Breakthrough

Get our emails!

human rights start with you. Visit us

Donate

America 2049

You change America, before it changes you. Play now

Iced

Immigrant teen vs. immigration system: can anyone win? Visit

Bell Bajao

Ring the bell. Bring domestic violence to a halt. Visit

Iamthisland

Your life in America: write it, shoot it, own it. Visit

Homeland Guantanamos

Go undercover to find the truth about immigrant detention. Visit

Latest News

RSS RSS

Can the All Star Game and SB1070 co-exist in Arizona?

A week ago we had given a shout out to all the baseball players who were taking a stand against Arizona’s new anti-immigration legislation, SB1070. Baseball plays a large role in the culture in Arizona, and given that 27% of baseball players are Latino, it is no surprise that players like National League star Adrian Gonzalez see the new law as a violation of human rights, and by extension, an assault on baseball culture.

Given that the next All-Star game is scheduled to be held in Phoenix, Arizona in 2011, there has been a lot of buzz about the sport making a statement by boycotting Arizona and moving the game to another state as long as the racist law continues to be in effect. As more and more stars have said that they will boycott the All-Star game if it takes place in Arizona, there has has been increasing pressure on the commissioner of Major League Baseball (MLB), Bob Selig, to move the game to another state. Senator Robert Menendez, the only Hispanic-American in the Senate, has been urging players to boycott the 2011 All-Star game to protest the law. He wrote a letter to the executive director of the MLB Players Association, Micheal Weiner thanking him for issuing a statement against the law and urging him to take a stand against SB1070. His letter reads-

The Arizona law is offensive to Hispanics and all Americans because it codifies racial profiling into law by requiring police to question anyone who appears to be in the country illegally. As you and I both know, Major League Baseball (M.L.B.) is truly a multicultural, international sport…Imagine if your players and their families were subjected to interrogation by law enforcement, simply because they look a certain way..That would truly be an embarrassment and an injustice, not only to M.L.B., but to the values and ideals we hold as Americans.

On a call held yesterday, Latino advocacy and immigrant rights groups came together with labor groups and progressive bloggers to officially call on MLB Commissioner Bob Selig to move the upcoming All-Star game from Arizona. Additionally, they urged teams to re-locate their spring training sessions to a different place in the country. A letter was sent to Bob Selig asking for his support in the sport’s boycott of the unjust law. It said-

In this moment of crisis, these players – and baseball’s millions of Latino and immigrant fans – deserve a loud and clear message that the league finds this law unacceptable.

In order to take this forward, Presente.org and Fenton Communications have started a campaign called “Move the Game,” which has a list of players from the MLB who have spoken out against the law, as well as a petition urging the MLB Association to take action by moving the game from Arizona and sending a clear message to Arizona lawmakers. Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and John Amato, founder of the blog, Crooks and Liars, made statements about the need for Bob Selig to break his silence and speak out on behalf of the community of players by boycotting the law. Doug Gordon, the founder of Move the Game said that the campaign had already received 100,000 signatures. Speaking about the economic impact this could potentially have for the state, he said-

We believe it is time for Major League Baseball to step up to the plate, follow the precedent set by the NFL in the early 1990’s, and move the game. Bud Selig may think he can ignore the fans and his players but we are betting he can’t ignore the All Star Game’s corporate sponsors. They will be our next target.

So if you’re a baseball fan and you believe in the values of diversity, integrity and respect that symbolize American culture, sign the petition to tell Bob Selig to boycott Arizona by moving the All Star game to a state that is more cognizant of those values.

Posted by ishita on May 12th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Human Rights, Immigration, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Justice Department threatens a lawsuit as states follow Arizona’s cue

Last week we gave you a list of states that are going to great lengths to oppose Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation and ensure that immigration enforcement remains in the Federal domain. Today, unfortunately, we have very different news. While human rights advocates, musicians, sports people, police officers and media personalities continue to provide us with endless reasons why Arizona’s harsh SB1070 bill needs to be repealed, lawmakers in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Colorado have already introduced similar bills in their state legislatures. Not to be left behind, similar legislation is being considered in Oklahoma, South Carolina, Idaho, Utah, Missouri, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and Colorado.

