Recently in Detention Category
From the New York State Youth Leadership Council today:
Dear Friend,
Julio Martinez is being held in immigration detention and could be deported to Honduras any day now. Julio came to the United States when he was 7 years old. His family was fleeing violence in Honduras. Julio graduated from Franklin County High School in Kentucky last year. He played on the varsity soccer team and was active in his church. He enrolled in Community College after graduating high school. Julio wanted to attain a college education to better serve his community and help his family.
But today all those hopes and dreams are about to be taken from Julio. He was arrested by ICE on March 17th and celebrated his 19th birthday in detention the following week. Julio needs your help to be released from detention and removed from deportation proceedings.
Please make the following calls TODAY:
1) Senator John Bunning: (202) 224-4343
Ask Senator Bunning to introduce a Private Bill for Julio immediately. Julio is an outstanding young person who knows no other home but the United States. His case has exceptional circumstances and he should not be forced to leave his home and his family.
2) Assistant Secretary of DHS John Morton: (202) 732-3000
Ask Secretary Morton to grant Julio Deferred Action. Julio is an outstanding young person who knows no other home but the United States. His case has exceptional circumstances and he should not be forced to leave his home and his family.
3) Call Congressman Ben Chandler: (202) 225-4706
Ask Congressman Chandler to introduce a Private Bill for Julio immediately. Julio is an outstanding young person who knows no other home but the United States. His case has exceptional circumstances and he should not be forced to leave his home and his family.
Thank you for taking action! Please stay tuned for updates and continuing actions for Julio.
[More background here, sign the petition for Julio's release here.]
Maria @ Dreamactivist brings word that University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann has endorsed the DREAM Act and asked members of Pennsylvania's Congressional delegation to support the Act. This development didn't appear out of nowhere, but rather was the result of organizing by Penn student groups MEChA and the Latino Coalition and coverage by the Penn student newspaper.
Those in the Philadelphia area will have the chance next week to check out two screenings of the documentary "Papers," about undocumented youth and their struggle for equality.
Date: Thursday, February 25
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Arch Street United Methodist Church, Broad and Arch Streets.
Date: Saturday, February 27
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church, 8812 Germantown Avenue
More info here. (Note: I blog at Citizen Orange in my personal capacity, not on behalf of my employer.)
Dreamers fighting for their rights know the stakes--the consequences of failure are imprisonment and deportation. One anonymous Dreamer got an unpleasant reminder of this fact, and used his experience in detention in upstate New York as a call to action.
Lastly, Felipe blogged last week from the Trail of Dreams as the walkers left Florida on their way to D.C. If you've not yet read about the 1,500-mile Trail of Dreams and the walkers' efforts to raise awareness of the DREAM Act, visit the website. (via Dream Act Texas)
Nina Bernstein wrote recently in the NY Times about a New Jersey pastor who became an advocate for Indonesian Christians facing deportation and worked out an unusual deal with the government under which many at risk of deportation turned themselves in, agreeing to appear at regular appointments with immigration officials.
The financial crisis that swept through East Asia in 1997 sparked anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia that prompted many ethnic Chinese to flee the country. After 9/11, immigrant men from predominantly Muslim countries, including Indonesia, were required to register with DHS in a sweeping program of racial and religious profiling (pdf) called NSEERS engineered by restrictionist Kris Kobach, then an aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
In the past few years, NSEERS began to impact the Indonesian congregation that shared the building with Pastor Seth Kaper-Dale's flock in Highland Park, New Jersey. Families were ripped apart and fathers of U.S. citizen children were deported back to Indonesia. After going to great lengths to prevent one of his own congregants from being deported, Pastor Kaper-Dale negotiated a supervised release for the man. Raids had the community living in fear. So Pastor Kaper-Dale decided to be proactive and urged more Indonesians in the community to come forward and cooperate with DHS.
Under an unusual compact between the pastor and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Newark, four Indonesians have been released from detention in recent weeks, and 41 others living as fugitives from deportation have turned themselves in under church auspices. Instead of being jailed -- as hundreds of thousands of immigrants without criminal records have been in recent years -- they have been released on orders of supervision, eligible for work permits while their lawyers consider how their cases might be reopened.
Though agency officials say the arrangement is simply an example of the case-by-case discretion they often use, the outcome has astonished advocates and experts in immigration enforcement, and raised hopes that it signals some broader use of humanitarian release as the Obama administration vows to overhaul the immigration system.
