Weekly Diaspora: The 2012 Budget and Our Unsecured Border

by: The Media Consortium

Thu Mar 03, 2011 at 11:51:46 AM EST

By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

President Obama is taking heat from all sides this week for his 2012 budget proposal, which proposes increased funding for immigration enforcement and border militarization. While immigrant rights advocates are predictably up in arms over the proposal, House Republicans are (somewhat uncharacteristically) demanding significant cuts to border security funding - on the grounds that the Obama administration's efforts to secure the border have been ineffective and fiscally irresponsible.

Weekly Diaspora: Lawless Judges, Immigrant Soldiers, and Deportee Pardons

by: The Media Consortium

Thu Oct 28, 2010 at 10:56:53 AM EST

by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

Here's the harsh truth about our immigration system: When 392,000 immigrants are detained per year and 33,000 more are detained everyday with limited staff and minimal federal oversight, institutional misconduct is inevitable.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is moving record-breaking numbers of immigrants through its ancillary agencies and, in the process, immigrant women are being raped by Border Patrol agents, LGBT detainees are being sexually assaulted at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, and citizens and legal residents are certainly being deported.

How can such things come to pass? Simple: Both overworked and overzealous officials are enforcing overly broad immigration laws. It should be no wonder that people, inevitably, slip through the cracks-whether immigrant, citizen, or soldier.

Immigration judges subverting the law

Misconduct, corruption and a general inability to handle impossibly high caseloads aren't exclusive to DHS and its many agencies. On the contrary, organizational mismanagement plagues every aspect of the immigration process.

As Jacqueline Stevens reports at the Nation, immigration courts are rife with lawlessness and corruption. Charged with adjudicating the hundreds of thousands of immigrants thrown their way by DHS every year, judges are authorizing deportations without even seeing the defendants, issuing rulings at mass hearings (usually with no lawyers present), and abandoning due process for a quicker turn-around.

What's more: the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR)-a separate agency from DHS-is actively shielding this misconduct from the public and trying to avoid federal oversight:

The public's ignorance of the idiocies endemic to the EOIR's business as usual and the calamities these entail is no accident. The agency deliberately withholds basic information from the media and researchers, and its top officials routinely decline requests for interviews [...] Complaints about immigration judges fall under the jurisdiction of the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), and people may file there directly, but the EOIR instructs immigration court stakeholders to lodge complaints with the EOIR itself. Instead of passing complaints on to the OPR, as the website promises, the EOIR top brass, to protect their cronies and avoid outside scrutiny, sweeps complaints under the rug.

Consequently, American citizens-as well as immigrants who could qualify to remain in the country-are being deported indiscriminately by judges whose decisions are rarely, if ever, questioned.

Immigrant soldiers deported after serving in the U.S. military

Immigrant soldiers serving in the U.S. military are among those routinely cheated by deportation-happy immigration judges.

Julianne Hing reports at Colorlines that 17,000 non-citizens are on active duty in the armed forces, and 4,000 immigrant veterans have already been deported or are facing deportation because of criminal convictions. Hing argues that, while some of those veterans are certainly guilty of violent crimes, many others have committed only minor crimes, like drug possession, and have already served time in jail. Deportation is a secondary, and wholly incommensurate, punishment.

There is certainly a double standard at play here. Veterans, regardless of immigration status, are more likely than the general population to abuse drugs and alcohol and to commit violent crimes. But while non-citizen soldiers are indiscriminately deported for minor offenses, thousands of American military rapists have deftly avoided punishment in the past 15 years.The U.S. government's prejudicial treatment of non-citizen soldiers isn't new (to date, Filipino veterans who fought alongside American soldiers in WWII are still waiting to receive the benefits promised to them), but it remains reprehensible.

The unique plight of immigrant veterans certainly puts into perspective the ongoing push for passage of the DREAM Act-proposed legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for immigrant youth who serve in the military.

New York governor to pardon deportees?

Fortunately, some government officials are working towards a fairer immigration system. Elise Foley at the Washington Independent reports that New York governor David Paterson (D) has created a panel to review thousands of pardon requests from immigrant detainees awaiting deportation:

The idea behind the panel is to allow relief from the "extremely inflexible" federal law for green card holders "who have contributed as New Yorkers and who deserve relief from deportation or indefinite detention," Paterson said when he announced its creation in May. [...] While Paterson's pardon panels would not change the way immigration courts are run, the effort is arguably a push to add a bit of discretion back into the system.

