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: Breakthrough, Congressman Raul Grijalva, George Bush, Las Vegas, Netroots Nation, President Obama, Raids, Restore Fairness, Senator Al Franken, Senator Harry Reid, technology, Video | No Comments »
Here’s more proof that current methods of immigration enforcement are unjust and inefficient. A Bush-era immigration enforcement effort along the U.S.-Mexico border called Operation Streamline is making us less safe in more ways than one – according to a new report released by The Berkeley Law Warren Institute.
Introduced in 2005 as a disincentive to border crossings, the “zero-tolerance” program requires the federal criminal prosecution and imprisonment of all unlawful border crossers. Instead, the program has led to unprecedented caseloads in eight of the eleven federal district courts along the border, leading to assembly-line justice and a serious lack of due process.
The report states,
Many Operation Streamline defendants complete the entire criminal proceeding – meeting with counsel, making an initial appearance, pleading guilty, and being sentenced after waiving a pre-sentence report – in a single day.
And while the numerous prosecutions are straining resources to the breaking point with overburdened judges, federal prosecutors and public defenders, it diverts scarce resources from fighting the roots of border violence: drug smuggling and human trafficking. As petty immigration prosecutions have increased in the border district courts, U.S. attorneys are forced to to cut back on prosecuting more serious crimes along the border.
In a New York Times article, Judge George Kazen of Laredo, Texas, has said,
The U.S. attorney isn’t bringing me those cases. They’re just catching foot soldiers coming across the border. . . . But they will tell you that they don’t have the resources to drive it and develop a conspiracy case.
As a result of Operation Streamline, between 2002 and 2008, Federal Magistrate judges operating along the border saw their immigration misdemeanor caseloads quadruple.
And despite their best efforts, it is extremely difficult for border jurisdictions to implement Operation Streamline without depriving migrants of due process and effective assistance of counsel. Chief Judge of the District of New Mexico, Martha Vázquez, has said,
The increase in our criminal caseload, especially in Las Cruces, has caused us to conduct hearings in a way that we’ve never had to conduct them before, and in a way that other jurisdictions don’t have to. . . . We have . . . up to 90 defendants in a courtroom.
Many defendants may have defenses that are not identified because of the speed and en masse nature of the proceedings. These can include claims to immigration relief, such as eligibility for asylum or relief under the Convention Against Torture. Even U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents have been identified amongst defendants. This ultimately has consequences nationwide.
As Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Carolyn King has said,
we “can’t have a rule of law for the southwest border that is different from the rule of law that obtains elsewhere in the country.
The report recommends replacing Operation Streamline with a comprehensive and effective approach to border enforcement. This includes reverting to the longstanding practice of leaving unlawful border crossings to the civil immigration system, thereby stopping the draining the resources of the district courts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Public Defender, and the U.S. Marshals Service.
Photos courtesy of www.law.berkeley.edu/ewi.htm.
Posted by ishita on January 19th, 2010 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Fair Day in Court, Family, Human Rights, Immigration, Racial Profiling
| Tags: Assembly-Line Justice, Berkeley Law Warren Institute, border, border crossing, Border Patrol, Brownsville Texas, Bush administration, Chief Judge of the District of New Mexico Martha Vázquez, Del Rio, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, El Paso Texas, Federal Magistrate judges, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Carolyn King, George Bush, Joanna Lydgate, Judge George Kazen, Laredo Texas, Las Cruces New Mexico, McAllen Texas, migrant workers, Operation Streamline, President Obama, Secretary Janet Napolitano, Tucson Arizona, U.S. Marshals, U.S.-Mexico border, UC Berkeley School of Law, Yuma Arizona | No Comments »
The federal government’s immigration enforcement in recent years, including a heavy reliance on workplace raids and the involvement of state and local police in immigration enforcement, has resulted in a trampling of labor rights of workers.
So says a new report “ICED OUT | How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights” (the name reminds me of Breakthrough’s video game ICED – I Can End Deportation!).
Drawing on case studies from across the country – including California, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, Iowa, Rhode Island, Florida and Oregon – the report examines a series of alarming incidents between 2005 and 2008 in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken action at the behest of employers, conducted raids in the midst of labor disputes and even arrested workers on the courthouse steps while they were standing up for their rights.
An MOU from 1998 established a firewall between immigration and labor law enforcement to limit abusive treatment of workers but has largely been ignored, leading to serious impacts for on native and immigrant workers.
Like Josue Diaz, an immigrant worker who was recruited from a day laborer corner in New Orleans to work on reconstruction efforts in Texas after Hurricanes Ike. “We were forced to live in tents in an isolated labor camp at an abandoned oil refinery, we were made to work in toxic conditions without safety equipment, we were subjected to racist and dehumanizing treatment, and when we protested the discrimination and illegal treatment, our employer…called local police and ICE. We were arrested immediately. Instead of enforcing our labor rights against the company, the police and ICE tried to turn us into criminals.”
Or a series of very high profile raids from 2006-8 which captured the headlines, including a food processing plant in Portland, Oregon, just after local media reported on the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the workers in the plant. And let’s not forget the largest immigration raid in U.S. history in Postville, Iowa which resulted in the arrest of 389 workers, the same plant that was being investigated by 3 other agencies for serious labor violations.
And although ICE claims that the focus of its worksite enforcement is on employers that “egregiously
violate immigration laws”, for 2008 the agency made 6,287 arrests for immigration offenses at workplaces of which only a small fraction (2.1 percent) were of employers. At the same time, the labor department has cut back its own enforcement of the labor laws as reported in a recent Government Accountability Office report.
The only people who really benefit from this are employers who can terrify workers into accepting substandard wages, unsafe conditions, and lack of benefits. It’s time to stop letting immigration enforcement overshadow the equally important goal of protecting labor rights.
Posted by madhuri on October 30th, 2009 in 287G, Blog, Deportation, Detention, Due Process, Enforcement, Fair Day in Court, Immigration
| Tags: 287(g), AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work, Breakthrough, Department of Labor, Fresh Del Monte, George Bush, ICED, ICED OUT, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, iowa, Labor, National Employment Law Project, Portland, Postville, President Obama, Raids, Restore Fairness, workplace raids | No Comments »