Encouraged by the passage of Arizona’s immigration law, legislators and political candidates in these states are stating their frustration at the Federal government’s inaction in tackling immigration as their reason for introducing bills that increase local immigration enforcement. Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican who introduced legislation modeled on the Arizona law last week said that his bill would leave undocumented immigrants with two options, “leave immediately or go to jail.” He said-

With the federal government currently AWOL in fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities to protect American lives, property and jobs against the clear and present dangers of illegal-alien invaders, state lawmakers … are left with no choice but to take individual action to address this critical economic and national security epidemic.

In Minnesota the copycat legislation, drafted by state Rep. Steve Drazkowski and supported by five other state House Republicans, even has the same name as Arizona’s SB1070- “The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act”. According to the Minnesota Independent, this bill (HF3830)-

…would create a Minnesota Illegal Immigration Enforcement Team and require immigrants to carry an “alien registration” card. The bill uses the same “reasonable suspicion” protocol that has generated criticism against Arizona’s law.

This bill has been introduced in spite of the fact that the mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis (the areas in Minnesota with the largest concentration of immigrants) banned government travel to Arizona in protest of SB1070. Moreover, the police chiefs of both these cities have denounced the introduction of the bill in Minnesota, on the grounds that increased enforcement of immigration law by local police is detrimental to them carrying out their jobs of protecting the community-

As the police chiefs for Minnesota’s two largest cities, we oppose HF3830, the Arizona-style legislation recently introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives that pushes local law enforcement officers to the front line on matters of immigration…We believe that mobilizing local police to serve as primary enforcers of federal immigration laws will throw up barriers of mistrust and cause a chilling effect in immigrant communities, impairing our ability to build partnerships and engage in problem-solving that improves the safety of all members of the community. The culture of fear that this bill will instill in immigrant communities will keep victims of crime and people with information about crime from coming forward, and that will endanger all residents.

It is frightening that state legislators are making their decisions in spite of repeated protests from mayors and police chiefs in Arizona and around the country. All we can do is take momentary solace in Attorney General Eric Holder‘s consideration of filing a Federal Government lawsuit against Arizona’s Sb1070. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in Washington D.C. on Sunday, Holder said that  he was worried that enforcement of the law would lead down a “slippery slope” where people would be stopped based on their ethnicity rather than a crime they have committed. He said that the Justice Department was “considering of our options,” and could file the lawsuit either on the grounds that the Arizona law “pre-empted” Federal powers, or on the grounds that it violated Federal civil rights statutes.

According to a committee of human rights experts at the United Nations, the Arizona law not only violates Federal civil rights statutes, but possibly goes against international human rights treaties. Yesterday, a committee expressed serious concerns about the ways in which Arizona’s new law affects minorities, indigenous people and immigrants, potentially subjecting them to discrimination by local authorities. Referring to the clauses in the law that makes it a crime to be in the state without documents, and allows police officers to stop and question a person based on “reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented, as well as the clause that targets day laborers and makes it a crime for them to solicit work, the UN committee highlighted the probability of the law leading to people being profiled based on their “perceived” ethnic characteristics.

The panel, composed of experts in the field of migrant rights and racial discrimination, critiqued the “vague standards and sweeping” language of the law and raised doubts about the law’s compatibility with International Human Rights treaties, which the United States is a part of. Further, they warned against the law as being allowing for a “dangerous pattern of legislative activity hostile to ethnic minorities.”

The rapidly introduction of bills similar to SB1070 is testament to the fact that this “dangerous pattern” is well on its way. We must ensure that the Federal government and the White House take this as an urgent call to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Write a letter to President Obama telling him to denounce SB1070 and repair the broken immigration system now.

Photo courtesy of flickr.org/dreamactivistorg

POLL: Do you think that the Justice Department should file a lawsuit against the Arizona law?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by ishita on May 11th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

As enforcement tears families apart, we shout “no more Arizonas!”

Last Tuesday, 25- year old Sheena Perez walked to a detention center in Broadview, Illinois early in the morning, hoping to say goodbye to her boyfriend, Daniel Vega-Garcia, who was the father of her 18-month old son and was being deported to Mexico after living in the United States for 15 years. She had spent the greater part of Monday on the phone with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), trying to get some basic information about whether she could see him before he was sent away, what she could bring him, and what time she should be there. No one provided her with answers at ICE, and she finally got the information from the Mexican Consulate.

