Tag Archives: U.S. Immigration Reform

A Small Victory for Arizonans, A Bigger Victory For Human Rights

July 29, 2010 at 1:09 PM

Opponents of Arizona's immigration enforcement law SB 1070 embrace after a judge blocked some controversial provisions of the law on July 28, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona. (c) John Moore/Getty Images

In a welcome, 11th hour order that prevents Arizona from putting into place much of its immigrant profiling law [SB1070], Judge Susan Bolton ruled that the offensive sections of the state law — authorizing police to check the papers of a person whom they reasonably suspect of being an illegal immigrant, requiring immigrants to carry their papers at all times, making it a crime for an undocumented immigrant to apply for work, and permitting the warrantless arrest of a person suspected of a crime that would make him deportable from the U.S. — will not go into effect July 29th as scheduled.

Amnesty International applauds Judge Bolton’s decision as a major victory for all those who support civil and human rights and oppose SB 1070.

The preliminary injunction issued by Judge Bolton means that the court views these sections of  SB1070 as likely to be found unconstitutional and permanently barred from taking effect.  The Court condemned mandatory immigration verification upon arrest, acknowledging that the portion of the law requiring that immigration status must be determined “before the person is released” would “inevitabl[y] increase the length of detention”  elevating it to unconstitutional proportions.

The Court also found the law impermissibly restricts the liberty of those in the U.S.  lawfully due to “the intrusion of police presence into the lives of legally-present aliens (and even United States citizens), who will necessarily be swept up” by enforcement of the law.

As Amnesty International USA consistently has pointed out in opposing SB1070, the law is based on unconstitutional racial profiling that targets any immigrant or citizen who may “look like an immigrant,” and violates the human right to be free from racial discrimination, live with one’s family, and enjoy freedom of movement in Arizona.  What is more, the flagrant imposition of detention on broad sections of the population without any standards or safeguards to prevent the unjustified deprivation of personal liberty cannot be tolerated.

The overreaching aspects of SB 1070,  struck down at least preliminarily in  the Court’s opinion, illustrate not only the need for reform of federal immigration law and policy,  but the need for state officials to observe and protect the constitutional and human rights of all persons within their jurisdiction. Today’s ruling should send a cautionary note to the several other state jurisdictions thinking of following the blatantly unconstitutional path taken by Arizona.

Amnesty Rocks the Warped Tour

July 28, 2010 at 11:47 AM

There is something remarkably similar about the passion that drives a human rights activist and the passion that inspires a musician. A person who is willing to stand beneath the summer sun at a rally to hold signs and wave petitions again and again, and one who performs at their very best beneath the summer sun day after day must surely be made of similar stuff. Amnesty International, of course, has known about this overlap for fifty years, and has used music to inspire human rights activists, and human rights work to inspire musicians for nearly that entire time.

This summer, for the second year in a row, we’re doing both of these things as a non-profit sponsor on the infamous Vans Warped Tour. The longest-running music tour in the world, Warped sees nearly one million fans every summer, and reaches countless more with its annual compilation album. This year, with practically 200 bands playing throughout the United States and Canada at 43 dates, Warped and its musicians are more socially aware than ever.

Enter Amnesty International. Warped is the latest place we’ve found this overlap of passions and we’re putting it to good use. Rights like freedom of conscience, opinion and expression are the very fundamentals of a musician’s career, and the punk, emo and rock musicians of the Warped Tour are acutely aware of this fact.  So it’s only natural for bands to feel compelled to take action, whether it’s shouting out about human rights from stage, starring in a video blog or signing petitions at our tent – it’s their passion that fuels concert-goers to follow suit.  So, come to Warped to see musicians and bands like Sum 41, All American Rejects, The Summer Set and Anti-Flag play, visit our tent, and be part of the overlap.

See a complete list of bands playing and remaining dates of the tour.

SB1070: What Starts in Arizona, Stops in Arizona

July 27, 2010 at 11:32 AM

On April 23, 2010 Governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 – Arizona’s discriminatory and unfair bill that essentially makes racial profiling legal – into law.

At its core, SB1070 requires any person about whom the police have a “reasonable suspicion” to produce documents proving that s/he is legally in the US.  SB1070, however, does not offer a safeguard against racial profiling if  “reasonable suspicion” cannot be formed without resorting to racial profiling. The law fundamentally increases the likelihood of arbitrary arrest and requires detention once an arrest is made.

In just 2 days, on July 29, this harmful law will officially go into effect and the streets of Arizona will never be the same. Families will be torn apart and innocent people will surely be detained.

