Racial Profiling

Issue:

As racial profiling rises to the level of front page news with state initiatives like Arizona’s SB 1070, racial and religious profiling is being recognized as a pervasive problem that affects many communities across the country. While traditionally thought of as targeting African Americans, profiling affects a broad range of people in the U.S., including Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims and South Asians. Not only is racial and religious profiling humiliating and degrading for the people subjected to it, it is unconstitutional and violates fundamental human rights, it is an ineffective law enforcement practice, and it damages community security.

There are many ways to combat racial profiling including securing passage of federal legislation to ban racial profiling – the “End Racial Profiling Act”, revising the June 2003 Department of Justice Federal Guidance on Racial Profiling to eliminate the border and national security loophole, to include profiling based on religion and ethnic origin, and to ensure that the guidance is enforceable, and eliminating agreements between federal immigration and local law enforcement agencies that result in racial profiling in immigration enforcement.

Personal Stories:

Roxana Orellana Santos was sitting by a pond and enjoying her lunch when two officers walked over to her and asked her for identification. They immediately took her into custody, detained her, and very soon she was handed over to government agents for possible deportation. For the month and a half that Roxana then spent federal custody, she was separated from her son, who was a 1 years old. She was released after 46 days. Why did the officers walk up to Roxana on that particular day? She had no criminal record and her information was not previously in the system. Immigrant advocates who later filed a civil rights lawsuit on her behalf challenging her arrest allege racial profiling, believing her arrest was based on her ethnic appearance.

Mr. Abe Dabdoub, a US Citizen, was detained at Michigan’s border over a dozen times by US Customs and Border protection. The first four times he was handcuffed. His wife had to plead with the agents not to handcuff him in front of their 5- and 7-year-old sons. Every time he was stopped he asked why and was told by Customs officers, “We can’t tell you for national security reasons.”

Did you know?

Facing the Truth about racial profiling is not easy. But knowledge is power. Learn more.

TAKE ACTION TO ENSURE THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT REVISES JUNE 2005 DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FEDERAL GUIDANCE ON RACIAL PROFILING TO MAKE IT MORE COMPREHENSIVE AND FAIR.

Fair Day in Court

Issue:

The government is denying due process and fairness in our communities by enforcing laws that do not allow immigration judges to rule on a case-by-case basis. Laws passed in 1996 eliminate important legal rights that previously enabled immigrants to challenge their detention and deportation. And in a post 9/11 world, these legal rights have been reduced even more dramatically, taking away immigration judges’ ability to consider the circumstances of each individual’s case, leading to mandatory detention and deportation for many.

In terms of detention, immigration judges hands are tied by blanket laws that force them to automatically detain many immigrants, including asylum seekers and legal residents without an individualized determination regarding the person’s liberty. This denial of rights adds to an already overburdened detention system causing unnecessary suffering to families and communities.

In terms of deportation, if an immigrant, including a legal immigrant, commits a crime, in some cases as minor as shoplifting or having a fistfight, an immigration judge may be required to automatically deport him and cannot consider the circumstances of the case. There are no exceptions.

Personal Stories:

Sandra Kenley was a 52-year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to degrading and grossly inhumane conditions in immigration detention, which led to her untimely death. Her sister June Everett remembers Sandy who “died trying to do the right thing, who died because the American system failed her, a system we believed in, a system that needs fixing now.”

The stories of those locked up behind the walls of an immigrant detention center are often never revealed because of lack of access and secrecy. Breakthrough managed to break these barriers and met several long time residents in immigration detention who face exile from the U.S. As one of them cried, “This is like a nightmare I haven’t woken up from.”

Did you know?

In 1996, Congress passed the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) that eliminated important legal rights that previously enabled immigrants to challenge their deportation. http://www.ilrc.org/immigrantjusticenetwork/draconian_laws.html

Using data from 1997 to 2007, a Human Rights Watch report shows that a total of almost 700,000 non-citizens have been deported, many with minor misdemeanor violations from long ago, for which they served no (or a negligible amount of) time in jail. Many had lived in the country for years and were forced apart from close family members. http://www.hrw.org/node/82173

TAKE ACTION TO ENSURE THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTORES THE ABILITY OF JUDGES TO CONSIDER INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES SO EVERYONE RECEIVES A FAIR DAY IN COURT

For more information on a fair day in court visit our resources page.

Detention

Issue:

The government is denying due process and fairness in our communities by detaining immigrants who pose no danger and are not a flight risk to the community in inhumane and unregulated detention centers. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants are detained each year. Plans to expand an already crippled immigration system continue with the government spending $1.8 billion to hold an estimated 442,941 detainees in custody in 2009.