Paterson's laudable commitment to protecting the interests of immigrants, particularly when doing so is far from politically expedient, is proof positive that the rectifying our broken immigration system is entirely within the reach of our politicians. Misconduct and corruption within our immigration agencies are not merely the product of overcrowding and understaffing, but rather persistent inaction on the part of powerful lawmakers and government officials.

As Stevens wryly notes for The Nation: President Barack Obama, whose own citizenship is repeatedly questioned, ought to get on board.

Nationwide vigils tell immigration agencies that they are "completely out of control"

by: Restore Fairness

Fri Apr 09, 2010 at 15:18:43 PM EST

From the Restore Fairness blog.

Between the discovery of Haitian earthquake survivors in immigration detention (later released), an agency memo showing support for larger amounts of immigrant deportations, and the agency’s own admission of mismanagement, an embarrassed Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) needs to be held accountable for its actions.

While civil rights groups have continued to be critical of ICE over the past year, the first protests against their recent misadventures has been spearheaded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Starting yesterday, the SEIU mobilized their members to participate in vigils outside ICE offices across the country to call on the agency to bring itself back to the enforcement goals it had set at the beginning of the Obama administration last year, goals that it seems to have lost sight of.

One of the country’s largest labor unions, the SEIU held prayer vigils outside USCIS offices in Oakland and Sacramento yesterday and outside ICE headquarters in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Boston and Minneapolis today. Speaking on behalf of thousands of workers and human rights advocates across the country, Executive Vice-President of SEIU, Eliseo Medina said-

When DHS first announced its enforcement goals – including its increased focus on worksite I9 audits – SEIU was optimistic that the Obama Administration would clean up past wrongdoings…Instead, the agency has added flames to the fire by replacing worksite raids with electronic raids. Field officers are acting like cowboys, more interested in adding scalps to their belts than targeting criminals and abusive employers, which would actually help solve our immigration problems. As a result, communities lose, businesses lose, families lose, America loses.

President Obama has expressed his commitment to the need for immigration reform saying that tearing apart families, terrorizing communities through raids, and denying due process to those detained, were all indications of a broken immigration system that needed to be fixed. With the expansion of an unsuccessful 287(g) program and an increase in deportations in the past year, it is clear the the system is failing. SEIU activists are demanding-

Rather than wasting limited funds to chase hard-working, tax-paying cleaners, home-care providers and nannies, the activists will call on President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano to re-focus ICE enforcement on its original goals of targeting crooked employers and criminals.

The human repercussions of political decisions made behind closed doors cannot be under estimated. If the promises that the administration made are not upheld, retaliatory actions will continue to take place across the nation.

Watch the latest video from America’s Voice, telling us how the current state of immigration is “More Rouge Than Right.”

 Learn. Share. Act. Go to restorefairness.org

End it. Not mend it. Message to the administration over failed immigration program.

by: Restore Fairness

Mon Apr 05, 2010 at 15:41:00 PM EST

From the Restore Fairness blog.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for detention and deportations of immigrants, is on a roll. Haitian earthquake survivors and mentally ill detainees are amongst those locked up in inhumane detention centers. Memos leaked last week confirmed a desire for growing deportations of immigrants. And now, the government’s own agency, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General delivers a scathing critique of ICE’s 287(g) program that gives local police the power to enforce immigration law.

60 police forces across the country have signed agreements with ICE that allow their local officers to detain suspected immigrants for deportation. Various reports have documented racial profiling concerns, but the government has failed to listen. Even Members of Congress and police foundations have spoken out against the program, which diverts scarce resources from the police and endangers community safety as people are afraid to report crimes.

The OIG points out serious flaws in ICE’s 287(g) program for its lack of training, oversight and transparency, and its failure to protect against racial profiling and civil rights abuses. In one example, a victim of a traffic accident who was also an immigrant was taken straight to the local jail until federal officers arrived to check his legal status. And although the program is supposed to focus on “Level 1″ offenders or those who have committed serious crimes, almost half of those reviewed had no involvement in such crimes, revealing a misdirection of resources.

The issue around a lack of supervision is grave. “In the absence of consistent supervision over immigration enforcement activities, there is no assurance that the program is achieving its goals.”This has led to severe violations, with Sheriff Arpaio type neighborhood sweeps to locate undocumented immigrants. Other horrific examples – Juana Villegas, 9 months pregnant, was detained on a minor traffic stop and remained shackled while giving birth, while Pedro Guzman, a mentally ill U.S. citizen was mistakenly deported to Mexico.

