Time to counter hate and intolerance

Even as hate filled rhetoric continues to pump the airwaves, there are a number of initiatives calling to counter the intolerance.

Today, on August 28th, forty-seven years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech” at the Lincoln Memorial. His message gave voice to the voiceless and his vision promoted a just, equal, diverse and compassionate country. This year, as Brave New Films reminds us, a very different message is going to be spread from the very ground on which King once stood, where TV host Glenn Beck and Ex Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin will hold a rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

The racist tenor of Beck, Palin and the Tea Party movement is in direct contrast to the noble vision of Dr. King.

Take the pledge to

stand with Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a just, diverse and equal society and not stand with Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and their attempt to destroy and distort King’s vision.

Meanwhile the continued elevated controversy over the so called “ground-zero mosque” is evidence that almost a decade since the 9/11 attacks we haven’t communicated, therefore, we haven’t grown. Unfortunately, many Americans still associate Muslims and Islam directly with terrorists. The Unity Productions Foundations has started www.groundzerodialogue.org, a new website where you can view several of their award-winning PBS films online in their entirety speaking directly to the issues.

Films include: Talking through Walls: How the Struggle to Build a Mosque United a Community, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet and Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. And with UPF’s “20,000 Dialogues,” project you can host your own dialogue and bring people of different faiths together to watch films on the issues and then afterward open it up for discussion, so that the voices and opinions of everyone can be heard. To expand the reach and the power of the films UPF is working with PBS stations around the country to rebroadcast these films.

A quote from the movie Muhammed: Legacy of a Prophet addresses a commonly wrongly made connection,

The acts of terror violence that have occurred in the name of Islam are not only wrong, they are contradictory to Islam.

Initiatives like these use the power of film to address the common goal of peace and tolerance. The great thing about America is that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, however it is important that it comes from a place of understanding and knowledge, rather than ignorance and hate.

Posted by madhuri on August 27th, 2010 in Blog, Due Process, Human Rights, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

A nation’s spirit uprooted by conservative focus on “anchor babies”

The 14th amendment, established in 1868 as a major gain from the Civil War, united a nation that was once half-slave and half-free. Today, some Republicans wish to revisit the debate of 1868 and revoke its notion of birthright citizenship in order to help prevent undocumented immigration. Instead of focusing on reforming the immigration system, these Republicans focus on punishing immigrants and Americans alike by altering an amendment that continues to carry so much of our national spirit.

The 14th amendment grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”. It also forbids states from denying anyone “life, liberty or property, without due process of law” or “denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has led the proposal to debate the amendment, arguing that it induces undocumented immigration and the desire to have a baby to claim citizenship, calling such a baby by the derogatory term, “anchor baby.” Arizona’s Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of SB 1070, agrees. He said,

“When [the 14th Amendment] was ratified in 1868, the amendment had to do with African-Americans; it had nothing to do with aliens. It’s got to be fixed.”

Anti-immigration activists often claim that their real concern is to prevent law-breaking. But the Washington Post puts it best,

Revoking birthright citizenship would turn hundreds of thousands of infants into ‘criminals’ – arriving, not across a border, but crying in a [U.S.] hospital. A whole class of people would grow up knowing they are hunted aliens, through no fault of their own. This cannot be called the rule of law. It would be viciousness and prejudice on a grand scale.

Even Lou Dobbs, known for an anti-immigration stance in many respects, spoke out against changing the 14th amendment.

I believe that the 14th amendment – particularly in its due process and equal protection clause – is so important; it lays the entire foundation for the Bill of Rights being applied.

Defenders of the amendment say altering it would weaken a fundamental American value while doing little to deter immigration. In fact, immigration activists say that birthright citizenship is not even a significant driver of immigration, because a child has to reach age 21 to petition for permanent legal residency for his or her parents.

In even more charged reasoning, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) warned that birthright citizenship was a national security issue – involving a diabolical 30-year-long plot by some very patient terrorists. He said,

I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby… And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life.

If birthright citizenship was revoked on the premise of fearing terrorists, our nation would embark on an even uglier journey of racial profiling. Moreover, on a practical level, revoking the 14th Amendment would affect those Americans who “look immigrant”, leading to an ugly ladder of bureaucracy to  prove citizenship.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) has gone even further and said we should deport existing natural-born citizen children if their parents are illegal immigrants. This retroactive stripping of citizenship is completely unconstitutional.

We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now. We’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen.