Transferred far away from their homes and families, detainees are often denied visitation, telephone calls, access to a lawyer, medical care, and they can be subject to physical and verbal abuse. Even with reported deaths of detained immigrants, detention conditions continue to decline. A Government Accountability Report found that there is no uniform policy for providing medical care to detainees, and a number of facilities have zero healthcare staff on site.

Detention should only be used as the last possible option and for the shortest amount of time. However many vulnerable people, including asylum seekers, pregnant women, children, lawful permanent residents and even U.S. citizens are among those detained, without knowing how long they will be held or why they are being held. Instead of placing thousands in detention centers that cost tax payers $99 per day, DHS should improve legislation around the cost-saving community-based alternatives to detention such as conditional release, requiring people to check in either in person or by phone, bonds or financial deposits.

Personal Stories:

Jean Pierre Kamwa was an Asylum Seeker who was seeking protection in America from a country in which he feared for his life and where many of his friends were killed.  But he was shocked to find himself handcuffed at the airport and placed in a windowless, depressing immigration detention center, reliving the trauma of what he had left behind. “In detention” he said, “your humanity has been given away”.

Ali came to America to get free – being a gay man in Pakistan wasn’t an option. He found himself in New York City, living there for 30 years with a Green Card. But fate had something else in store for him when he was swept up into immigration detention, where he was fighting for his HIV medication to survive. “ There’s no benefit for HIV+ or AIDS people,” he learned. “If you die in your room they don’t care.”

Did you know?

According to the Washington Post, “some 83 detainees have died in, or soon after, custody during the past five years. Actions taken — or not taken — by medical staff members may have contributed to 30 of those deaths.” At least another four questionable deaths have occurred since the article was published in May 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/specials/immigration/cwc_d1p1.html

More humane alternatives to detention asking people to report by phone and in person that cost as little as $12 per day have been shown to be extremely effective with an estimated 91% appearance in immigration courts. http://www.vera.org/content/testing-community-supervision-ins-evaluation-appearance-assistance-program

TAKE ACTION TO ENSURE THAT THE U.S GOVERNMENT CREATE LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE DETENTION STANDARDS AND IMPLEMENT COST EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVES TO DETENTION

For more information on detention visit our resources page.

Enforcement

Issue:

The government is denying due process and fairness in our communities by allowing home and worksite raids and giving state and local law enforcement the authority to enforce immigration law. These sweeping enforcement practices have created a climate of fear in our communities, with the majority of individuals who are swept up posing no threat to public safety. These practices undermine human rights and do not make America safe.

Home and workplace raids have swept up countless individuals who have jobs, families here and contribute to society. Raids have frequently resulted in racial profiling and due process violations against entire communities. Arrests of U.S. citizens and legal residents have been commonplace, with people denied basic rights such as phone calls to lawyers and family, and arrests without warrants.

An equally disturbing, yet growing trend, are agreements between federal immigration and local law enforcement agencies that have sanctioned immigration enforcement at the local level without clear objectives or meaningful oversight. These agreements such as the well known and egregious 287(g) program and Secure Communities have in fact eroded public trust in law enforcement and have resulted in racial and ethnic profiling as well as the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Many local police chiefs have rejected these programs because they undermine the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities.

Personal Stories:

Ana Galindo and her husband Walter Chavez never expected to be faced with armed officers in their home. They were one of the many victims of a warrantless home raid, wrongfully accused of harboring undocumented immigrants even though they are legal permanent residents with a 10-year-old U.S. citizen child. Terrorized by the incident, their son now lives in fear of the police.

Juana Villegas was 9 months pregnant when was taken in for a routine traffic violation that is normally taken care of by a simple citation. But the violation (of which she was later cleared) was handled by local police with the authority to enforce immigration law who didn’t let her go but kept her locked up in jail. When she went into labor, she was taken to the hospital in chains, giving birth with a sheriff’s officer standing guard in her hospital room where one of her feet was cuffed to the bed most of the time.

Did you know?

Nearly three-quarters (73%) of individuals apprehended by National Fugitive Operation Program that is funded to deport dangerous fugitive aliens, often through home raids, have no criminal conviction.  http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/NFOP_Feb09.pdf

In Maricopa County, Arizona, where Sheriff Arpaio has shifted law enforcement resources to combating immigration offenses, FBI statistics show that violent crime has increased by 69%, murder is up 166% and robbery is up 74%. Meanwhile, the Justice Department announced a civil rights investigation of the sheriff. http://www.irlc.org/immigrantjusticenetwork/HandoutFinal5.pdf

TAKE ACTION TO ENSURE THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT STOPS INDISCRIMINATE RAIDS AND THE CONTINUED USE OF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO ENFORCE FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAW

To view detailed policy recommendations, please read Restoring Accountability to U.S. Immigration Enforcement