But the insanity doesn’t stop there – 9 more states want to follow suit and pass discriminatory immigration policies of their own. Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia are all considering their own versions of Arizona-style legislation against immigrants. And other instances of anti-immigrant measures continue to pop up all across the U.S.

These proposed laws don’t just threaten human rights. They also flagrantly violate the Constitution by threatening every status of U.S. immigrant – including those who have immigrated here legally, those who are in the process of obtaining their legal status, and those who are eligible for legal status. What’s more frightening – anyone who even “looks like an immigrant”, including a U.S. citizen, can be treated as a threat.

This kind of vigilante policy making is dangerous because it completely disregards human rights, including those to freedom of movement, privacy, family unity, and equality under the law. Human rights are protected under international law regardless of a person’s citizenship status. International human rights law is rooted in the principle of non-discrimination, which this law violates; it is all too easy to deny a person’s human rights if you consider them to be as less than human.

Human rights exist regardless of nationality, ethnicity or immigration status. In passing SB1070, Arizona public officials have ignored this truth to the detriment of every individual who passes through the state.

In the next 2 days, let decision-makers know that you oppose these flawed notions about immigration control! Call on your Governor to take a stand against discriminatory immigration policies.

New Bill Could Help Families Torn Apart by Immigrant Detention

June 28, 2010 at 4:06 PM

Some good news on the immigrant rights front: Recently Senator Al Franken (D-MN) along with Senators Kohl, Menendez, Klobuchar, Feingold, Durbin and Feinstein introduced S.3522 the Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections for Separated Children Act, or the “HELP Separated Children Act.” This bill would implement critically needed reforms to protect children impacted by immigration enforcement.

In the past several years Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom have U.S. citizen children. Parents who are detained are separated from their children, sometimes permanently, breaking up the family structure. This legislation would help to minimize the traumatic effect that immigration enforcement situations have on children by giving parents the opportunity to make appropriate childcare arrangements, reducing the likelihood that children will unnecessarily be placed into the foster care system.

Amnesty International has long called for safe, thoughtful and humane immigration reform.  Part of this reform should include a move away from mandatory detention to community based alternatives to detention (if detention is required at all) for those who do not pose a flight risk (i.e. those with strong ties to the community, those with local families).  If release is contraindicated,  secure alternatives to detention should be considered in all cases involving pregnant women, sick seniors and nursing mothers.

Amnesty International has joined a broad coalition of human rights organizations in support of this legislation to reduce the devastating human rights impact of our nation’s immigration system on children. We have heard in recent weeks many brave voices speak up publicly about their own experiences of family separation. In Washington this has included a Senate briefing Amnesty co-hosted with the American Friends Service Committee where immigrant families and separated children filled the room to stand together in support and tell their stories of broken families struggling to survive without a mother or father. On the House side 10 year old Katherine Figueroa testified before a teary crowd about the fear she lives in after watching both parents being taken away and detained for three months (see video below).

In the wake of Arizona law SB1070, it is even more important that meaningful immigration reforms that respect the rights of all people are enacted.

Now it is time to hear YOUR voice. Take action to help support this critical legislation by calling your Senators U.S. (Capitol Switchboard 202-224-3121) and asking them to keep families together by cosponsoring the HELP Separated Children Act.

Human and Immigrants' Rights Movement Reacts to Arizona Defiance

April 24, 2010 at 5:11 PM

Amnesty International is extremely disappointed that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB1070, a bill that will significantly increase the likelihood of racial profiling, arbitrary arrests, and detentions in the state. By forcing Arizona police, the vast majority of whom opposed this law, to implement it or face lawsuits is bad policy and will drastically undermine communication between communities of color and the police who are supposed to keep them safe.

As the governor said when signing the bill, national immigration legislation is desperately needed, but the absence of it does not abdicate the governor’s own responsibility to preserve, promote, and protect the human rights of every individual in Arizona, whether citizen, resident, or visitor. Human rights exist regardless of nationality, ethnicity or immigration status. In passing SB1070, Arizona public officials have ignored this truth to the detriment of every individual who passes through the state.

Tell Arizona's Governor to Veto SB1070!!!

April 19, 2010 at 11:08 AM

UPDATE: Much to our dismay, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed the immigration bill (SB1070) on Friday. We will continue the fight for immigrant rights.

