Recently in Human Rights Category
On one level, I appreciate the decision of Paul Mayer, a U.S. Department of State (DOS) employee stationed in Canada, to travel to Haiti to assist in the evacuation of U.S. citizens stuck in Haiti after the earthquake. For one thing, it's certainly more than I've done to date in response to the quake. For another, I'm a U.S. citizen, and if I were stuck in Haiti after the earthquake, I would want to be helicoptered out of there asap. I know from my interactions over the years with DOS that many foreign service officers join DOS because they want to improve U.S. relations with other countries or show non-Americans that we're not all in thrall to Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. In fact, I completed an internship at the Rome Embassy in college and once dreamed of becoming a foreign service officer, or "FSO" for those in the know.
But Mayer experienced some inner conflict in Haiti that he didn't quite know how to deal with:
To say that it was heart-wrenching to do this work doesn't fully capture the feeling. Many tears were shed and many voices were raised. Time and time again, we would hear people begging us, "Please, what are we supposed to do?" It was so, so hot, and we all perspired copiously, but we knew that the people waiting in the queue were hotter and thirstier than we were. As much as it hurt, we had to say no to the unqualified cases; not doing so would be against the law and would also disadvantage those American citizens whose safety and well-being was our first priority. Under U.S. law, the State Department has very clear guidelines for the aid and assistance we provide American citizens in times of crisis, and our office of Overseas Citizen Services in Washington is there to support and guide us every step of the way. The Foreign Affairs Manual (we call it "the FAM") explains things in precise detail.I propose that this inner conflict stems from Mayer's job description: to prevent the poorest and most vulnerable from coming to the U.S. It is the organizing principle of the entire immigration system. As he points out with some regret, the laws are clear and he must not stray from enforcing them. Yet as Consular Section Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Montreal, Mayer has uncommon insight into the impact of the screening function of the immigration bureaucracy. He knows that the people he turns away will suffer; he knows that some will die.
The FAM, however, doesn't prepare you for the feeling you get from saying, "No" and "I'm sorry" over and over. The FAM doesn't tell you how many bottles of water you will need to give people who've been standing in line for six hours. The FAM doesn't tell you how quickly you need to take the Power Bars you'd bought at Wal-Mart out of your backpack, just so you can give them to the people who are saying, "Please, j'ai faim." The FAM does not tell you whether you're permitted to shed a tear when you see the look of resignation in a person's eye after you've said, firmly, "I'm sorry, but you do not qualify." People just walked away, with their kids in one hand and their suitcase in the other. There were 500 more in the queue, waiting for their turn to come. This was Day 6 after the earthquake.
This is the particular tragedy of FSOs around the world: cosmopolitan and compassionate, their instinct is to give refuge to the dispossessed, but rules are rules and must be obeyed. Who are they to challenge the System That Keeps Us Safe? Those who question authority tend not to work for the most powerful institution in the world, policing the boundaries between Us and Them.
But there are other paths.
(Via BIB)
The NY Times reports that Cambodia is deporting Uighur political refugees back to China to be detained, tortured, or killed.
Under pressure from China, and despite the objections of the United States and the United Nations, the Cambodian government on Saturday deported 20 members of the Uighur minority who had sought asylum after fleeing a government crackdown in China.
The U.S. government is unhappy with Cambodia's explanation that it is just "implementing its immigration law," as a spokesman of the Cambodian government put it. "They came illegally without any passports or visas, so we consider them illegal immigrants."
The United States and the United Nations have urged Cambodia not to deport the group. "We are deeply disturbed by the reports that the Cambodian government might forcibly return this group of Uighurs without the benefit of a credible refugee status determination process," said John Johnson, an American Embassy spokesman in Phnom Penh. "The United States strongly urges the Cambodian government to honor its commitments under international law."
I am glad to see the State Department take a stand on behalf of members of this long-suffering ethnic minority.
I wonder, though, if any DOS spokesperson would like to weigh in on the U.S. government's prolonged detention at Guantanamo of Uighur men it knew for years were innocent, and the U.S. refusal to allow any "credible refugee status determination process" for them.
I wonder if the DOS will opine on the cases of any Uighurs currently in removal proceedings in the U.S. and whether they should be sent back to China given the capricious asylum system they must navigate in the U.S. to avoid deportation. One might assume from the NY Times article above that the U.S. has a practice of not deporting Uighurs to face their fate in China. If DHS does have such a policy, I've never heard of it.
Given the U.S.'s substantial credibility gap on the issue of honoring treaty obligations to Uighur refugees, I would suggest that someone explain U.S. immigration policy to DOS employees before they make demands of other countries. But I know that newly-minted Foreign Service Officers typically work in the consular section of whichever U.S. embassy they are first assigned, so they should know the law pretty well. Perhaps the experience of denying visas every day for a couple of years is useful in inoculating FSOs against outside criticism of U.S. immigration law and foreign policy. I suspect that is one reason that FSOs are first sent to Consular.