Reading this story as an immigration attorney, I almost feel sick to my stomach. If Pastor Kaper-Dale has tapped into a kinder, gentler side of Barack Obama's DHS, it is one that has persistently eluded the majority of faith-based and nonprofit immigration attorneys in the U.S. These parishioners have traded their fear of home raids for fear that the next visit to DHS on an order of supervision could be their last, as those with previously-denied cases could at any moment be placed on a plane back home. Recently, a DHS official in Philadelphia frankly acknowledged that ICE prefers not to give advance warning of detention at a scheduled appointment under an order of supervision, since it only makes it harder to locate and deport the person. I have clients on orders of supervision with final orders of removal, and the anxiety that situation produces can be intense. Those parishioners with no previous interaction with the system and no clear path to relief who brought themselves to the attention of the government as part of this deal are making a leap of faith. I hope they each individually had the opportunity to hear from an immigration attorney about the potential downside to this arrangement, which is sudden, unannounced deportation:
for those who turn themselves in, the leap of faith carries big risks. For now, they can check in at a federal office every three months and, if granted a work permit, can secure a driver's license. But they are also vulnerable to immediate deportation. Just this fall, nine Indonesian Christians in Seattle who had been on supervised release for years were abruptly detained, and some were deported.
The blogs are all buzzing with chatter about yesterday's rally and Rep. Gutierrez's introduction of principles for his bill on comprehensive immigration reform. Yes, the principles are more vague than some of us had hoped. No, this appears not to be yet another enforcement-heavy bill like those we have seen in the past few years. So, let's take this moment to recognize this opportunity for what it is - a real opportunity to advance immigration reform this Congress - and come together.I'm not going to refute Sheff because I really respect her willingness to take a stand and push back. That's what social media and the sanctuarysphere should be all about. The reason I'm linking to her is because she highlights a video worth watching on migrant detention produced by Georgia Detention Watch.Becca Sheff - It's Our Community (14 October 2009)
Julio Maldonado will be deported this week unless DHS exercises its discretion to wait until Julio's pardon request can be heard. **Action requested: call DHS and Governor Rendell at the numbers below!**
Julio and his cousin Denis Calderon, longtime lawful permanent residents from Peru, were victims of a racially-motivated attack in Philadelphia in 1996 during which Denis was beaten and stabbed. Julio and Denis were wrongfully convicted of aggravated assault while their white attackers were never charged with any crime. The original convicting judge later vacated his own verdict after reviewing expert testimony that later came to light, but the District Attorney's office appealed the decision and won on a technical argument. Now Julio stands on the brink of deportation, 38 years after arriving in the U.S. as a toddler and 32 years after receiving his green card.
Julio has spent the last 4 years in jail for "hindering his own removal" by refusing to sign the papers required to process his Peruvian travel documents. Now the Peruvian consulate has issued temporary travel documents that do not require Julio's consent, and DHS wants to deport him now. Julio filed a request for a pardon from governor Rendell on July 1, 2009, but DHS does not want to wait for a decision on the pardon. In denying Julio's request for a stay of removal last month, DHS held that Julio's desire to remain with his family instead of accepting permanent exile to Peru was considered an adverse factor weighing against an exercise of favorable discretion.
Why does DHS view family unity as an "adverse factor"?
***Please call David Venturella, Acting Director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operation, at (202) 732-3100 to request that DHS allow Julio to stay in the U.S. until his request for a pardon is reviewed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.***
***Please call Governor Rendell's office at (717) 787-2500 and ask the governor (1) to expedite review of Julio's pardon request and (2) to request that DHS wait to deport him until the pardon request is reviewed.***
If you have not yet signed the petition for Julio and Denis, please do so here.
More complete summaries of the case are available here and here, and a list of coverage is here.
Restore Fairness: bring back due process to the immigration system from Breakthrough on Vimeo.
With news that the Obama administration is planning on reforming migrant detention in the U.S. this is a good time to announce that Citizen Orange has endorsed Breakthrough's Restore Fairness campaign.The Restore Fairness campaign is calling on the U.S. government to restore due process and fairness to our immigration system.I have mixed feelings about the Obama administration's proposed detention reforms. So far, I prefer the analysis of the National Immigration Law Center, as reported by Kevin Johnson of the ImmigrationProf Blog:Restore Fairness Website (7 October 2009)
Flicker of Change, but no Legal Torch to Light The Way: DHS Report Outlines Problems with Immigrant Detention System, but Lacks Enforcement Mechanisms for Proposed Solution
The National Immigration Law Center has issued a press release claiming that the 35-page report on immigrant detention conditions released today by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) (pdf) is a critical first step by the Obama administration in acknowledging the myriad problems with the way the United States treats the nearly 400,000 men and women in its immigrant detention system. The NILC welcomes the report's finding that the framework for the current system, which is premised on a criminal justice framework, must be rejected.
However, although the report recognizes that 89 percent of detainees are nonviolent, it fails to call for any serious attempt to reduce the size of the immigrant detainee population. In addition, although the report calls for the creation of a new set of detention standards geared towards an exclusively civil detainee population, the administration has not indicated that it will make these new standards for detention centers legally enforceable.