The Arizona House and Senate have passed a bill (SB1070) that would empower police officers to stop and interrogate every individual in the state regarding citizenship status and make it a crime to be an undocumented person in Arizona. If a person does not immediately present documents proving that she is legally in the US, she may be criminally prosecuted, jailed and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation. The bill contains no safeguards against racial profiling and increases the likelihood of arbitrary arrest and detention. These are all human rights violations. Because SB1070 has already passed in the Arizona house, it’s next stop is the governor’s office. Tell Governor Jan Brewer to veto the bill. Join activists across the US as they visit the Governor on April 20th to express opposition to this bill.

Governor Jan Brewer’s Contact Information:
Phone number: 1-800-253-0883
Email: [email protected]

The scapegoating of migrants, the deliberate fueling of fear and the nurturing of discriminatory, racist and xenophobic sentiments by some politicians and parts of the media have been accompanied by measures that have trampled on some of the most basic human rights of migrants, including the right to liberty and security of the person. Much of the public debate about migration is couched in terminology which is loaded and derogatory. People trying to enter another country are vilified as “illegal immigrants”, “gate-crashers”, and even as “invaders” seeking to breach the defenses of the US with malicious intent. The clear implication is that they are abusing the system and exploiting the generosity of states. Such descriptions create the impression not only that migrants have no right to enter, but that they have no rights at all.

The Right to be Free from Racial Profiling Discrimination

Discrimination through racial profiling is an assault on the very notion of human rights. It is all too easy to deny a person’s human rights if you consider them as less than human. This is why international human rights law is grounded in the principle of non-discrimination. The drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated explicitly that they considered non-discrimination to be the basis of the Declaration.

Discrimination enshrined in law, for example, where the law is used to target individuals based on nationality or ethnicity, strips away human rights. Discrimination in law enforcement can mean that certain groups are viewed by the authorities as ”potential criminals” and so are more likely to be arrested and imprisoned. It can also mean that they are more likely to suffer harsher treatment once in the criminal justice system.

Arbitrary Arrest and Detention

The right to liberty and security of the person is protected in Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the US has signed and ratified. The right to a speedy trial is guaranteed under Article 9(3), which states that all detained arrestees are “entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release” and that it “should not be the general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be detained in custody.” Article 9(4) protects detainees from unlawful detention, stating that “[a]nyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.” Improper use of detention interferes with fundamental human rights crucial to protection of the inherent dignity of migrants. Migrants have the right to liberty and to freedom from arbitrary detention (Article 9 of the ICCPR; Articles 3 and 9 of the UDHR, Article 16 of the Migrant Workers’ Convention). This means that detention should be subject to constraints, including the requirement that the detention is in accordance with the law, justified in the individual case as a necessary and proportionate measure and subject to judicial review. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has adopted Deliberation No. 5 concerning the situation of immigrants and asylum-seekers. This sets out principles concerning people held in custody and a number of safeguards governing detention. These include the right of detainees to be told why they are being held, to communicate with the outside world, to have legal counsel and contact with consular authorities and to be brought promptly before a judicial or other authority. It also recommends that a maximum period of detention should be set by law and that custody may “in no case” be prolonged or indefinite

We'll Make Them Disappear

April 2, 2010 at 5:55 PM

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we [ICE] can make him disappear.” So said James Pendergraph, former Executive Director of the ICE Office of State and Local Coordination, in August 2008. I was in attendance at the Police Foundation National Conference where he made this bold assertion, and I couldn’t believe my ears. I actually asked the person next to me if he had just said what I thought he had just said and she affirmed it. Yes, he had just told an audience of police officers, sheriffs and other law enforcement personnel that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could make people disappear. Was I in Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship? Argentina during the dirty war? Sri Lanka, Iran or some other country where public officials boldly and publicly asserted such an awesome and illegal power? No, I was in the United States, where many ICE officers and their delegates run amok with almost no oversight or accountability.

More scary: in August 2008 James Pendergraph was in charge of managing and overseeing the 287(g) program, which delegates federal immigration enforcement authorities to state and local law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, it is not at all shocking that today the DHS Office of the Inspector General released a report on the 287(g) program outlining a variety of grave concerns including woefully inadequate safeguards against racial profiling and other civil rights violations, deficient training and supervision of 287(g) empowered police officers, misuse of the 287(g) authority, including one incident in which the victim in an accident was brought to a jail to be processed for deportation, and misleading information to the public about the 287(g) program from the highest levels of ICE leadership to sheriffs on the ground – unfortunately, also not out of the ordinary these days.

For many years, communities subject to the 287(g) program have raised and fought against a variety of unconstitutional acts by police officers acting under this authority. Without a meaningful complaint mechanism the denigration of their human and constitutional rights has continued without acknowledgement or remedy. In fact, it is the outrageous position of ICE that it has no legal responsibility for the actions of 287(g) officers, even though Memorandums of Agreement make clear that law enforcement may only perform immigration enforcement activities under ICE supervision.

