travel to Chihuahua, and to Coahuila and Tamaulipas, two other Mexican states where ICE continues deportations at a high rate.

These deportation policies demonstrate callous disregard for the lives of migrants who are easy targets for organized crime and may be forcibly conscripted into drug trafficking or held for ransom. In 2010, seventy-two migrants’ bodies were found shot to death along the Mexican side of the Texas border.

Customary international law does not permit refoulement (returning someone to a place where her life or freedom are at serious risk), and the United States has an obligation to ensure that it is not repatriating immigrants to places where violence is likely.

By warning U.S. citizens not to travel to Chihuahua, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and other northern states in Mexico, the U.S. is acknowledging the serious risks of harm in these areas. In contravention of its responsibilities, however, ICE does not take adequate steps to ensure the well-being of immigrants after their repatriation to Mexico.

In a response to an inquiry by the organization No More Deaths, an ICE spokesperson responded,

“While ICE recognizes the current situation relating to violence in Mexico, the agency is not in the practice of allowing detainees to request repatriation to specific locations in Mexico. ICE makes every effort to work closely with the Government of Mexico to ensure the safe and orderly repatriation of all detainees.”

The hollowness of this promise is evident in the deaths that occurred during the period that twenty-one Mexican men begged to be deported anywhere but the states of Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Coahuila.

This week’s shocking violence reminds all of us of the incredible risks and sacrifices that migrants take on a daily basis to raise their families out of poverty. While the rebuttal may be that they should just wait their turn for a visa, most poor people around the world have no access to the U.S. visa program, and the demand for jobs in the agricultural, domestic, and industry far outstrips the meager amount of visas available.

For most there is no choice but to make the harrowing journey without the explicit permission of the U.S. government, but at the same time its implicit consent to migrants taking up jobs that have an unfulfilled labor demand. U.S. immigration law fails entirely to address the need for workers in certain fields and as a result migrants are forced to make dangerous journeys and enter the U.S. easily exploited by some malevolent employers to work in dangerous and dirty conditions.

If found deportable, the least the U.S. government could do is ensure that they are not returned to kidnapping and torture by organized crime who sit waiting for deportees at the Mexican border.

Download our action: Migrants at risk of mass kidnapping

A boys shows a US flag as President Barack Obama speaks on immigration at the Chamizal National Memorial on May 10, 2011 in El Paso, Texas. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

Yesterday, without any fanfare, Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Harry Reid (D-NV), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) and John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2011,” a bill that includes a legalization program and incorporates two important pieces of legislation, the Dream Act and AgJobs.

One hopes this will stop the discriminatory condemnation of immigrants by legislators all over the country. However, if the Act does not directly address the discrimination intrinsic to the whole immigration system, it may serve as a band-aid, but it won’t likely stop human rights abuses of suspected undocumented immigrants.

For example, this week the Texas Senate passed a bill harsher than Arizona’s SB 1070 and it is scheduled for a vote in the Texas House. Rebecca Forest, founder of the Immigration Reform Coalition of Texas, abandoned all semblance of respect and civility by launching an attack not at undocumented immigrants, but at legislators of Hispanic descent. Forest complained:

“If you want to know why we can’t pass legislation in Texas it’s because we have 37, no 36, Hispanics in the Legislature. All of the states that have passed legislation have a handful, and I mean literally, some of them have NO Hispanic legislators, well, maybe 3 or 5 or something. So that’s, umm, part of our problem and we need to change those numbers.”

Forest’s comments reflect a growing minority of vocal politicians around the country who are not afraid to express their prejudice publicly. Earlier this week, we reported on a Massachusetts state representative who made statements favoring impunity for rapists over protection for immigrant survivors.

Also this week, Senator John McCain made unsubstantiated claims that undocumented persons set forest fires in Arizona. While a vigorous debate around any issue is to be expected, one would expect each side to maintain a degree of civility and respect, or at the very least, refrain from blatant discrimination. This is not the state of the current immigration debate.

Amnesty International is hopeful that the Act introduced today will turn on a switch and that the majority of Americans who support immigration reform will stand up to organizations and individuals whose approach to immigration is fueled by discrimination against Latinos and other people of color.

However, a constructive conversation will require legislation that is credible not only to citizens, but to immigrants as well. To achieve this, laws must fairly remove undocumented immigrants from the shadow economy and from the power of abusive employers and traffickers. An acknowledgment that a transparent legalization program respecting human rights will benefit individual immigrants and the country is necessary. And it is imperative that CIR does not place immigrants at greater risk of abuse.