The solution – to criminalize millions of babies who are born in this country is unacceptable. Denying these babies the 14th Amendment is the same as denying African-American slaves the 14th Amendment 150 years ago. Abolishing the birthright to citizenship is a movement not about the legality of immigrants, but about the stripping away of human rights.

The real anachronism standing here is these senators who want to take us back to the times before the Civil War. When the president of FAIR said, “We should not allow language from 1868 enslave our thinking…in the 21st Century,” Masao Suzuki, writer for Fight Back News Service, urges us to respond by saying, “We are not going to be enslaved ever again.”

Graham’s notion to debate the 14th amendment had a mixed reception even from groups that back tougher enforcement of the nation’s border restriction. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, for one, supports stronger enforcement and, yet, refuses to endorse Graham’s suggestion. Instead, he suggested looking into reports of businesses that help immigrants arrange to have babies in the U.S. in order to win their children U.S. citizenship. Many Democrats also refuse to endorse Graham’s suggestion, but they resist stronger enforcement as a solution, stressing the urgency for comprehensive immigration reform. While President Obama’s push for immigration reform is considered dead, some Democrats are pushing for a scaled-back bill to move this fall.

Given the controversial nature of Graham’s proposal, successfully amending the Constitution would be considered unlikely. Many understand that the 14th Amendment made the Constitution what it is today: a document that guarantees the equal rights of all Americans and to which individuals and groups who feel they are being denied equality can appeal. As the 19th-century Republican editor George William Curtis wrote how it was part of a process that changed the U.S. government from one “for white men” to one “for mankind.” Since the Reconstruction era, the amendment had not stopped short of protecting African-Americans. Those who lived during the civil rights era had sought its protection, as well. Even today, the Supreme Court has used it to expand the rights of aggrieved Americans, as it did in Lawrence v. Texas, which in 2003 overturned a state law criminalizing homosexual acts.

Birthright citizenship has continued to protect all sorts of people outside the legacy of slavery, thereby rejecting any claim that it is anachronistic and requires amending.

Posted by Priya on August 19th, 2010 in Blog, Due Process, Human Rights, Immigration, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Feds may have held off Arizona law, but border law gets the green light

Although a federal judge struck down on some of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070’s major provisions in a critical victory, the untrue notion that Washington has lost control of the border remains. Within this atmosphere of hate and misinformation, President Obama signed a $600 million bill that increases appropriations for border security in a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, leading to profound disappointment at Congress’s decision to propose, promote, and pass border enforcement bill HR 6080. In a statement on the passage of the bill into law President Obama said,

“I have made securing our Southwest Border a top priority since I came to office… So these steps (passage of the law) will make an important difference as my administration continues to work with Congress toward bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform to secure our borders, and restore responsibility and accountability to our broken immigration system.”

For many, the emphasis on increased enforcement without any effort to address the egregious violations that come along with these is unacceptable. The New York Immigration Coalition for one argued,

The immigration crisis is dividing our nation in ugly ways we have not seen in generations – a situation exacerbated by ramped-up enforcement.  Not only is it not solving the immigration crisis, it is also tearing up our communities and our nation.  However much money is thrown at aerial drones and border agents and the like, it still won’t fix the problem.

Ironically, HR6060 was introduced by Senator Charles Schumer who is leading the immigration reform effort in Congress, and was passed unanimously in the Senate. The approaching Senate elections seem to have driven forth the abrupt decision, as jobs and border security are considered issues expected to be on voters’ minds when they go to the polls in November. House Democrats actually called a special session to pass the border security bill as well as a $26 billion aid bill to keep teachers and other public workers from being laid off.

The border security measure would fund the hiring of 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas along the border, 250 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and 250 more Customs and Border Protection officers. It provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned surveillance drones. Almost one-third of the money goes to the Justice Department to help agencies such as the FBI, the DEA and the ATF deal with drug dealers and human traffickers. The bill is funded by raising fees on foreign-based personnel companies that use U.S. visa programs, including the popular H-1B program, to bring skilled workers to the United States. India says higher fees would discriminate against its companies and workers.

According to Los Angeles Times,

Immigration is an important election-year issue for some voters, and supporters of the measure from both parties hope it will demonstrate that Washington is capable of addressing border security after Arizona passed a tough illegal immigration law.