And finally, the 287(g) training of police officers is very inadequate. In one example, two officers who were enrolled in the program had been defendants in past racial profiling lawsuits, indicating a flawed selection process. The performance records of local officers are not examined properly while many officers are given only a cursory training in immigration law.

While ICE claims that the report was researched before it has made radical changes to the program, the changes that have been made are largely superficial and problems continue unchecked. Many groups consider this report a wake up call and have demanded the 287(g) program be “ended, not mended.” Take action to “Reign in the Cowboys at ICE.”

Photo courtesy of thenation.com

Here's a chance for us to renew our commitment to protect human rights

by: Restore Fairness

Thu Mar 18, 2010 at 16:40:56 PM EST

From the Restore Fairness blog.

This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of the  monumental Refugee Protection Act of 1980 marking a historic   moment which created a legal status for asylum and a formal process for   the resettling of refugees from around the world, affirming that the   protection of all victims of persecution is an integral part of U.S.   policy. Senator Edward Kennedy, who worked tirelessly for over a decade   to secure the passage of this Act ensured an impartial and consistent   system of asylum and resettlement for anyone

who is unable or unwilling to  return to  his country of nationality because of persecution or a  well-founded fear  of persecution based on race, religion, nationality,  political opinion,  or membership in a particular social group.

In  the thirty years since the passage of the Refugee Protection Act,  the  U.S. has granted asylum to over half a million people and has been responsible for   the resettlement of nearly two and a half million refugees. But these   successes have been undermined by national security measures post 9/11   which have practically shut the resettlement system down, leading to   President Obama having to sign a Presidential Determination authorizing the   admission of 80,000 refugees in 2010 because of failures in the system.

In November 2009, a Human Rights First report reported that since 2001,   over 18,000 refugees have faced delays or been denied asylum because  of  the USA  Patriot Act of 2001 and the Real  ID  Act of  2005 that labeled them “terrorists”. Following 9/11,  these  acts expanded the scope of laws defining material support to  terrorist  activity so that thousands of men, women and children who had  faced  rebel armies and fought for democracy in their countries were  denied  asylum even while they had fought for causes supported by the  U.S.

But this isn’t the only way the system has faltered.  Increasing  numbers of asylum seekers are locked into detention for  months,  sometimes years, while pursuing their asylum case. Like Jean Pierre Kamwa, who fought for democracy in   Cameroon and facing severe mental and physical abuse came to seek   protection in the United States, only to be locked up for four months in   a windowless detention center in New Jersey, until he was granted   asylum. But Jean Pierre was lucky because he got pro-bono help from a   lawyer. Many are deported because they do not have enough access to   information in substandard detention centers and are unable to explain   their cases to an immigration judge adequately.

That’s what makes  Senator Patrick Leahy’s introduction of the Refugee Protection Act 2010 so momentous. If   passed, the legislation would strengthen legal protections for those   seeking asylum in the United States and ensure that more people who   deserve protection can benefit from it. Co-sponsored by Senators Carl Levin, Richard Durbin and  Daniel Akaka, the  bill addresses flaws in the current system including   ensuring a nation-wide alternatives to detention program, access to   counsel, medical care and family visits while in detention. The bill   also eliminates the requirement that asylum applicants file a claim   within one-year of arrival in the U.S. giving more leeway to those   needing protection, protects particularly vulnerable asylum seekers like   the LGBT community by ensuring they can pursue a claim even where  their  persecution is not socially visible, and modifies the material  support  and terrorism bars in the law.

While the bill rallies up  support to pass the Senate, the National  Immigrant Justice Center and  30 nongovernmental organizations, think  tanks, and academics are filing petitions with the Department of Homeland   Security and the Department of Justice requesting similar regulations   allowing the release of detained asylum seekers  who  pose no danger to   the community so that these can be implemented on an administrative   level as well while the bill is being debated.

The act would go a  long way to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the U.N. Refugee convention and provide a safe haven   for the persecuted so call on your senators to support it.

Learn. Share. Act. Go to restorefairness.org

Was There Justice for Julio and Denis?

by: yave begnet

Tue Sep 22, 2009 at 07:45:25 AM EST

Right now DHS is keeping its cards close about its plans for Julio.  He is still in federal detention awaiting deportation.  We hope to have additional updates soon.
- Dave Bennion

Was There Justice for Julio and Denis?
                                                By: Milena Velis  09/10/2009 15:01

In May of 2000, Julio Maldonado and Denis Calderon thought that they were done with their legal problems when Judge Gregory Smith decided to vacate his own decision that sentenced them to prison 4 years earlier.