Today’s report from the OIG is important and timely. ICE has repeatedly stated that it must do better and can do better at prioritizing who is arrested, detained and deported, and what conditions they will be held in while their fate is decided. Here are a few ideas for how to turn this rhetoric into reality:

• Stop the use and misuse of state and local police officers by suspending all 287(g) agreements.

• Develop performance goals for 287(g) officers that do not focus on the number of immigrants encountered by officers as it incentives unjustifiable stops and arrests.

• Ensure that the training and guidance provided to 287(g) officers thoroughly prepares them to make critical decisions, including whether they will deprive people of their liberty, separate them from their families, and exile them to countries they may not know and governments they may well fear.

• Train all officers, including DHS officers, that every person stopped by a law enforcement officer has fundamental human rights that cannot be denied or ignored including :
o Freedom from torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (ICCPR and CAT),
o Freedom from discrimination such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status (ICCPR),
o Recognition as a person before the law (ICCPR),
o Freedom of thought, conscience and religion (ICCPR),
o Best attainable standard of physical and mental health (ICESCR, ICERD, CEDAW, CRC), and
o Adequate food and water (ICESCR, CRC, CEDAW).

Haitian Disaster to US Detention

April 1, 2010 at 1:13 PM

UPDATE:  The U.S. freed the 30 Haitian detainees from immigrant detention facilities tonight after they spent about two months behind bars.

Here we go again: one more egregious example of the discriminatory treatment of Haitians in immigration law, and another in how the drastic impact of mandatory detention devastates already traumatized people. Unlike any other nationality, US policy requires that all Haitians seeking entry into the US be detained until it is decided by immigration authorities whether they will be admitted. There are no exceptions, and the consequences of this draconian policy were illuminated in a New York Times story today reporting that at least 30 Haitians evacuated by the US government out of Haiti were immediately detained in jails upon their arrival to the US, and have remained in jail since January.

Who are these people? According to the New York Times article, none have criminal histories. Many were rescued from the rubble of the Haitian earthquake. One is 18 years-old and the sole breadwinner for his two younger brothers. But he can’t support his siblings when he is jailed in Florida. Many have relatives in the US who will provide them with shelter and care, but immigration authorities won’t release them. Apparently 33 Haitians were released this afternoon, but like so much Immigration and Customs Enforcement action lately, it seems to be related to embarrassing newspaper exposure rather than good, uniform policy.

Discrimination of any kind, including nationality, is strictly prohibited in all core international human rights instruments. For this reason alone, arriving Haitians should not be detained unless they pose a demonstrable danger to the US or flight risk. The arbitrariness of the Haitians’ detention is made clearer by the fact that the US government has halted all deportations to Haiti indefinitely. From a purely fiscal perspective, they’re not going anywhere, so why spend thousands of dollars locking Haitians up in jail when they could be working and contributing to the rebuilding of their country? Haitians arriving since the earthquake should be immediately considered for release to family, friends or other sponsors, and provided with permission to work so that they can support themselves here and their families and friends in Haiti.

Don't Quota Me

March 30, 2010 at 2:58 PM

On February 22, James Chaparro’s sixth day on the job as the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) behemoth detention and removal operation, he issued a memo directing all ICE field office directors to collectively identify, detain and deport 400,000 individuals in 2010. Stressing the need to increase this year’s numbers, the memo communicated the quota and provided ideas for how individuals could be identified for deportation, including increased use of detention and deportations without an immigration court hearing (i.e., expedited and stipulated removal). Entirely missing from the memo was any consideration of the drastic impact massive detention and removal would have on individual families, communities and employers.

Last Saturday, The Washington Post carried a story containing the first public information about the memo and the deportation quota. The Assistant Secretary of ICE John Morton issued a press statement distancing the agency from the memo’s contents. Chaparro apologized for the memo, stating that within a week of starting his job he had written and issued the memo without the approval of Morton or other senior staff. Daring and ambitious, if it’s really possible that a memo of this magnitude could be crafted and published at ICE headquarters without any consultation within the first few days of work, but frightening if Morton’s oversight is really this lax on national policy decisions to shatter families.

After Chaparro’s mea culpa, Morton stated emphatically that ICE does not use deportation quotas. Instead it has “performance goals” for individual ICE officers that should collectively add up to 400,000 deportations in 2010. Regardless of intent, in practice these performance goals result in a deportation quota. For example, in November 2009, in an e-mail titled “Productivity,” a unit of ICE officers was ordered to open up three new deportation cases every day. Failure to do so would require an explanation to the shift supervisor. On January 4, 2010, a full month before Chaparro arrived on the scene, ICE officers in Texas received a document explaining how their performance would be evaluated – deporting 46 or more people per month would garner an “excellent” mark. Completing 30 individual cases or less was “unacceptable.”