She arrived at the detention center carrying small bag with two T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, underwear- all that Daniel had asked for, as well as a present of cologne for him, and his favorite leather jacket. Sheena handed the bag over to guards who inspected it, returned the cologne to her, and handed it over to Daniel. Sheena had a few seconds to say “Adios” to Daniel from afar, and he was walked away, with his hands and legs shackled to his waist.

An hour later, the deportees were boarded onto a bus which would take them to O’Hare airport, from which Daniel would be flown to Texas and walked across the border to Mexico. Sheena waited for the bus to emerge from a garage, and she followed it, trying to get one last glimpse of her boyfriend, crying out his name. The windows were tinted gray so that no one could see in. After following the bus for a while she turned around, tired and resigned. She said that she had not figured out how to tell their son where his father was, or how she would live the life of a single parent.

This scene is repeated at the Broadview Detention Center every Tuesday and Friday between 8am and 11am as hundreds of shackled men and women are filed into buses and taken to the airport to be deported. From 5am to 7am their families come by to bring them clothes and see them for one last time. And just like Sheena, they barely get to even say goodbye to their loved ones.

Stories such as Sheena’s are a dime-a-dozen, and with the vast increase in enforcement over the past decade, hundreds of thousands of families have been separated as a result of one or more parent of U.S. citizen children being in detention or being deported. According to a Time Magazine article, 2009 saw the highest number of people deported, 387,790, up from 116,782 in 2001 and 349,041 in 2008. So far, 185,887 people have been deported this year, a record pace, which, if continued, will double last year’s record high. This increase has led to a direct increase in the numbers of U.S. citizen children who have been left behind as their parents were deported. While the numbers remain unclear because ICE does not keep detailed records of the families that deportees leave behind, a report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year found that between 1998 and 2007, ICE had deported 108,434 parents with U.S. citizen children.

Not surprisingly, there is no dearth of reports detailing how detrimental the deportation of a parent and the separation of families is for the children who get left behind. Earlier this year we wrote about a study published by the Urban Institute that looked at the way that children were affected by their parent’s detention and deportation. The study found that while prolonged of a parent resulted in deep behavioral changes in the eating and sleeping patterns of children, it also led to long-term effects such as “frequent crying, fear, anxiety, regression, clinginess, and aggressive behavior.” Moreover, long-term separation of a child from a parent as a result of deportation is “exceptionally harmful” for the growth and development of the child. Another report released last month by UC Davis and Berekley is based on a new analysis of data provided by DHS and further testifies to the harmful that deportation has on the well-being of children.

The cruel effect that the separation of families through deportation has had on thousands of parents, husbands, wives and children is yet another reason why laws like Arizona’s anti-immigrant, SB1070 are misguided, drawing resources and attention towards increased enforcement instead of fixing a system that is intrinsically broken.

While the Federal government is poised to file a lawsuit against Arizona’s harsh new law that takes immigration law into it’s own hands and makes it a crime to be undocumented in state, music artists and television personalities continue to protest the law and put pressure on the state to reconsider the law that has caused so much controversy for being unconstitutional and racist. Last week we brought you DJ Spooky and Chuck D’s version of the Public Enemy song, “By the Time I Get to Arizona.” This week, a multicultural group of 13 rappers from Arizona have brought out a music video featuring their diverse voices in protest of a law that they call “heartless and “racist.”

The video, directed by Carlos Berber, features artists DJ John Blaze, Tajji Sharp, Yung Face, Mr. Miranda, Ocean, Da’aron Anthony, Atllas, Chino D, Nyhtee, Pennywise, Rich Rico, Da Beast, and Queen YoNasDa. Beginning with a montage of images of people protesting the law, the video is a call to action that begins with the words, “My brothers and sisters, it’s time to rise, Arizona…the revolution, will be televised.” It warns, “You thought we were just going to sit back and say nothing, well guess what…You push us, we push back…They say you need strength in numbers, well I’ve got some friends with me, and we’ve got something to say.”