For these very reasons, many organizations oppose the law, shunning these politically expedient strategies which ultimately damage immigrant communities, instead calling for a renewal of the administration’s commitment to uphold our nation’s values and achieve real progress on immigration reform. With the negative focus on enforcement, many are calling for passage of the Dream Act and AgJobs in September to help undocumented students and farmworkers as important down payments on the broader reform that is needed. At the same time, they are calling for President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security to implement administrative reforms that would provide relief to those at risk of deportation and family separation and measures that would restore basic due process to the immigration system. As Deepak Bhargava from the Center for Community Change noted,

It is extremely disappointing to see Congress fall for Republicans’ wholly manufactured allegations of an insecure border. Every study and report shows the border has never been safer. Crime statistics, free of political bias, show crime has never been lower…Republicans are impervious to facts.

According to blog ImmPolitic, many Republicans who keep calling for more border security before considering immigration reform will never be satisfied.

As we wrote about here and here, a series of enforcement “benchmarks” were set in the 2007 immigration reform legislation.  Those “benchmarks” have largely been met, and more enforcement resources have been deployed that were not contemplated at the time.  Still, politicians who are opposed to actually fixing our broken immigration system call for more enforcement.  They have moved the goalposts, and they will move them again.

Instead of building on the victory of the Arizona lawsuit, Congress and President Obama is taking a step backward.

Photo courtesy of www.latimes.com

Posted by madhuri and priya on August 16th, 2010 in Blog, Due Process, Enforcement, Human Rights, Immigration | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Lady Gaga speaks out against SB1070 as Sheriff Arpaio sweeps up protestors

20 minutes from the Monster Ball (Lady Gaga’s concert held in Arizona July 31), the iconic pop star put down her hairbrush backstage and listened curiously to two unexpected political activists. They urged her to stop the show and to join Rage Against the Machine’s Sound Strike of Arizona. The pop-star said that she was not aware of the immigration law, and the men explained in an emotional conversation its human rights violations. She asked that they scribble SB1070 on her arm so she could remember. That moment led Gaga to blast on stage before a crowd of more than 20,000 fans and announce that she received calls from artists personally asking her to cancel the show, but she would not cancel, explaining,

“And I said, you really think that us [ expletive ] pop stars are going to collapse the economy of Arizona? We have to actively protest and the nature of the Monster Ball is to actively protest prejudice and injustice. I will yell and I will scream louder, I will hold you and we will hold each other and we will peaceably protest this state.”

As the movement against Arizona’s anti immigration law SB1070 goes stronger, and in light of Federal Judge Susan Bolton’s decision to place a temporary hold on the law, it seems like there is much to celebrate. But the real trigger to Arizona’s law stemmed from programs that continue to exist today that encourage tie ups between federal immigration and local law enforcement, programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities that enforce immigration laws which deny fairness to many. The most egregious of enforcers – Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Even as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s lawyers went to court to overturn the judge’s ruling so they can fight back against what the Republican calls an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, many demonstrations continued across the country, including one outside the Sheriff’s building. Protestors beat on the metal door of the jail and chanted,

Sheriff Joe, we are here. We will not live in fear.

In partnership with federal immigration through a 287(g) agreement, Sheriff Arpaio is infamous for his “reign of terror” against immigrants in Arizona. On the day that Arizona’s law came into effect, Sheriff Arpaio launched a sweep, showing exactly why SB1070 is likely to lead to racial profiling and over zealous local enforcement. The Sheriff’s dragnet led to four arrests, but it wasn’t clear if any of them were undocumented immigrants.

Arpaio routinely carries out sweeps, some in Hispanic neighborhoods, to arrest illegal immigrants. The tactics have made him the undisputed poster boy for immigration enforcement through local police and an example of the dangers of racial profiling. The Justice Department even launched an investigation of his office nearly 17 months ago over allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

But the 287(g) program is not the only one to blame. Secure Communities is a rapidly expanding program which identifies undocumented immigrants using fingerprints at the time of arrests, even if they are not convicted of anything. Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone who is booked into jail for any crime are run against FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records to determine who is in the country without status and whether they’ve been arrested previously.

Many people fear the program will lead to unfair enforcement. Like Sunita Patel, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in New York against the federal government on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network who says since everyone arrested would be screened, the program could easily deport more people than Arizona’s immigration law. Moreover, because immigrants are screened at the point of arrest even before a conviction, the program could create an incentive for profiling and create a pipeline to deport more people. Other immigrant groups have also begun to speak up, stating in a letter that the initiative will make crime victims reluctant to cooperate with police “due to fear of being drawn into the immigration regime.”