Migration is a fact of life for millions of people all over the world. The simple notion of moving from one place to another in search of economic prosperity, freedom from violence, or hope for a better future for one's children, is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is discrimination and mistreatment.
One of the best ways to combat xenophobia and suspicion is to put a human face on the whole issue of migration and immigration. In honor of International Migrants Day, the American Friends Service Committee and the Center for Digital Storytelling, with help from allies at the Newark Immigrant Rights Program and Coloradans For Immigrant Rights, and Amnesty International have each produced a series of migrants' stories.
Their stories are poignant and universal. Hearing their accounts of leaving & loss, and adaptation & survival, brings their experiences out of the shadows and into the human experience that we all share.
[Cross-posted at Young Philly Politics]
Each year in the U.S., 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school with limited options for higher education or employment. Many undocumented youth were brought to this country as children, even infants, by their parents. They are indistinguishable in every way but one from their citizen friends, classmates, and siblings: they don't have a piece of paper that says they can stay here.
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) would change that. The Act would provide conditional legal status to applicants who:
provide certain undocumented immigrant students who graduate from US high schools, are of good moral character, arrived in the US as children, and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency. The students would obtain temporary residency for a six year period. Within the six year period, a qualified student must have "acquired a degree from an institution of higher education in the United States or [have] completed at least 2 years, in good standing, in a program for a bachelor's degree or higher degree in the United States," or have "served in the uniformed services for at least 2 years and, if discharged, [have] received an honorable discharge.".
A version of the Act was first introduced in 2001, and subsequent versions have been proposed since then, but the bill stalled during the acrimonious immigration debate of 2006-07. The Act was reintroduced earlier this year, and has garnered 105 co-sponsors in the House and 35 in the Senate. It has been endorsed by President Obama, Secretary of DHS Janet Napolitano, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, Microsoft, the College Board, the University of California system, and several newspaper editorial boards, including the New York Times. Against it are ... the same restrictionist organizations that oppose any immigration reform.
This spring, Temple University passed a resolution in support of the Act, largely through the efforts of Daniel Dunphy, President of the Temple College Democrats. The city of Philadelphia followed suit with a resolution sponsored by Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez. Students at the University of Pennsylvania are also getting involved.
When we elected Barack Obama as the President of the United States, we thought we were choosing change; we thought we were voting for humane immigration reform; we thought the separation of families would end. Now, less than a year later, we see that we were wrong.
Helen is asleep, dreaming of her lacrosse match the next day, the latest poem she has been working on and her weekend plans with friends from her church group. Suddenly, she is woken up, dragged from her bed at gunpoint and told that none of the things that she has been working toward and dreaming of are possible for her. Helen's dreams have been interrupted by a living nightmare.
The twist to this story is that Helen Mejia-Perez is a U.S. citizen. Her parents fled the turmoil in Guatemala in 1992, the tail end of a civil war in which the U.S. had a hand in creating. Now Helen's parents are about to be deported early tomorrow morning. At 13, Helen and her 4-year-old brother will have little choice but to go with their parents back to Guatemala. This is a de facto deportation of two U.S. citizens.
As these New York DreamActivists have ascertained, President Obama's DHS is pretty much the same as President Bush's DHS was. Getting deportation numbers up is priority number one. Worrying about the families that are torn apart, or Dream Act-eligible students deported, is at the bottom of the list.
Congress continues to shovel taxpayer money to DHS to fund enforcement efforts, while our local Philadelphia USCIS office is cutting personnel who work to help people navigate the system to obtain lawful status. As it gets harder and harder to obtain and maintain legal status, harder to become a citizen, it is easier than ever to be deported.
Meanwhile the administration and Democrats in Congress (with some exceptions) continue to stall and prevaricate about when they will introduce an immigration bill.
Join Mo at DreamActivist in asking Senator Feinstein to stand up for immigrant families, to stand up for the U.S. citizen children in her state:
Call Senator Feinstein: D.C.: (202) 224-3841 San Francisco: (415) 393-0707 Los Angeles: (310) 914-7300
"I was calling to ask why Senator Feinstein is not stepping in and allowing for United States citizens to be deported!"
Leave a message at each office and then rinse and repeat in a few hours. We have to make sure Feinstein knows we won't tolerate this from her.
Sign onto this letter at change.org, or to sign on as an organization, send an email to mo at dreamactivist dot org.
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.
Today’s guest post comes from Greg Bloom at Bread for the City, a Washington D.C. nonprofit that serves the city’s low-income residents. Cross posted at the Sanctuary.