Amnesty opposes anti-immigrant legislation and policies in general, and will continue to focus on the substance of the issues. We urge politicians and activists around the country to rise above petty attacks that spread hate, anger, and racism. People have migrated since the beginning of time and as the vast separation between the richest few and the majority poor continues to grow, migration will continue.

Human rights abuses can be both a cause and a consequence of the decision to immigrate. Abject poverty may prompt immigrants to leave their country of origin in the hope of realizing their economic and social rights, but they may experience different human rights abuse in the U.S., including arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of labor rights, and in a growing number of states, the denial of equal access to education and health services. The interdependence and indivisibility of human rights means that the denial of one right can often lead to or accompany other abuses. So, for example, inadequate and abusive conditions of detention may seriously compromise an immigrant’s right to health; forced eviction from housing may expose an immigrant to exploitation, abuse on the streets or to arbitrary detention.

It is deeply regrettable that the U.S. immigration debate has been framed with little or no focus on the human rights of immigrants. On the contrary, misinformation, prejudice and fear have often characterized the discussion. Through the introduction of Senator Menendez’s legislation, the U.S. has the potential to move into a new discussion of CIR.

Amnesty International hopes that the human rights of immigrants will remain central to all debates, all amendments, and all statements made on the floors of Congress.

© Jose Cabezas/AFP/Getty Images

As unemployment continues to worry Americans, and immigrants remain an easy scapegoat of frustration, we have heard some pretty outrageous and contemptible comments against immigrants lately.

However, about a week ago state GOP Representative Ryan Fattman of Massachusetts surpassed our expectations in his shocking announcement that he is willing to let rapists roam the streets with impunity—that is, as long as the victim is an undocumented woman.

Rep. Fattman supports Secure Communities, a federal program that automatically sends the fingerprints of people arrested and booked by local law enforcement offices to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many states, including Massachusetts, have refused to participate, claiming that in addition to coercing local law enforcement into performing a federal function, the program damages the relationship between local law enforcement and the communities they serve.

States like Massachusetts, Illinois and New York have refused to participate because of the possibility that undocumented persons will stop reporting crimes, serving as witnesses, or generally cooperating with the police out of fear that such interactions could lead to federal immigration proceedings.

Of the lawmakers who support Secure Communities, Rep. Fattman’s reasoning is the most alarming, disturbing, and hateful. While most supporters of Secure Communities have tried to sideswipe the concern that it undermines community safety, Rep. Fattman has no qualms throwing rape victims under the bus.

When asked whether he was worried about a woman who had been raped being afraid to go to the police in a Secure Communities state, he responded,

“My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward. If you do it the right way, you don’t have to be concerned about these things.”

He went on to assert that the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” should not apply to suspected undocumented immigrants and that he has no concerns that Secure Communities and other federal/local collaborations on immigration enforcement may lead to illegal racial profiling.

As Alex DiBranco explained in his news story:

[Rep. Fattman] went on to explain to Mother Jones that his quote was taken out of context. The context? “If someone got into a car accident, it’s obviously a tragic event. But if they’re drunk and they crash, it’s a crime. If that person was drunk and survived the accident they would be afraid to come forward. I think if someone is here illegally they should be afraid to come forward because they should be afraid to be deported.”

To recap: rape survivors are equivalent to drunk drivers.

To put it another way: If someone crosses the border without papers because no legal avenue exists, “it’s obviously a tragic event.”

It is (one hopes) unprecedented for a lawmaker to explicitly state that undocumented immigrants deserve no protection after being raped, and rapists no punishment, apparently because crossing the U.S. border undocumented is considered a more egregious crime than committing rape.

Sadly, in the year 2011, Rep. Fattman has created another reason to blame the victim of rape for the violent invasion of her/his body and mind.

Rep. Fattman also demonstrates no empathy for the U.S. citizen children of undocumented people and asserts that they should be deported with their parents, regardless of their constitutional rights. Without a doubt, Rep. Fattman does not see these children as citizens equal to him before the law.

To his credit, he is being transparent about the growing stratification among U.S. citizens, depending on the color of their skin. He’s making clear that second class citizenship does exist, regardless of the law, perhaps due to it, because when even politicians can make racist, sexist, narrow-minded and anti-immigrant statements without any repercussions, it must ring as true.