San Francisco has shown resistance to the program with, Eileen Hirst, the chief of staff for San Francisco’s Sheriff Michael Hennessey, saying that Hennessey thought Secure Communities cast too wide a net and worried that it would sweep up U.S. citizens and minor offenders, such as people who commit traffic infractions but miss their court hearings. Joining San Francisco, Washington, D.C.’s police also decided not to pursue the program because the City Council introduced a bill that would prohibit authorities from sharing arrest data with immigration authorities out of concern for immigrants’ civil rights.

After filing lawsuit, Patel flew in from New York to provide legal support for Thursday’s civil disobedience protest against SB 1070 outside Sherrif Arpaio’s building. In an unlikely switch, she became one of Arpaio’s arrestees that day.

The arrest of the Guild Legal Observers is just a continuation of Arpaio’s campaign of harassment, said Carol Sobel, co-chair of the Guild’s Mass Defense Committee.  Apparently, Arpaio thinks that if he arrests the Legal Observers, no one will be there to witness his unlawful actions. We have been arrested, shot with projectiles, hit with batons and pepper-sprayed at protests from Washington, D.C. to Miami to Los Angeles and we are still here to document misconduct.

Legal observers serve as impartial witnesses who help ensure that law enforcement officials do not infringe upon the rights of demonstrators and activists who engage in civil disobedience. Roxana Orell, another legal observer, was standing behind the crowd and videotaping the arrest of Sunita Patel. Arpaio’s deputies spotted Orell and arrested her, as well. Brett Beeler, a UCLA law student standing five feet from Orell and Patel when they were grabbed, said he saw numerous individuals standing closer to the police.  He believes that the deputies targeted Orell and Patel because they were wearing the green Legal Observer hats. The two NLG Legal Observers have been charged with obstruction of a highway and failure to obey a lawful order. Numerous other protesters have also been unjustly arrested.

The Obama administration can do more than just watch. It can reassert the importance of sensible national immigration policies by rethinking two troubling programs — Secure Communities and 287(g). Judge Bolton’s ruling reminded us all of the unacceptable price of the Arizona way. However, the expansion of 287g and Secure Communities will likely lead to more Arizonas. We must urge Obama to listen to the majority of people against harsh immigration enforcement.

Photo courtesy of PuenteAZ on www.flickr.com

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

Mentally ill immigration detainees undergo “Deportation by Default”

A woman sat before immigration officials at an immigration detention center, unable to understand a single question asked of her. She stared into space during the interview, shook her head repeatedly, and rocked nervously in her chair. The interview was eventually terminated because it was not clear if she had granted consent for deportation.

This is not an unusual incidents but reflects the findings of a Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties Union report Deportation by Default documenting “case after case in which people with mental disabilities are prevented from making claims against deportation – including claims of U.S. citizenship – because they are unable to represent themselves.”

Shortcomings outlined in the report include no right to counsel even though many are unable to understand what is happening to them, a lack of guidance for judges handling people with mental disabilities, and a severe lack of services to aid detainees while in custody. As Sarah Mehta, the report’s lead author says,

No one knows what to do with detainees with mental disabilities, so every part of the immigration system has abdicated responsibility. The result is people languishing in detention for years while their legal files – and their lives – are transferred around or put on indefinite hold.

Many of the detainees interviewed for the report could not understand questions, were delusional, couldn’t tell the date or time, and didn’t understand the concept of deportation – for example, saying they wanted to be deported to New York. This is particularly important for the courtroom because impairments can be so severe that those who have them do not understand what is happening to them or what is at stake in the hearings they must attend.

The federal agencies involved in the deportation system are well aware of many of the problems cited in the report and the reports authors are cautiously encouraged by some recent steps to better handle people with mental disabilities. For example, The Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review recently expanded its guidebook for immigration judges to include a section on mental health issues. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for detaining people is also taking preliminary steps to better identify mentally disabled people from the outset and ensure they are treated appropriately.

But there are many problems that still need to be addressed. There is no tracking of date on how many mentally disabled people face deportation and it is only after much digging that the report uncovered that in 2009, of the nearly 392,000 cases in immigration courts, 15 percent involved people with mental disabilities. Tracking data is an essential first step. Secondly, the report calls for appointment of lawyers for all people with mental disabilities in immigration courts and recommends mandatory training for immigration judges to recognize mental disabilities.