Queen YoNasDa, a Native-African American Hip-Hop artist who led the “Hip-Hop 4 Haiti” for Haiti fundraiser said that the new music video was a tool with which the diverse Hip-Hop community could take a stand against the harsh new law. Leading the collaboration, she said-

I requested the help of Arizona’s finest hip-hop artists to remake Public Enemy’s “By the Time I get to Arizona” to show the world that Arizona’s hip-hop community will not stand for this injustice and will unite our talent to demonstrate our activist roles and responsibility. All you need is one mic…

In addition to the inspiring 8 minute hip-hop video that calls for a revolution against Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, The Daily Show has decided to take on SB1070 for the second time. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, Jon Stewart sent his correspondent Jason Jones to a bar in New York city to see if he could round up some people that looked “reasonably suspicious” of being undocumented. Jason Jones asked a number of people in the bar what they thought constituted “reasonable suspicion,” and the results were almost as ridiculous as the law itself. To see what he discovered, skip ahead to 10.20 in the episode.

Photo courtesy of thesouthernshift.com

Posted by ishita on May 10th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Fair Day in Court, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

ICE’s Misplaced Priorities: The Numbers Speak for Themselves and the Stories Cry out for Justice


Guest Blogger: Azadeh Shahshahani from ACLU of Georgia reposted from The Huffington Post.

This past Wednesday, Jessica Colotl was released from the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama and allowed to reunite with her family back in Cobb County, Georgia. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has granted Jessica deferred action on her deportation case.

Jessica is a 21-year-old smart hard working student at Kennesaw State who has worked nights in order to pay her tuition. She hopes to become a lawyer after graduating in the fall.

So why was Jessica at a detention center all the way in Alabama in the first place? A few weeks ago, as Jessica pulled into her university parking lot, a campus police officer pulled her over, telling her that she was “impeding the flow of traffic.” She could not produce a driver’s license due to her undocumented status and eventually ended up at the Cobb County jail. This is when 287(g) kicked in. Per an agreement between Cobb County and ICE, some Cobb sheriff deputies have been granted certain enforcement powers of an immigration officer. Jessica was placed in deportation proceedings. Before long, she found herself behind bars at the Alabama detention center, awaiting deportation to Mexico, a country she has not lived in for over ten years and which she hardly remembers. Jessica was only released after strongly voiced and sustained demands by the community, including her sorority sisters, and after the ACLU contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Headquarters on her behalf.

Is it unusual for ICE and the localities to waste limited resources meant for targeting perpetrators of the most dangerous crimes by going after individuals with great potential like Jessica?

Unfortunately not. Jessica is just one of the untold numbers of hard-working people who get caught up in the local immigration enforcement programs, including 287(g). In a sense, Jessica’s case is very unusual, as she actually won respite (albeit temporary) from deportation. Most people in her situation, faced with prolonged detention at a jail, oftentimes isolated and hours away from their families, opt to give up their immigration case and are subsequently deported.

An ACLU of Georgia report released in October 2009 recounted stories of 10 community members in Cobb and their families impacted by 287(g). As documented by the report entitled, “Terror and Isolation in Cobb: How Unchecked Police Power under 287(g) had Torn Families Apart and Threatened Public Safety,” mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are torn apart from their families every day in Cobb County, many with little recourse.

In one case, a husband and father was pulled over for “an incomplete stop” on the way to the bank. Angel subsequently ended up at the Stewart Detention Center. He left behind his wife Sharon, an American citizen who is physically disabled and who “depended on [her] husband for everything.” Sharon and Angel had to “celebrate” their 7-year wedding anniversary apart; their only means of contact was a phone call by Angel from the Stewart Detention Center.

In Cobb, immigrants disappear into detention for violations such as a broken tail light or tinted windows on their car. In 2008, Cobb County turned over 3,180 detainees to ICE for deportation. Of those, 2,180, about 69 percent, were arrested for traffic violations.

But you don’t only have to rely on the ACLU of Georgia report to believe there is something wrong with this picture. A Government Accountability Office investigation of 287(g) released in January 2009 found that ICE was not exercising proper oversight over local or state agencies. And a report released in March 2010 by the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) documents significant lapses in 287(g) priorities and oversight. ICE claims that 287(g)’s mandate is to focus on non-citizens who pose a threat to national security or are dangers to the community. But less than 10 percent of those sampled by OIG were ICE “Level 1″ offenders. Almost half had no involvement in crimes of violence, drug offenses, or property crimes.

This trend of misplaced priorities is shared by other ICE local enforcement programs.

Last week, a piece appeared by John Morton, the head of ICE, in the Atlanta Journal Constitution as well as other papers around the country defending the “Secure Communities” initiative through which arrestees’ fingerprints are checked against DHS databases with information about civil immigration history, rather than just against FBI criminal databases. Morton claims that his agency is prioritizing perpetrators of dangerous crimes for deportation.