Absent condemnation by Massachusetts legislators for the vitriol he spewed, Rep. Fattman would understandably believe that his position of power gives him the right to condemn victims of devastating crimes such as rape, condone the impunity for their aggressors, and assert that undocumented people and their children don’t deserve police protection, whether U.S. citizens or not.

Political will is key to countering entrenched attitudes and prejudice. As long as the forces of racism and poverty driving the US immigration system are denied, even wholeheartedly accepted, it is unlikely that any government policy to tweak immigration programs, such as Secure Communities, will succeed.

The refusal to acknowledge discrimination in law or practice as the primary underlying issue in the U.S. immigration system leads the government and society to be willfully blind to the abuse, exploitation, and conditions of slavery many immigrants experience in the U.S.

And in an environment in which the loudest voices are permitted to make false accusations and call for cruel and disproportionate measures based on underlying racism and xenophobia, incendiary remarks remain unchallenged and invisible to the vast majority of people.

The Dhehiba camp in Tunisia © AI

After World War II and the systematic murder of millions of Jews, Roma, LGBT and many others, nations and individuals recognized the need for safe refuge from persecution and genocide.

After years of discussion and negotiation, the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the UN Refugee Convention) and later the 1967 Protocol emerged and provided a framework for protection. Most importantly, it established that no one could be returned to a country in which her/his life or freedom would be at risk.

It also placed obligations on signatories requiring they share responsibility when people flee across borders, and provide those seeking refuge with access to housing, health care and livelihood.

Today, this critical and life-saving convention turns 60 years-old. As a result of its existence tens of thousands of lives, if not more, have been saved, and nations have absorbed new cultures, languages and food, adding to the richness of those societies.

At the same time, unfortunately, the last decade has seen governments pay lip service to the rights of refugees while in practice devoting their energies to keeping refugees away from their borders so that they do not have to honor their obligations. Some states that have traditionally hosted large numbers of refugees now turn them away because of the international community’s failure to share the responsibility for protecting refugees.

In many countries, officials apply a restrictive interpretation of who should qualify for protection as refugees under the Refugee Convention and/or Protocol, with the result that people fleeing persecution are returned to their persecutors. Asylum-seekers find themselves denied a route to safety by airline or shipping staff, as well as by immigration officials. Every time this happens, someone’s life or freedom is deliberately endangered.

Similarly, the growing number of refugees and other displaced people is neither a temporary problem nor the random product of chance events. It is the predictable consequence of human rights crises, the result of decisions made by individuals who wield power over people’s lives.

Every refugee has a unique story to tell – a story of repression and abuse, of fear and flight. If governments fulfilled their responsibilities – if they protected their citizens instead of persecuting them – then millions of women, men and children would not have to gamble on an uncertain future in a foreign land, and those in exile could return home safely.

In 2000, the UN created Word Refugee Day to raise awareness about the dire situation many refugees continue to face.  This year’s theme is “Do One Thing.” This simple direction asks individuals to do just one thing to advance the cause of refugee rights and to raise awareness about the plight that many face.

This can be anything from taking online action now to protect refugees, to donating money, attending a World Refugee Event,  and reading a book about refugees and educating a friend about the issue.

On June 22nd, we’ll be hosting a photo exhibit and reception with partner organizations at the Rayburn Office House on Capitol Hill. Similar events are being organized in communities across the U.S.

We hope you will join us in this remarkable celebration of human resilience, compassion and strength!

Virtually all of the people identified on the list had Hispanic last names, and although the makers of the list alleged that all the individuals on it were undocumented and should be immediately deported, Utah Governor Gary Herbert subsequently reported that was not the case.

The release of this list raised fears among the 385,000 Latinos in Utah and millions of immigrants and their families across the country as a vivid reminder that discrimination and menace, whether directed at a U.S. citizen, lawful resident, or undocumented person, is alive and well.

Authorities quickly determined that two women, Theresa Bassett and Leah Carson, had illegally accessed the personal information of the listed people through their positions at the Utah Department of Workforce Services.  Governor Herbert immediately condemned the women’s actions as “deplorable” and responsible for “creating a climate of intimidation and fear in communities of color.”  Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff agreed that the list resembled a hit list meant “to put people at fear, to terrorize, to get people mobilized to do things.”  Immigrants and advocates around the country called for justice, but impunity prevailed.