Everything happened because of an incident where they were attacked by a group of white youth who shouted racial slurs, and also stabbed Calderon, without ever being investigated or prosecuted.

Now they are both incarcerated, facing a probable deportation, after a long legal battle lost due to legal technicalities.

Today, Friday September 11, Julio Maldonado has been scheduled to leave prison and will probably be deported to his native Peru.

His only hope is a pardon from Pennsylvania Governor Ed. Rendell, by which they would then be allowed to stay in the United States.

This is the case of two immigrant cousins who have spent most of the last thirteen years incarcerated, living a nightmare due to racial conflict due to prejudice and the complexities of the judicial system in this country.

Department of Homeland Security to Monitor Immigrant Detainee Treatment

by: MamitaMala

Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 14:25:28 PM EST

Crossposted from VivirLatino

 The Department of Homeland Security is known far and wide for their excellent human rights record, especially ICE. So it makes perfect sense that President Obama would put 23 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials inside large immigrant detention centers to monitor management in light of growing complaints of abuse in the privately run institutions.

ICE, which is part of Homeland Security, intends to hire a medical expert to review the health care protocols for the detention centers and give an independent review of medical complaints, according to the people briefed on the plan. They spoke only on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement expected Thursday [today].

Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave details of its plan to immigration advocates in a conference call Wednesday evening. One person on the call, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because ICE had not made a formal announcement, said the plan includes turning a detention center in Texas for parents and their children into a women's facility and no longer placing families there. However, a separate facility in Pennsylvania will continue housing families.

Weekly Immigration Wire: Child of Immigrants Nominated to Supreme Court

by: The Media Consortium

Thu May 28, 2009 at 10:58:02 AM EST

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

On Tuesday, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying. Regardless, Sotomayor would be an excellent choice for the Supreme Court, signaling to Latino/as that the White House is aware of our need for more representation in government.

Jailed without Justice: Report Slams Immigrant Detention in the U.S.

by: rachelfirm

Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 14:07:34 PM EST

 Originally posted at Standing FIRM:

Adding to the growing concern over immigrant detention in this country, a report released by Amnesty International last week blasts the current system. The report finds that tens of thousands of immigrants - both undocumented, legal residents and even some U.S. Citizens - have been held without access to due process and many have been left to "languish" in deplorable conditions.

Among the findings of the report are:

• People in immigration custody don't have the same guarantees as criminal detainees to challenge their detention before a court, make a phone call or obtain legal representation.

• Detainees can be transferred from one facility to another, sometimes in another state, with no notice given to their families or attorneys.

• Two-thirds of people in federal immigration custody are housed in state or county detention facilities, usually alongside criminal detainees, even though violations of immigration law are considered administrative, not criminal, and asylum seekers have committed no violation.

• Immigrants are subject to excessive use of restraints such as handcuffs, waist chains and leg restraints.

This is not news to many of us who have followed the shocking stories of immigrant deaths in detention, complaints of the horrible conditions and proof that the privatized prison system has made a fortune off of the exponential increase in the number of immigrants detainees.

As Keith Olbermann said during his "Still Bushed" segment this week, where he referred to immigrant detention centers as "Gitmo Jr.'s":

The most startling fact about Amnesty‘s report, nobody at Immigration, nobody at the horrifically acronymed ICE, nobody hearing the details of this American Gulag is denying anything.

Dora Shriro, who was hired by the DHS head Janet Napolitano to oversee the immigrant detention system, recently said that she will be open to working with organizations such as Amnesty International to help improve the system. Shriro said:

I have learned that the best way to achieve change is to work closely with partners inside and outside of government, including vital organizations such as Amnesty International, which will issue a report raising concerns about immigration detention later today. I will carefully consider this important report.

Read the full Amnesty Internation report here.

Chertoff Raids own House

by: jackie @ americasvoice

Thu Dec 11, 2008 at 21:29:26 PM EST

Cross-posted at America's Voice.

No not really, but the Washington Post is reporting that Department of Homeland Security Head Michael Chertoff has had undocumented workers cleaning his home for over four years:

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.

The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants. 