In the meanwhile, cases like Michael’s continue. Michael claimed to be a U.S. citizen whose extended family was killed in Nigeria. Asked by an asylum officer why he feared deportation to Nigeria, Michael said he would be tortured,

I don’t know why they want to torture me. I’m a rich man. I’m god. They want to have me remove the plants from heaven to earth. Jay-Z and R-Kelly are some of them.

At another point in the credible fear interview, Michael claimed to hear his dead wife and President Obama speaking to him. The asylum officer wrote to reviewing authorities,

Applicant’s testimony was not credible because it was implausible. His testimony was implausible because it was delusional. It should be noted that applicant appears to suffer from psychosis. Therefore, this calls into question the entire credibility of his claim.

The officer also observed that Michael was at risk of persecution and maltreatment on account of his mental disabilities if returned to Nigeria. Despite the concerns raised by the asylum officer, an immigration court ordered Michael A. deported to Nigeria in April 2010.

Posted by Priya on August 2nd, 2010 in Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Human Rights, Immigration | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Transportation Security Administration clearance a cloudy process

Guest blogger Azadeh Shahshahani published in Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I first met Adnan Tikvesa back in December when I spoke at a symposium on human rights and Islam at the Al-Farooq mosque in Atlanta.

The focus of my talk was the fundamental rights and liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, including every person’s right to due process of law.

I was on my way out when I saw a young man, looking apprehensive, approach me and ask that I take a look at the document in his hand. It was a letter he had received from the Transportation Security Administration.

Adnan is a 25-year-old resident of Atlanta and an American citizen since 2003. He first arrived in America in 1994 as a 9-year-old refugee fleeing the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Mostar, a city in the former Yugoslavia.

Adnan has worked for Delta since October 2004. He was granted clearance in November 2004 for access to the secured areas of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. His security clearance was renewed in 2006 and again in 2008.

Adnan is part of a family that is proud to work for various employers in the Atlanta airport: his father works for Delta and his mother works for Delta Global Services; they both hold the security clearance. His sister works for the airport customer service.

Adnan has never been convicted of, or even charged with, any crime. He is well-respected by his co-workers and supervisors for the quality of his work.

So why was it that on Nov. 12, 2009, TSA suddenly decided to suspend Adnan’s security clearance without telling him why? To this day, no one knows.

“I asked, but why, what have I done? But they just handed me the letter and said I can appeal if I so choose. I said but what can I appeal when I don’t know what I have done?”

He received no responses to this plea. His badge was also confiscated.

Adnan felt humiliated by this treatment, especially in front of his co-workers. He was also confused about what exactly was happening and why.

Adnan wrote to TSA a few days later to say that he was unaware of any reason for the suspension of his security clearance and to request any information as to why this decision was made.

In January, TSA issued a grossly inadequate response to Adnan’s letter.

None of the documents produced provided any notice of the reasons underlying TSA’s decision to revoke his security clearance. The 10 pages of documents that were provided were also heavily redacted.

As a result, TSA once again failed to provide notice or a meaningful opportunity for Adnan to correct any misinformation or to contest the basis for TSA’s decision to revoke his security clearance.

TSA’s action had a profound impact on Adnan’s ability to earn his livelihood, as Delta placed him on immediate suspension without pay from his job as a baggage service worker.

None of this was easy on Adnan, who was used to living a busy life. It was not easy to have his parents and sister go to work every day and be faced with questions about when Adnan was coming back to work. Even more taxing for the family was facing the questions that were not asked: What was it exactly that Adnan had done?

For Adnan, the fight to gain his security clearance back became more than a battle to re-earn his job. It became a pursuit to redeem his name. In his words:

“I’d just like to let everyone know that I’m innocent.”

In March, the ACLU appealed TSA’s decision to suspend Adnan’s security clearance and called on the agency to tell Adnan the reasons for the decision and give him a real opportunity to respond.

In May, TSA notified Adnan that it had reversed its decision. But TSA still did not provide any explanation why it had decided to revoke Adnan’s security clearance in the first place.

TSA’s reversal is indeed good news for Adnan. But the fundamental problems with TSA’s process of suspending security clearances have not gone away.

Since the letter from TSA gives no reason for the agency’s initial decision to revoke Adnan’s security clearance or for the reversal of this decision, Adnan remains confounded as to why TSA suspended the security clearance.

There is also no indication of any meaningful safeguards in place to keep TSA from doing this again to Adnan or other workers.