On June 6, 2011, Bassett and Carson pleaded guilty to two third degree felonies and one class C misdemeanor and received their sentences.  Despite the forceful rhetoric by the governor and attorney general describing the women’s actions as “deplorable” “hit-list[s]” intended to “terrorize” communities of color, and despite the fact that just one count of stealing and releasing a public record could carry a one year prison sentence and $5,000 fine, Bassett was sentenced to just three years of probation and 240 hours of community service, while Carson received one year of probation and a $440 fine.   Assistant Attorney General Scott Reed claimed that the far lesser sentences were fair because the women had no criminal records, and astoundingly, because he claimed their actions had no lasting detrimental impact on the community.

There is a stark contrast between the probation to which the government workers were sentenced for illegally releasing the private and personal information of 1,300 people, potentially placing already vulnerable people at even greater risk, and the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who suffer lengthy detentions, remain separated from their families, and live in fear of deportation for citations that may be as small as selling water bottles on the street without a proper license.

Is the fact that their victims are generally of immigrant origin the reason Bassett and Carson are now free without spending a single day in prison?  And what will deter other government employees with a vendetta against immigrants from attempting similar security breaches in the future? These are the questions many are asking after Bassett’s and Carson’s sentencing.

An immigrant stands in a holding cell at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Florence, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

For many months now, states all over the U.S. and the federal government have taken steps to “get tough” on undocumented immigrants of color without taking into account the fact that workers are crossing the border because U.S. employers are desperate for their labor and no visas exist to permit their entry.

Instead of spending their time tackling this reality, which if actually addressed might create a basis for the nondiscriminatory enforcement of immigration laws, legislators are instead continuing to introduce bills, such as Rep. Lamar Smith’s H.R. 1932.

These bills throw more money at detention centers and enforcement operations and ups the ante by making their imprisonment mandatory and indefinite, regardless of Supreme Court precedent finding that it’s unconstitutional.

Not to be outdone by Arizona’s S.B. 1070, in Alabama the State Congress passed H.R.56, which not only punishes immigrant communities, it also criminalizes third parties who rent houses to undocumented immigrants, which, while reading neutrally, is likely directed at immigrant communities of color.

While some politicians believe this type of legislation will prove to constituents how seriously they take immigration issues, discriminatory laws, whether intentional or disproportionate in impact, violate the human rights of immigrants and communities of color, and pose an enormous financial burden on state and federal governments.

Immigrants, third parties, and government budgets suffer under the burden of these draconian bills, but one group does continue to reap enormous benefits: the private prison corporations who receive incredibly lucrative contracts to detain the very same immigrants that all these bills target, and if Lamar Smith has his way, mandatorily and indefinitely.

The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) receives forty percent of its business from the federal government, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In recent years, the CCA and BOP have enjoyed a disturbingly close relationship as high-ranking BOP directors,who have overseen the transfer of millions of dollars in contracts to the CCA, have left BOP only to accept lofty positions at the CCA.

Most recently, Harlan Lappin, who personally oversaw tens of millions of dollars in contracts to the CCA, retired as BOP’s director and three weeks after his retirement was finalized in May 2011, CCA announced that Lappinwould become the new Executive Vice President and Chief Corrections Officer for the company.

Really? Doesn’t that unnerve anyone in government?

In 1993, Michael Quinlan, another former BOP director, left the agency amid a sexual harassment controversy and subsequently took a senior position with the CCA in the Strategic Planning Division. He is currently a Senior Vice President.

Although President Obama has issued an executive order restricting presidential appointees from engaging in work that directly affects immediate former clients and employers for two years after leaving their appointments, apparently it’s too often an overlooked reward on the way out.

The close relationship between the CCA and BOP is even more alarming considering the CCA’s well-documented history of gross human rights violations in its prisons, including mistreatment, failing to stop preventable injuries and health emergencies, and allowing preventable deaths in its immigration and other detention facilities.

In December 2010, the FBI initiated an investigation of the CCA after a video was released by the Associated Press showing an inmate being beaten unconscious while security guards watched without intervening. In 2010, the New York Times reported that nine deaths had occurred at the CCA’s prison facility in Eloy, Arizona, more than any other immigration contract prison facility in the country.

But why would it bother CCA? Government retirees are still more than happy to reap the financial benefits of the private contractors’ callous care.