In 2010 one of those successfully completed “cases” involved a refugee whom I will call David. David had been resettled in the United States after suffering extreme torture in a prison camp. He entered this country with PTSD and self-medicated, which resulted in a drug possession conviction. ICE held him in county jails and moved to deport him but couldn’t because, given his severe trauma, an immigration judge waived the deportation. Over more than two years ICE appealed the decision, lost and appealed again. Even though David kept winning his case and being locked up was causing recurrent nightmares and flashbacks, ICE would not release David from detention. When I met David last summer he explained that his indefinite detention was wreaking havoc on his mental and physical health, and he did not have access to medical care that would help alleviate the trauma. He told me that every day he volunteered to help out jail staff in any way possible, hoping that it would exhaust him so that he could sleep. At the end of 2009, with an ICE appeal still pending, David gave up, leaving a U.S. citizen child behind. In January, his deportation helped one ICE officer meet his monthly quota.

Measuring success by the numbers may make sense in finance, but when the numbers constitute real people – mothers and fathers, breadwinners and caretakers, community leaders, human rights defenders, refugees and scholars – it is an entirely inappropriate and dehumanizing measure of success. Without a doubt, ICE leadership is under pressure to be tough on immigrants, but this pressure cannot trump the rights of families to unity and individuals to due process and dignity.

For months Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Morton have publicly committed to transparency in government and dignity in detention and removal. Yet, it was only because of a newspaper’s exposure that Morton spoke out against Chaparro’s memo, and even then, he did not disavow the contents and instead essentially stated that it could have been better written.

Deportation quotas are dehumanizing, degrading and undermine due process. They force ICE officers to view individuals and families as milestones on their own road to success instead of people with their own hopes and dreams. Consistent with his public statements, Morton should retract the February 22nd memo, recalibrate and publicly release performance goals that focus on the deportation of individuals who have been convicted of serious crimes, and publicly restate his commitment to a system of detention and deportation that upholds the U.S. government’s ability to deport the dangerous while respecting and protecting the human rights of all.

30 Years On Refugee Rights Still in Flux

March 17, 2010 at 4:21 PM

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the US Refugee Act of 1980, a bipartisan bill that made concrete the US government’s commitment to people fleeing persecution and human rights violations.

There are more than 40 million refugees and other displaced people in the world and this number 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 other people’s lives.

From the resettlement of the Vietnamese boat people and refugees fleeing the former Soviet Union, to today’s Iraqi and Bhutanese refugees, the refugee resettlement program has been an enduring symbol of the US government’s commitment to protect those who flee persecution.

Unfortunately, in the 30 years since passage of the Refugee Act, US law, policy and practice has often ignored the rights of asylum seekers inside the US. The Refugee Protection Act of 2010, introduced by Senator Leahy (D-VT) and his colleagues this week, goes a long way toward restoring US respect and protection for the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers and others on the move by addressing dire US immigration detention conditions, protecting victims of terrorism from being defined as terrorists, requiring non-discriminatory interdiction policies, and providing protection for stateless people in the US.

One of the cruelest ironies for people seeking protection in the US – many of whom have been detained and tortured at home – is that they are subject to mandatory detention as soon as they request “safety” here. Despite the fact that this law is in direct violation of obligations under the Refugee Convention, the US continues to use detention as a means to deter refugees from seeking asylum or to encourage them to abandon their asylum applications.

If passed, the Refugee Act of 2010 will make critical changes to US immigration law consistent with international obligations and the language and intent of the 1980 Refugee Act. For example, it will ensure that all asylum seekers who have passed a “credible fear” interview will be immediately considered for release from detention.

Senator Leahy’s bill includes other key safeguards for the human rights of detained refugees and asylum seekers. The bill establishes a nation-wide, secure “alternatives to detention” program, which will reduce the unnecessary and undue detention of asylum seekers and immigrants who pose no threat. In addition, the bill makes minimum standards of humane treatment in detention enforceable by law. These provisions will ensure protection of the basic human rights and human dignity of those seeking a new life in the US.

Amnesty International USA applauds the efforts of Senator Leahy and his colleagues to pass legislation repositioning the US as a champion of refugee rights in the 21st century, and urges all members of Congress to support this act.

– Sung In Marshall contributed to this blog