Morton’s strongest rebuttal is his own numbers. According to the data ICE released in November 2009, out of 113,000 non-citizen individuals identified in the program during its first year of operation, more than 101,000, or close to 90%, were never charged with or convicted of dangerous crimes. “Secure Communities” is in fact designed to sweep up any foreign-born individual who is arrested by local law enforcement for any reason whatsoever, including traffic infractions, even if that person is never charged with, or convicted of, any crime at all. An alarming 5% of the total number of individuals identified were actually U.S. citizens, testifying to the inaccuracy and incompleteness of the federal agency databases against which fingerprints are matched.

Meanwhile, precious resources are diverted from identifying and removing perpetrators of the most dangerous crimes.

Contrary to Morton’s assertion, the program is also profoundly susceptible to abuse and racial profiling, similar to the misguided 287(g) program. Any police officer or sheriff’s deputy can arrest individuals simply to bring them to the attention of immigration officials. Without federal standards or oversight, this creates an unacceptably high risk of unlawful racial profiling.

The risk of racial profiling through local enforcement programs is compounded in Georgia, as there is no state legislation banning racial profiling and mandating accountability and transparency for law enforcement.

It is past time for ICE to match their rhetoric regarding priorities with action and put an immediate end to the unaccountable outsourcing of immigration enforcement functions. If the numbers weren’t enough proof, Jessica’s story and other accounts cry out for justice.

Photo courtesy of acluga.org

Posted by ishita on May 7th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Fair Day in Court, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

On Cinco de Mayo, we have music and games in support of Arizona’s immigrants

By the time I get to Arizona…By the time I get to Arizona….

What happens if you get to Arizona and you are stopped by the cops there and you don’t have any ID on you? Once the new anti-immigrant law, SB1070, comes into effect, its likely you will be detained. DJ Spooky and Public Enemy’s Chuck D think that’s ridiculous and take a stab at what that might be like. Both of them felt strongly about the ways in which such a law engenders racism and decided to rework the classic Public Enemy protest song, “By the Time I Get to Arizona”, originally written to protest the Arizona state government’s 1993 decision not to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. This time around, the lyrics reflect their discontent at “those who don’t learn from the past with DJ Spooky seeing it as a “21st century look in the rear view mirror”. Check out the catchy tune.

Chuck D and his wife Theresa aren’t far behind. The rapper condemns the architect of the law Russell Pearce, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona State Senate for supporting a law that he calls “racist and deceitful.” Chuck D, known for his socially and politically-conscious style of rapping and for trying to bridge the racial gap between “black and brown” makes-

a call to action urging fellow musicians, artists, athletes, performers, academics and production companies to refuse to work in Arizona until officials not only overturn this bill, but recognize the human rights of immigrants.

He also calls on the world of sports to “speak up in defense of our brothers and sisters being victimized in Arizona, because things are only getting worse.” And the world of sports, a space that often stays well away from politics, has spoken, with players, sports associations and teams calling the law unjust. A number of Major League Baseball (MLB) players have taken a stand against Arizona’s new law, calling it an “immoral” violation of human rights. On Cinco de Mayo, the NBA team, the Phoenix Sons, made a statement against SB1070 by wearing special jerseys that had their team name written in Spanish, “Los Suns”, for a big game against the San Antonio Spurs. The jerseys, usually reserved for a once a year occasion on the NBA’s “Noche Latina” program were worn to make a political statement.

In announcing the Suns would wear their Spanish jerseys for Game 2 against the San Antonio Spurs — which falls on the Mexican holiday known as Cinco de Mayo — Suns owner Robert Sarver went out of his way to knock Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law known as Senate Bill 1070.

The young Latina pop sensation Shakira, who has met with White House officials to talk about immigration issues and even got an exclusive meeting with President Obama to lobby for children’s education, was quick to fly to Phoenix to offer her support to Latino families that were suddenly fearful for themselves after the passage of SB1070. In an emotional and heartfelt piece in the Huff Post, she writes-

To the rest of the world, the United States represents the dream of a better life based on justice and freedom for everyone — no matter the color of your skin. This law goes against those values and against the principles of every American I know…This law not only hurts the whole state of Arizona but the fundamental core values of America, the fabric of society itself. The true victory of a democratic nation is when its people can walk the streets without fear… This law won’t bring safety or protect America; it will cause chaos. It won’t create unity; it will create division.