The lucrative relationship between the detention of immigrants, their government wardens, and private prison contractors is alarming and unacceptable. While immigrants live in fear of oppressive immigration enforcement actions, private prison contractors enjoy a thriving business. When legislators pass more repressive bills that wreck havoc on families, promote poverty by jailing breadwinners, and push communities to mistrust their police, the private prison contractors are likely the first to celebrate.

Influential government positions may not be as lucrative as those in the private industry, but they do convey exceptional esteem and should be prohibited from use as a slingshot to riches. Likewise, imprisoning immigrants should not be a golden goose for private corporations, but apparently in this area, what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.

Texas Detention Facility, ©Amnesty International

As early as tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee may vote on H.R. 1932, a bill that will extend mandatory and indefinite detention of immigrants and strip them of their rights to due process.

Under the guise of a bill to protect U.S. citizens, the “Keep Our Communities Safe Act” is an attempt by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) to make new populations of immigrants — including asylum seekers and long-time lawful permanent residents — subject to mandatory detention during removal proceedings. It also imposes punitive and indefinite detention if a person with a removal order is unable to secure a travel document — despite the fact that this is a political and diplomatic issue in which she or he has no control.

Congress needs to hear from you that you respect human rights, due process and the constitution, and you don’t want H.R. 1932 to become law. Pick up the phone now and urge members of the House Judiciary Committee to vote no on H.R. 1932.

Let’s stop draconian legislation that subjects immigrants to a constant barrage of human rights violations. H.R. 1932 does not target dangerous criminals alone, obliterates safeguards against arbitrary detention, will create an even larger landscape for human rights abuses, and is not fiscally responsible. Urge the Judiciary Committee to vote no!

If a member of the House Judiciary Committee lives in your state, we urge you to contact him or her and ask for a “no” vote on H.R. 1932.

Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AZ) (202) 225-2506
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) (202) 225-4576
Rep. Ben Quayle (R-AZ) (202) 225-3361
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) (202) 225-4695
Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) (202) 225-5464
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) (202) 225-3072
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) (202) 225-6676
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) (202) 225-2201
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) (202) 225-5811
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) (202) 225-3906
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) (202) 225-5716
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) (202) 225-3001
Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) (202) 225-2706
Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) (202) 225-1252
Rep. Henry “Hank” Johnson (D-GA) (202) 225-1605
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) (202) 225-4426
Rep. Michael Quigley (D-IL) (202) 225-4061
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) (202) 225-3021
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) (202) 225-5126
Rep. Melvin L. Watt (D-NC) (202) 225-1510
Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC) (202) 225-3065
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) (202) 225-5635
Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) (202) 225-2216
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) (202) 225-2676
Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) (202) 225-3731
Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi (D-PR) (202) 225-2615
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) (202) 225-6030
Rep. Stephen I. Cohen (D-TN) (202) 225-3265
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) (202) 225-3816
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) (202) 225-3035
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) (202) 225-6565
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) (202) 225-4236
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) (202) 225-7751
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) (202) 225-8351
Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) (202) 225-6365
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) (202) 225-5431
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) (202) 225-5101

The Supreme Court struck indefinite detention down as an affront to liberty in Zadvydas v. Davis stating, “Freedom from imprisonment – from government custody, detention, or other forms of physical restraint – lies at the heart of the liberty [the due process] clause protects.”

Even so, emboldened by the far-reaching legislation, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and its attorneys interpreted the statute as broadly as possible. Instead of accepting the burden of proof, as is standard in all other contexts when there is a deprivation of liberty, jailed immigrants were forced to prove that the INS (and now the DHS) could not deport them.

Not surprisingly, by August 2008, public officials such as James Pendergraph, Former Executive director of the ICE Office of State and Local Coordination, were so drunk on power that he publicly stated in a room full of law enforcement officers, “If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we [the ICE] can make him disappear.” The legacy of IIRIRA remains profound and cruel.

Since then, thousands of people walking toward the American dream have lost their lives to human rights abuses in the desert, leaving behind their devastated families who just want to know what happened. It is impossible to measure the harm that IRRIRA has wrought on the families of U.S. citizens and their communities over the last fifteen years. There is no doubt that IIRIRA was too broad, too harsh, and too arbitrary to be anything but a blunt instrument that destroyed lives without making the United States any safer.