After eight months in limbo, Adnan returned to work last week. His co-workers greeted him enthusiastically and even threw him a welcome back party.

But the injustice faced by Adnan has not been erased. For a Muslim-American Delta worker and a refugee from systematic injustices abroad, due process of law, a fundamental tenet of the American justice system, was denied.

So long as TSA refuses to restore due process to this system, chances are that he will not be the last.

Azadeh Shahshahani is National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

Photo courtesy of www.tsa.gov

Posted by Priya on July 30th, 2010 in Blog, Due Process, Enforcement, Human Rights, Immigration, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

CNN and ABC stories show impact of unfair immigration laws

As the countdown to Arizona’s SB1070 law draws nearer (July 29th), and Congress continues to skirt the issue of immigration reform, a number of excellent stories have emerged from the news on our broken immigration system. A shocking story on CNN reveals how every day, Americans are wrongfully deported because of a broken system, and many worry the problem could get worse. They interview one such U.S. citizen who was wrongfully deported to Jamaica in 1999 and finally able to return ten long years later. And even though he knew was a citizen, he was given a deadly choice – stay in detention indefinitely and fight your case, or leave and gain your freedom. Laws like SB1070 will only suck more U.S. citizens into the deportation pipeline, just like in this case, denying adequate due process to many.

On ABC, a 10 part special series “Out of the Shadows” illustrates the constant struggle of 10 undocumented immigrants and their impact on America. In the first of the series, Mohammad Abdollahi, an undocumented Iranian immigrant comes bravely forward, arrested after staging a sit-in in Arizona to persuade Senator John McCain to support the DREAM Act. Mohammad is gay, and faces deportation to Iran, a country where homosexuality is a capital crime. If he doesn’t gain asylum, he could face real danger in the country he barely knows as home. Stay tuned for more stories.

So what is Congress doing about the broken immigration system. We got to hear a few of their thoughts at Netroots Nations, a large gathering of progressive bloggers, non profits and filmmakers mobilizing the online space for good. An impressive line up of speakers included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Most everyone spoke of the difficulty of passing immigration reform in an election year, but with more stories like these coming to the fore, maybe Congress will realize the ramifications of our broken immigration system on the ideals we hold dear, due process, fairness, and justice. Because when we deny due process to some, we put all of our freedoms at risk.

Immigration reform was a strong theme at Netroots Nation and Restore Fairness was on some excellent panels. Presenting with some other incredible films, Restore Fairness screened at the Immigration Screening Series alongside Speaking in Tongues, a film on language and its importance at breaking down barriers between ourselves and our neighbors, and Not In Our Town, focusing on the murder of a 37-year-old Latino immigrant Patchogue, New York. A lively discussion on race, immigration and pluralism followed. Restore Fairness was also on a distinguished panel with other immigration advocates – “Crimmigration Under Obama: Pushing back against the “enforcement-only” immigration regime”. Immigration enforcement under the Obama administration has continued almost unchanged from the Bush administration even as Department of Homeland Security officials have promised to reform the immigration detention system. A growing collaboration between local police and immigration enforcement is being encouraged, its worst manifestation seen in Arizona’s SB1070. And despite moving away from massive workplace raids, the agency has continued home and business raids under the radar. All in all – overall levels of deportation have actually increased under President Obama. Meanwhile, legislative reform is stalled in Congress. Watch it here.

As July 29th approaches, the state of Arizona is ill prepared for the consequences of SB1070 which will likely include many due process violations, racial profiling and an even more broken immigration system.

Posted by madhuri on July 27th, 2010 in Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, LGBTQI, Race, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Restore Fairness at progressive gathering Netroots Nation 2010 in Vegas

Restore Fairness is presenting two panels on immigration at Netroots Nation in the last week of July . Netroots Nation is an annual convention that amplifies progressive voices online and in-person and provides space for discussing ways to improve the use of technology to influence the public debate.