Her words found resonance in Nobel Peace prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who expressed his deep sadness at the passage of the Arizona law that targets immigrants. Recognizing the fact that Arizona suffers from a broken immigration system he said-

A solution that fails to distinguish between a young child coming over the border in search of his mother and a drug smuggler is not a solution…An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being…These are the seeds of resentment, hostilities and in extreme cases, conflict…With the eyes of the world now on them, Arizona has the opportunity to create a new model for dealing with the pitfalls, and help the nation as a whole find its way through the problems of illegal immigration. But to work, it must be a model that is based on a deep respect for the essential human rights Americans themselves have grown up enjoying.

Let’s hope that all these efforts in the name of dignity, human rights, equality and peace do not fall on deaf ears. Write to President Obama and let him know the need for immigration reform now.

Photo courtesy of cbsnews.com

Posted by ishita on May 6th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Due Process, Human Rights, Immigration, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Which states are going to great lengths NOT to be Arizona?

Outraged over Arizona’s new law that will inevitably lead to racial profiling and civil rights issues, the Washington D.C. City Council has introduced two bold bills that counter Arizona’s SB1070, both of which have been met with unanimous approval from Council members.

In the first one, the Council sponsored a (non-binding) bill that encourages all businesses in the state to boycott Arizona by cutting off business with it as long as the harsh legislation continues to be implemented. The bill introduced by Councilman Michael A. Brown also calls on the D.C. government to divest themselves of any Municipal bonds issues by Arizona and to not participate in any conferences held in the state. The move to boycott the state of Arizona is not unique to D.C. but has been carried out by many other City Councils including those of Hollywood, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland and Boston. The City Council’s of New York and Los Angeles are considering similar measures against Arizona to protest the bill that has caused so much controversy in the past few weeks.

The second bill, introduced in Washington D.C. by Council members Phil Mendelson and Jim Graham is called the “Secure Communities Bill of 2010″ and is a much more aggressive measure aimed at the federal government’s Secure Communities program. This bill, also unanimously supported by the Council, is groundbreaking as it prohibits D.C. Metropolitan police from sharing information with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Secure Communities Program. The Secure Communities program enlists local law enforcement to collaborate with immigration authorities by providing them with all identity and fingerprint information pertaining to anyone that is arrested by the local police. Washington D.C. became a part of the Secure Communities Program last November, but now police won’t be allowed to co-operate with ICE. In a statement made yesterday, Council member Mendelson, the bill’s main author said-

Contrary to its name, the Secure Communities program makes the public less safe by creating fear and mistrust of the police and undermining community policing…I’m proud that so many of my colleagues are joining me in introducing this bill to offer a strong counter-statement to the one recently made in Arizona.

Stressing that immigration enforcement was a federal issue, Phil Mendelson expressed his reservations for the Secure Communities program, saying that it often led to racial profiling by allowing police to conduct an immigration check on person even before they had been found guilty of a crime.

The “Uncover the Truth” campaign brings to light the ways in which collaborations between federal immigration and local police, carried out through the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs have become notorious for racial profiling and misuse by local police, in addition to providing precedents for legislation like that recently introduced in Arizona. Led by the The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), the campaign gets local groups to question collaborations between immigration and local police and hold lawmakers accountable through press conferences, community forums, reports, vigils and discussions. Speaking about the legislation introduced in the D.C. Council, Sarahi Uribe of NDLON hoped that other City Councils would follow suit and blamed Secure Communities for the “disaster in Arizona.”

Not to be left far behind in the battle against inhumane and unjust immigration policy, New York City Governor David A. Paterson announced that he was considering setting up a “Special Immigration Board of Pardons” to review cases of New York immigrants who are facing deportation based on minor criminal convictions. In this path-breaking move, Gov. Paterson has said that the board will consider the cases on an individual basis, distinguishing major offenses from major convictions. Gov. Paterson said that he was motivated to rectify a system that was “embarrassingly and wrongly inflexible” in deporting people without discretion or consideration of their families and specific circumstances. At present there are only a few such cases pending, but once the panel is set up, they are expecting hundreds of petitions for pardon.