Lashing out at immigrants again, Rep. Smith’s new legislation H.R. 1932 purportedly intends only to jail dangerous criminals for life, but in practice would reach much further. Because it requires a life sentence for an “aggravated felony,” which, under immigration law, does not require violence, aggravation, or a felony conviction, it will capture thousands of people who haven’t committed violent crimes, thousands more who have committed non-violent misdemeanors, and still more who have committed no crime at all, except to seek to support their families by crossing the border.

Learn more about United States immigration and related human rights abuses by reading Amnesty’s report,  Jailed Without Justice.

Today Amnesty International released The Invisibles, a series of four short documentaries about the wretched journey thousands of Central Americans make traveling across Mexico in an attempt to reach the U.S. These migrants carry with them the hope of a new life in the U.S. and an escape from the grinding poverty and insecurity back home.

In its report with the same name, released in April,  Amnesty documented that thousands of these migrants confront beatings, abduction, rape and even murder along their journey to the U.S., their lives and deaths largely hidden from view.

While many of their stories will never be told, The Invisibles provides a small look into the reasons people leave their homes and the desperate measures they take in attempting to provide for their families.  Sometimes aware of the risks, mothers and fathers keep going because no other avenue for livelihood exists.

Criminal gangs are responsible for the vast majority of crimes against these migrants, but there is evidence that officials at various levels are complicit in the crimes.

In 2008 I met a woman who provides temporary shelter and humanitarian assistance to migrants in danger.  Due to the food, shelter and care she provided, she was charged with smuggling migrants and sentenced to years in jail.  Undeterred, after release from jail she continues to provide care to migrants.  The Catholic Church runs a chain of shelters providing temporary relief to some of the exhausted, abused and injured. The assistance these human rights defenders provide to can provoke attacks and harassment.

After surviving the  journey across Mexico, Central American migrants arrive in the U.S. only to be detained in jails, criminalized by local, state and federal law, and exploited by employers who take advantage of their vulnerability by subjecting workers to dangerous conditions and woefully inadequate wages labor without rights.

Human rights abuses against Mexican migrants in the U.S. attract a great deal of public concern, and rightly so. Public outrage over the crisis facing migrants in Mexico, on the other hand, has been much more muted. While the Mexican government has recently taken some steps to begin protecting the human rights of migrants, much more must be done to bring criminal and state offenders to account for their crimes and to safeguard the journey of migrants along the way.

An immigrant stands in a holding cell at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility for illegal immigrants on July 30, 2010 in Florence, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

For almost two decades, legislators and Presidents have treated immigration detention as some sort of “magic bullet” that will deter would be immigrants from crossing the U.S. border, instill terror in communities so that immigrants will voluntarily leave, and criminalize individuals through incarceration if they choose to fight deportation because they are U.S. citizens, refugees, lawful permanent residents, or breadwinners with long-time ties to their U.S. families, communities and workplaces.

Today NPR reported that Arizona’s recent draconian immigration law, SB1070, was written in collusion with the leadership of for-profit prisons and their lobbyists. The law requires Arizona police to stop and ask for papers proving legal residency if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” to believe the person is undocumented. If the person can’t immediately produce papers, she will be arrested and detained. Lawsuits arguing that the law was unconstitutional were almost immediately filed because it would be almost impossible to “identify” an undocumented person without resorting to racial profiling.

Criminalizing immigrants through detention has proven to be no magic bullet in managing migratory trends, but it has certainly proven to be a golden goose for these private prison operators. As the President of Geo Group,Wayne Calabrese, explained to its investors, according to NPR:

“I can only believe the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue apace as a result of what’s happening. Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there’s going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do.”

Depriving someone of their liberty through detention is a very coercive measure, which carries a strong stigma and severely impacts on individual rights. Criminalizing immigrants, not only by imposing criminal penalties for entering or remaining in the U.S without permission, but also by stigmatizing and criminalizing third parties who care for them, may have the effect of limiting or entirely denying protection and access to fundamental human rights, such as adequate housing or health care.

At the same time, documentation shows that “inflexible policies of exclusion, which are enforced through severe punishments of a penal nature and deportation for their breach, feed directly into the hands of traffickers,” who each year enslave thousands of women, men and children in the U.S., while the federal government adamantly declares its intention to protect trafficked persons.

For years, advocates have linked the massive growth in immigration detention with the exponential profits reaped by private prisons. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has picked up the enormous bill for a prison system that is widely viewed as cruel, inept and dysfunctional. It’s not good immigration policy, but it’s a terrific business strategy.