Bread for the City is best known here in Washington DC for our food pantry (which is the largest in the city). But in addition to food assistance, we also offer a comprehensive range of services to all kinds of poor and vulnerable people in our community.
As of this year, that includes victims of torture who have fled to America to escape persecution.
For years, many such people have turned to us for food and medical care. But for those who are undertaking the complicated legal process of seeking asylum in America, there is great and special need- and it isn’t currently being met in many places.
Asylum-seekers must essentially prove their claims of persecution - often times through the physical evidence present on their own bodies. This process can entail a lengthy and resource-intensive medical examination, requires extensive, legally-appropriate write-ups, and the doctors might even need to provide testimony in court. Furthermore, the doctors must have the psychological capacity to engage with deep trauma.
As a result, it can be very difficult to find doctors who are willing to play this critical role in the asylum process.
With the help of some volunteer doctors and engaged board members, we’ve recently opened our medical clinic on a special monthly basis for this purpose. It’s hard work, and this week the Washington Post profiled the clinic in a special feature, profiling our Medical Clinic director, Randi Abramson, among others:Abramson drops onto a stool, composing her thoughts before entering on a laptop the horrifying story of her most recent patient at the District nonprofit organization’s new monthly clinic for political asylum-seekers: a 24-year-old Kenyan woman who recently fled Mexico and is petitioning to stay in the United States. Raised by abusive grandparents who beat her and, at 10, subjected her to genital mutilation. Cast out by her family for choosing school over marriage, she was tricked into a prostitution ring couched as a scholarship opportunity. She ended up in a Mexican brothel, where she was held captive, beaten and knifed by a customer.Such shocking tales of cruelty can take a toll, said Abramson, one of three doctors who have volunteered to lend expert medical credence to clients’ allegations of torture and abuse. It has been difficult to find doctors willing to take on these cases. But those who have stepped forward say they find powerful satisfaction in the opportunity to boost wrecked lives onto a path toward salvation.
“The scars, everything I found in the physical exam completely support the history she related,” Abramson said. “It’s just very rewarding to know that I will document what I heard and saw this evening and that will have a huge impact on her life.”
The blogosphere and cable news have been talking for the last week or so about James O'Keefe and his hidden camera video of ACORN employees in Baltimore. O'Keefe posed as a pimp and brought along college student Hannah Giles to pose as a prostitute who worked for him. He led two ACORN employees through an elaborate scenario in which he solicited advice on how to circumvent U.S. tax laws to run a brothel using underage undocumented Salvadoran prostitutes. Two ACORN employees proceeded to give him the advice he asked for.
I watched the video recently. Those employees were fired and rightly so. ACORN needs to do a better job of screening its employees and instituting procedures to ensure its employees are obeying the law. ACORN has a lot of housecleaning to do, and hopefully will become a more effective organization in the process.
But O'Keefe did not make this video out of a desire to improve provision of services to low-income communities. Glenn Beck didn't devote an entire FOX show to the piece out of concern for Latin American victims of sex trafficking.
Beck pushed this video to derail discussion of the health care bill and take down a longtime political opponent of the GOP: ACORN, a national organization that works to register low-income voters of the kind O'Keefe wants to see excluded from the polls, an organization that helps low-income homeowners avoid ending up on the street.
I watched O'Keefe's video at the Baltimore ACORN office and Beck's show promoting the clip. On my reading, James O'Keefe and Glenn Beck have not demonstrated that they care about improving the situation of low-income communities or that they want to improve the situation of actual undocumented Salvadoran children in this country, or mitigate the suffering of real victims of trafficking.
If I am wrong, where is the evidence? Where is O'Keefe's story on unaccompanied minors in the U.S. who are smuggled by coyotes to rejoin their parents or trafficked into prostitution, then arrested and targeted by DHS? Where is Beck's expose on the failure of the U.S. government to prevent human trafficking or protect trafficking victims? Has O'Keefe ever met any undocumented Salvadoran children? Does he know what their concerns are? Does he know anything about their struggles in El Salvador or in the U.S.? I've seen no indication that he does.
Instead, I've seen him and his accomplice use underage Central American prostitutes--who do exist in this country--to execute a dirty takedown of a political opponent.
"Obama escucha. Estamos en la lucha."
I marched on May 1st and didn't catch swine flu.
As the swine flu scare gives nativists a new "close the border" drum to bang on us more sensible people got together and rallied for human rights. Here in Austin we gathered at the state capital building. After a short presentation we marched down Congress Ave. and back up to City Hall. Many held signs that said "pass the DREAM Act" and a group of students dressed up in their grad gowns chanting "What do we want? The DREAM Act. When do we want it? Now!"
Other signs asked to stop the raids and to shut down T Don Hutto. At one point in the rally I was handed a hand-made sign that read "If any are illegal we all are."