On Friday, July 23 (3:00 p.m.-5:45 p.m.), we will be screening Breakthrough’s 9-minute video Restore Fairness, which calls for the U.S. government to bring back due process and fairness to the immigration system. The screening also encompasses other films on immigration, race and the need for reform from across the country including Speaking in Tongues, a film on language and its importance at breaking down barriers between ourselves and our neighbors, and Not In Our Town, focusing on the murder of a 37-year-old Latino immigrant Patchogue, New York. Screening info is available here:  http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/1499

On Saturday, July 24 (10:15 a.m.-11:30 a.m.), we will be presenting within a panel on “Crimmigration Under Obama: Pushing back against the “enforcement-only” immigration regime” along with . Immigration enforcement under the Obama administration has continued almost unchanged from the Bush administration. While Department of Homeland Security officials have promised to reform the immigration detention system after dozens of deaths in detention, the effort has been cosmetic and designed to forestall more rigorous oversight. Despite moving away from massive workplace raids, the agency has continued home and business raids under the radar, with the result that overall levels of deportation have actually increased under President Obama. Meanwhile, legislative reform is stalled in Congress. Find panel info here: http://www.netrootsnation.org/node/1407

The fifth annual Netroots will be held July 22–25 at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Netroots Nation 2010 will include panels led by national and international experts, prominent political, issue and policy-oriented speakers; a progressive film screening series, and the most concentrated gathering of progressive bloggers to date. Speakers include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minnesota Senator Al Franken and Congressman Raul Grijalva.

To learn more about our broken immigration system and to take action visit Restore Fairness.

Posted by Priya on July 12th, 2010 in Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Human Rights, Immigration, Race | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Union challenges the Colbert Report to take on immigrant farmworker jobs

Last night, talk show host Stephen Colbert took on the United Farm Workers (UFW) union offer calling on jobless citizens to replace immigrant farmworkers.

The tongue-in-cheek “Take our Jobs” campaign addresses the myth that our country’s unemployment rate is rising because undocumented immigrants are “taking jobs” away from U.S. citizens. Because of the obvious racist sentiment in such a myth, there are almost no safeguards for thousands of undocumented people that work on U.S. farms. And yet, much of the food we eat, in restaurants, stores and at home, comes to us from the hard labor of these very workers.

The Colbert Report
Arturo Rodriguez
www.colbertnation.com

“Take our Jobs” calls on unemployed U.S. citizens to apply for farm worker jobs and harvest the summer’s lettuce, peach and grape crops. Americans can fill out an online application form entitled “I want to be a farm worker”.

Farm workers are ready to welcome citizens and legal residents who wish to replace them in the field. We will use our knowledge and staff to help connect the unemployed with farm employers. Just fill out the form to the right and continue on to the request for job application.

Currently, about 1.8 million people work on farms in the U.S. According the the Department of Labor, about three-fourths of them are foreign-born, and approximately 50% of them are undocumented. And when it comes to working in the fields though, the proportion of undocumented workers is even greater. If all these workers were to be deported, as is the argument proposed by those opposed to immigration, the union holds that the result would be a huge increase in food prices in the country, the rotting of crops, and an increase in imports. the campaign is thus a segue into the need for immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship for these workers that form the backbone of this country’s agricultural economy. As the head of UFW’s union Arturo Rodriguez says, “If we asked all the undocumented immigrants to leave the country, the agriculture industry would die.”

Since its launch, the campaign website have received 2 million views. 5300 people have filled out the application form, but once they find out about the low pay and extremely difficult working conditions, most applicants withdraw their application. Only 3 people out of all those that applied are actually working in the fields.

Talk show host  Stephen Colbert had teamed up with the union to promote the campaign. Colbert interviewed Arturo Rodriguez last night on his popular talk show and signed on to be a farm worker, following up his commitment with the question, “It will be air-conditioned, right?” The hysterical interview addressed Arizona’s new law SB1070, growing anti-immigrant sentiment, and invited Americans to take the jobs that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has called one of the top ten most dangerous jobs in the nation. Their exchange went like this (skip to timecode 16:41 on the video) -

Stephen Colbert- You are the 2nd President of the UFW union. What are you working on right now?

Arturo Rodriguez- We are working on improving the lives of farm workers.

SC- Why do we need to improve the rights of farm workers? Don’t get me wrong, you seem like a nice guy, but they’re mostly illegal immigrants correct?

AR- This, is true, but…

SC-So they’re taking our jobs?

AR- Not really…

SC- Yes, really.

AR- No

SC- Those jobs belong to American farm workers.

AR- Americans do not want to work in the fields. It’s very difficult work, it requires a lot of expertise and the conditions are horrid…

SC- In summer, California is the salad bowl of the country. In winter, salad is grown in Arizona. Are these workers going to go to Arizona if SB1070 gets passed?

AR- If it is enforced, it will be very difficult for them to go, yes…

SC- So is there a chance I won’t have my lettuce?!

AR- There’s a chance that lettuce prices would sky rocket….!