Inspired by the case of Qing Hong Wu, a 29-year-old man, who despite living in the U.S. since age five, faced deportation to China because of a minor infraction he committed when he was a teenager, Gov. Paterson decided to do his bit to restore fairness into immigration policy in New York. Speaking on Monday at the Court of Appeals he said-

To be sure, there are some individuals whose crimes are egregious or who pose a threat to public safety. And they are justly removed from the United States. But there are others for whom the situation is far less clear. For them, our national immigration laws leave no room to consider mitigating circumstances. But in New York, we believe in rehabilitation. And we believe in renewal. And we believe in second chances.

Attributing Gov. Paterson’s timing to a general critique of harsh immigration laws and even harsher enforcement, a New York Times editorial compares it to Arizona’s new law-

Mr. Paterson has shown courage and common sense at a time when the national debate about immigration shows little of either. His move was unconnected to the radicalism in Arizona, which just passed a law making criminals of every undocumented person within its borders, and greatly empowering the police to arrest people they suspect are here illegally. But it inevitably calls to mind the bad example of Arizona.

It is heartening to know that lawmakers and leaders in different parts of the country are engaging in the pressing issue of immigration, and making use of their authority to take a stand against laws like Arizona’s SB1070 that attack the fundamental rights and dignity of residents of this country. We only hope that continued pressure will put an end to the law, so that the people of Arizona can go about their daily lives without constant fear of being harassed.

Photo courtesy of nbcwashington.com

POLL: Do you support Gov. Paterson's "Special Immigration Board of Pardons?"

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by ishita on May 5th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Republicans, baseball players and the Terminator against Arizona’s new law

A New York Times /CBS News poll shows that about 60% of the country supports SB1070, Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law, despite it’s harsh provisions that inevitably lead to racial profiling and transform Arizona into something of a police state where everyone has to carry their papers around with them at all times to prove their status. But the same poll also revealed a large majority of people in favor of a comprehensive overhaul of immigration. The fact is SB1070 that puts the federal issue of immigration enforcement into the hands of local law enforcement is not the solution to the country’s broken immigration system, and a whole range of leaders, lawmakers, activists, law enforcement officers and Members of Congress are speaking out loudly against it.

This starts with a number of Republican voices uncomfortable with the law. Former Republican Rep. Bob Barr wrote a strong piece in the Atlanta Journal Constitution in which he opposed SB1070 for exercising state police control over an exclusively federal function – protecting our borders and enforcing immigration law. In addition to calling the law troubling because of the “vagueness and breadth” of its provisions, Mr. Barr criticizes it for being “in conflict with traditional notions that the police are not permitted to stop and detain individuals based on mere suspicion.”

Another Republican voice against the Arizona law was that of Florida’s Rep. Connie Mack who thinks that the bill has echoes of Nazi Germany’s Gestapo. He disregarded what is often stated by proponents of the law as an excuse – the Center’s inaction on immigration reform, and said-

This law of “frontier justice”…is reminiscent of a time during World War II when the Gestapo in Germany stopped people on the street and asked for their papers without probable cause. It shouldn’t be against the law to not have proof of citizenship on you…This is not the America I grew up in and believe in, and it’s not the America I want my children to grow up in…Instead of enacting laws that trample on our freedoms, we should be seeking more ways to create opportunities for immigrants to come to our nation legally and be productive citizens.

And last week, on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger spoke out against SB1070. Calling the Congress and White House’s inaction on tackling the issue of immigration “irresponsible,” he called Arizona’s anti-immigrant law “a mess” and said that it was something he “would never do.”

In addition to lawmakers, some of the loudest objections to the law have come from police officers around the country who feel that in addition to inevitably leading to racial profiling, SB1070 takes away the trust that the community has in local law enforcement and divert resources away from focusing on serious crime, making their jobs of enforcing the law much harder.

Opposition also comes from the baseball community which has been buzzing about Arizona. At a game in Wrigley Field with the Chicago Cubs, the Arizona Diamondbacks faced a lot of opposition from the crowd for the immigration law, with fans yelling “Boycott Arizona!” A day later, the Major League Baseball (MLB) Association issued a statement condemning the law, and Rep. Jose Serrano of New York wrote a letter to the baseball commissioner Bud Selig urging him to change the location for the 2011 All-Star game, currently scheduled to be held in Phoenix, as a way of sending a strong message to Arizona lawmakers that the baseball community is against the law.