Coupled with last week's announcement that a high-ranking New England Border Patrol official had undocumented workers cleaning her home, hypocrisy at DHS now seems to be the rule, rather than the exception. In "Chertoff hired company that used illegal workers," the Associated Press points out just how hypocritical the situation is:

Speaking Oct. 23 on the state of immigration, Chertoff boasted about his department's record year for worksite enforcement cases - which led to more than 6,000 arrests.

He also said, "We need to make sure our own house is in order," referring not to his own home, but to the federal government, which now is required to use a federal online database to check whether the workers are in the country legally.

This stunning piece of news is yet another piece of evidence pointing to our need for a change of direction at DHS and the passage of real, comprehensive immigration reform.

Bush's Midnight Attack on Farmworkers

by: Farmworker Justice

Wed Dec 10, 2008 at 08:53:19 AM EST

The changes, proposed by the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were revealed on the DOL website late Monday evening but have not been officially published in the Federal Register yet.

The H-2A program is a temporary agricultural guestworker program that permits employers to apply for permission to hire foreign labor for jobs lasting ten months or less.  To bring in H-2A guestworkers, employers must show that they cannot find U.S. workers who want the jobs.

These will be the most far-reaching changes in the laws regulating agricultural guestworker programs since 1942.  They will return us to an era of agricultural labor exploitation that many thought ended decades ago.

The changes cut wage rates and wage protections for both domestic and foreign workers, minimize recruitment obligations inside the U.S. and curtail or eliminate much of the government oversight that is supposed to deter and remedy illegal employer conduct.
 

Forget Janet Napolitano; Dismantle the DHS

by: DreamActivist

Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 17:11:45 PM EST

The appointment of Janet Napolitano to the top Homeland Security post has elicited a diverse number of reactions. In a New York Times article, some immigration hardliners are calling it a travesty, NumbersUSA thinks that President-elect Barack Obama could have done worse, while ‘liberals’ think that Napolitano represents a balanced and constructive view, given that she is in favor of a comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes 12 million undocumented migrants. Conservatives in Arizona are happy that finally power might shift towards them with the election of Jan Brewer to Governorship.

Few are questioning the rise of ‘immigration’ as a matter of national security to the point where debates over the chief post of Homeland Security now include major immigration groups. Is this a failure of the imagination, ignorance or just plain historical amnesia? Discourses surrounding the appointment of Napolitano simply serve as polemical devices to achieve political ends while doing nothing to actually address the epistemological and ontological flaws in the actual nature of the Department of Homeland Security.

Writing for the Washington Post, Edward Alden is one of the few mainstream and liberal commentators who comes close to hitting the nail on the head with this statement in ‘Close Minded on the Border:

Instead of continuing to embrace the massive flow of talent, energy and initiative that the rest of the world has long offered the United States, we launched an expensive, futile experiment to see whether we could seal our borders against the ills of the world, from terrorists to drugs to illegal migrants. This effort has betrayed both our ideals and our interests.

Yet, he notes that Janet Napolitano has a rare opportunity to set the nation back on track—to improve security without sacrificing American values and ideals.

On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Homeland Security Act of 2002 which created the Department of Homeland Security that effectively took over the INS (now CIS). This reorganization blurred the line between immigration policy and terrorism policy to the detriment of many immigrants in the United States – immigration policy became an issue of national security, widening the nexus of security concerns, and hence, granting more policing power to the State.

This incorporation of immigration as national security has far-reaching implications—apart from the fact that immigration is now treated as a security concern rather than an economic and cultural benefit, the dehumanization and scapegoating of undocumented immigrants has proliferated out of control. From local enforcement and state laws to election battles, the unnamed and othered ‘illegal immigrant’ is the big bad bogeyman against whom we need protection.

Will it ever end?

by: Duke Reed

Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 23:30:00 PM EST

Homeland Security preparing to seize Apache lands

The NSA, for one, has been specifically demanding that Elders give up their lands, telling them that they will have to travel a distance of 3 miles to go through checkpoints, to walk, recreate, and to farm and herd goats and cattle ON THEIR OWN LANDS.

Margo's mother just informed her that since Monday, November 13th,  the Army Corps of Engineers, Border Patrol and National Security Agency teams have been tracking down and confronting people; telling them that they have no choice: "the wall is going on these lands whether you like it or not, and you have to sell your land to the U.S."

Margo asks that you Please help the elders and indigenous women land title holders resist forced occupation in their own lands!