Colbert highlighted how unlikely it was that American workers would be lining up to pick grapes for pay as low as $8 an hour. But in an honest attempt to open up the sector to citizens, the campaign addresses the argument that American workers are harmed by immigration.

It is essential to pass immigration reform that provides due process and fairness to everyone who is crucial to the growth of our country. Because when we deny due process to some, we deny rights to all. Let President Obama and Congress know they must restore fairness to our broken immigration system NOW!

Posted by madhuri and ishita on July 9th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Fair Day in Court, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Move on Arizona (or be left out)!

It is clear that Arizona’s extreme stance on immigration enforcement has caused a stir across the country- one that can be felt within the political arena, the media, and immigrant rights and human rights groups, in addition to catapulting the immigration debate into the limelight. Arizona’s SB1070, which makes it a crime to be undocumented in Arizona and mandates that local police stop and question people who seem “reasonably suspicious” of being undocumented, is scheduled to be enforced by July 29th unless the numerous legal challenges to the law, including the most recent Department of Justice lawsuit against it, succeed in stopping it in its tracks.

While polls show that a number of people support the state’s intervention in immigration enforcement, as we get closer to d-day for the implementation of SB1070, the boycotts against Arizona continue to pile up. Irrespective of the different ways in which the law is being debated, what is for certain is that the state of Arizona is doing a stellar job of isolating itself in a number of ways, both nationally and internationally.

While Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon has already denounced Arizona’s decision to implement SB1070 on a number of occasions, a recent sign of the adverse impact such a law will have on foreign relations between the U.S. and Mexico and other Latin American countries comes in the form of the U.S.-Mexico Border Governors Conference that takes place every year. This annual conference provides an important arena for the governors of 6 Mexican states and 4 U.S. states to come together and discuss issues that are common to all of them, as well as function as a space to represent the unity of the two nations of border issues. For the first time in the 28 years that this conference has been running, it looks like SB1070 might have put a spoke in its wheel. This year’s conference was scheduled to take place in September and through a rotational system, was to be hosted in Arizona by Gov. Jan Brewer, who has championed the new anti-immigrant state measure. Following the announcement of Gov. Brewer as the chairwoman for the 2010 conference, all six Mexican governors wrote to her expressing their umbrage with the law and their plans to boycott this year’s conference to demonstrate their protest against SB1070. The governors wrote that they would not set foot in the state of Arizona because they considered the law, which Gov. Brewer continues to support, to be “based on ethnic and cultural prejudice contrary to fundamental rights.”

Gov. Brewer expressed her disappointment at the boycott saying-

The people of Arizona and the people of America support what Arizona has done…For them to basically not attend here because of that, I think is unfair.

Based on the governors’ boycott of the conference, Gov. Brewer canceled it this Wednesday. The governor’s of the other border states, some of whom do not support the new law, have questioned Gov. Brewer’s authority to cancel the conference and are looking to move it to a different state. And it looks like this might not be the only thing to be leaving Arizona because of it’s harsh new law.

Some time ago we had written about the ways in which baseball players were taking a stand against SB1070. Given that 27% of baseball players are Latino, there has been growing talk about the 2011 All-Star game, which is currently scheduled to be held in Phoenix, Arizona, being moved to another state as long as the unconstitutional and potentially racist law was in effect. As we come up to the 2010 All-Star game, which is taking place in California next week, civil rights and immigrant rights organizations are putting pressure on Bud Selig, the Major League Baseball Commissioner, to move the 2011 game to a state where the players and the fans do not have to worry that they will be singled out by the police for the color of their skin. A few weeks ago, New York Rep. Jose Serrano sent a letter to Bud Selig urging him to move the All-Star game from Arizona and to take an official stand against the law that many players feel is an affront to civil liberties and to the spirit of baseball, but got no response. Opponents of SB1070 and civil rights groups that are mobilizing support to ‘move the game’ held a protest outside the headquarters of MLB earlier today.

As more and more examples come in of the ways in which this draconian law is adversely impacting all aspects of society and culture, states like Utah, Oklahoma and South Carolina are working on following Arizona’s lead and introducing similar bills in their states. As more states think of taking immigration enforcement into their own hands, it is important to keep in mind that when we deny due process to some and compromise their civil liberties, we compromise the human rights of all.

Photo courtesy of nytimes.com

POLL: Do you think the 2011 All Star game should be moved from Arizona?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by ishita on July 8th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

« Older Entries