30% of baseball players are Latino, and with 140 young Latino baseball players scheduled to arrive in Arizona for the Arizona Rookie League in June, MLB officials are concerned. Apparently Arizona is not new to being boycotted by sports teams. In 1993, when Arizona refused to honor the Federal holiday of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, the NFL pulled the Super Bowl. Twice burned, maybe the lawmakers need to learn that diverse as this nation’s sports teams are, they won’t tolerate laws that disrespect the diversity and freedom that is integral to this country.

Two-time All Star Adrian Gonzalez, one of the biggest names in baseball, has said that he will not play in 2011′s All Star game as long as SB1070 is in effect. Since then more and more MLB players have come out against SB1070, calling it “racist stuff,” “immoral” and a violation of human rights. Actions include signing a petition to the MLB Commissions Selig asking him to boycott Arizona!

This length and breadth of voices against SB1070 is testament to the long list of reasons that the law should not be implemented.

Photo courtesy of nytimes.com

POLL: Do you support the MLB's position on the new Arizona law?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by ishita on May 4th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Civil disobedience, courage and determination mark May Day rallies in 70 cities

Fueled by anger over Arizona’s harsh new immigration law, more than 200,000 people gathered in 70 cities across the country on May 1st to put pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to act on their long-overdue promise of an immigration overhaul. While people were gearing up to rally for reform across the country, law makers in Arizona decided to re-write one of the more controversial provisions of SB1070 to counteract accusations of racial profiling. While the amendment HB2162 clearly demarcates that police cannot use race and ethnicity to determine whom to question about their immigration status, opponents of the law called the repeal an insufficient “cosmetic” change that does not address the way it offends the civil liberties of the people of Arizona.

Turnout for May Day rallies outdid all expectations with numbers in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Dallas, New York, Milwaukee, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and other cities, numbering in the tens of thousands. In Los Angeles, a 100,000 workers, students, activists and families marched through downtown L.A. to City Hall, waving American flags and signs protesting the Arizona law, the largest turnout for a May Day rally since 2006. Marchers included people like Yobani Velasquez, a 32-year-old Guatemala native and U.S. legal resident, who was motivated to head the rally in Los Angeles out of his distaste for SB1070 which he called “racist” and “unfair.”

In Washington D.C., 35 people were arrested at the rally for picketing on the sidewalk of the White House in an act of civil disobedience. Amongst those arrested were the leaders of the national immigration movement including Congressman Luis Gutierrez, Ali Noorani, Chair of Reform Immigration for America, Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, and Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland. The leaders were wearing T-shirts that said “arrest me, not my friends,” and were taken away peacefully after refusing to leave the gate of the White House, with signs that protested the government’s inaction and lack of support for the immigrant community. Speaking at a rally in Lafayette square before the act of civil disobedience, Rep. Gutierrez hearkened back to the civil rights movement of the 1960s saying,

There are moments in which you say, ‘We will escalate this struggle…Today they will put handcuffs on us. But one day we will be free at last in the country we love.’

These arrests were representative of the strength and determination of tens of thousands of people, from labor, civil rights, immigrant rights groups as well as thousands of families that turned out to demonstrate for just and humane reform.

One of the highlights of the D.C. chapter of the May 1st rally were the courageous Trail of Dreams walkers who arrived in the nation’s capital last week after walking 1500 miles over four months, through some of the most conservative states in the country. The four young students, Gaby, Juan, Felipe and Carlos began their journey in Miami, Florida on January 1st, 2010, determined to draw attention to the plight of all the young, undocumented immigrants in this country who, despite having lived here for most of their lives, are unable to live out their dreams because of a broken immigration system. During their journey, they made numerous stops in towns along the way, telling their personal stories and raising awareness about the need for the DREAM Act, legislation that would enable young people who were brought to America, to lawfully live in the U.S. They finally reached D.C. last Wednesday, armed with 30,000 signatures on a petition to tell President Obama to help others like them. Despite their arduous journey, and having their laptops and phones that had been their main contact with the world stolen on arrival in Washington D.C., they joined in the May 1st rallies, unshaken in their determination.

As we wait for what unfolds with the immigration proposal introduced last week, we hope that this is the year for just and humane immigration reform.

Photo courtesy of Michael Ainsworth.

Posted by ishita on May 3rd, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Fair Day in Court, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Newer Entries »