Dignity Not Detention - Preserving Human Rights & Restoring Justice

Research interview from www.resistnetwork.com

Written by Anne Dutton is LIRS’s Advocacy Assistant. Kavita Puri is LIRS’s Advocacy Intern. Reposted from the LIRS blog.

The Delaney Hall Detention Facility in Newark, New Jersey is an ominous large grey brick building located on a street filled with industrial plants. It houses immigrant detainees, asylum seekers and individuals awaiting their immigration removal proceedings before the Immigration Court.

This place felt different from other correctional facilities we have visited. Absent were the bright white and grey walls that color most penitentiaries. Detainees moved freely about their unit which includes bedrooms and day rooms. Counselors, instead of guards, roam the halls monitoring and interacting with the detainees while carrying out the positive reinforcement model of the center.

Although the staff has worked hard to create a community-based feel to the facility, it was impossible to forget that these immigrants have violated U.S. civil laws, not criminal laws, and should not be detained in the first place. We also found it hard to reconcile how the facility staff described how easy it was for immigrants to access legal counsel and presentations with the reports from the organizations that work with these detained immigrants on a daily basis.

We were fortunate to meet with three detainees and to hear their stories and perspectives on living a detained life. Three women, from Haiti, Guatemala, and Liberia, spoke to us about the violence and tumultuous events that made them flee their home countries to come to the United States, hoping for a life of freedom and opportunity.

The woman from Guatemala shared how dehumanizing it was to be detained.

The Haitian woman recounted the devastation after the earthquake in 2010 and how difficult it was to leave her young child while she sought a job to help support him back in Haiti.

The Liberian woman described how government officials asked her to check-in periodically with them. She followed all of their rules, but for no apparent reason during one of her regular check-ins, the government locked her up. Today marks one month that she has been detained.

While U.S. immigration detention policy has slightly improved in recent years, speaking to the detainees at the Delaney Hall Detention Facility was a clear reminder that this punishment does not fit the crime.

Stand with LIRS as we oppose harmful detention provisions and demand dignity for detained refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons.

via Enlace’s Prison Divestment campaign:

After they wrecked our economy, Big Banks are now financing anti-immigrant laws and policies making millions from separating and incarcerating our community. AND these Big Banks want US to pay for it, by giving up basic human rights of housing, migrating, healthcare, education and jobs… We’re going to FIGHT BACK!

We Demand Big Banks:

• Stop financing anti-immigrant policies and laws like Arizona Copycat Laws and (IN)Secure Communities
• End connections with racist anti-immigrant politicians and the prison industry
• Pay the community reparations for the harm they have done by creating insecure neighborhoods and destroying families
• Invest in people and Pay Reparations to OUR Community!

Reposted from the Advocates blog

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants is seeking submissions on immigration detention worldwide. Michele Garnett McKenzie of The Advocates and Laura Rivas and Cathi Tactaquin of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights have offered to coordinate a joint submission for Detention Watch Network. The submission will include:

• A brief background of immigrant detention in the U.S., the status to date of promised detention reforms, and a list of 5 priority issues linked to international human rights for the Rapporteur’s investigation.
• An appendix of recent reports on detention and past submissions to international human rights bodies

Here are ways that you can be involved:

• You are welcome to send any reports, case examples, and other materials that you think should be included in the collaborative submission. Please send these directly to Michele Garnett McKenzie at mmckenzie@advrights.org
• Given the very short timeframe, we are not able to have a more collaborative process. However, you are welcome to send suggestion for priorities to Michele as well. We will do our best to draft as comprehensive a submission as possible.
• There will be an opportunity for organizations to add your name to the final submission.
• We also encourage you to submit your own materials directly to the UNSR if you have the capacity and resources.

There will also be other opportunities to share your expertise on immigration detention with international human rights bodies throughout 2012, including drafting of the ICCPR Shadow Report.

Demonstrators call upon Wells Fargo and others to divest from for-profit prison corporations like the Geo Group

Click to view slideshow.

A coalition of immigrant rights groups called on Wells Fargo to divest of their holdings in the for-profit private prison industry. Detention of immigrants will destroy countless families and cost taxpayers more than $1.7 billion this year. Benefiting from this practice are companies like GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America, as well a companies like Wells Fargo, that have invested in the growth of the private prison industry.

According to SEC filings, Wells Fargo currently holds over 4 million shares in GEO Group and 50,000 shares in CCA. Combined, those shares are valued at $120 million. Further, Wells Fargo, a recipient of billions of bailout dollars, is a major contributor to politicians who have championed the increased incarceration of immigrants. Tell Wells Fargo to invest in our communities and divest from the private prison industry!

Protest endorsers include Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families.

On January 24 over a hundred people gathered in Tivoli Square to call for a boycott of Wells Fargo, one of the primary investors in GEO Group. GEO is the second largest private prison corporation in the country, and manages about 18% of immigration detention beds. Private prison companies lobby extensively at the federal, state and local levels for the laws and policies that are putting ever-growing numbers of people behind bars.

Tuesday’s protest was part of a National Day of Action, called for by Enlace’s Prison Divestment Campaign. The action in DC was one of a dozen simultaneous events around the country calling attention to the role of private prison companies in perpetuating the mass-incarceration epidemic. Friends and allies from OccupyDC as well as from the criminal justice community helped organize, produce and to outreach for what turned out to be a great event.

via Anju Gupta, Director, Immigrant Rights Clinic,  Rutgers University School of Law – Newark

Please save the date for a day-long conference on immigration detention to be held on March 23, 2012 at Rutgers Law School — Newark. A save the date flyer is attached and the text pasted below. Please circulate widely.

As of now, panel topics will likely include:

• The realities of civil immigration detention (including who is being detained and why and the conditions of their confinement);
• Mandatory detention (including the impact of mandatory detention policies and alternatives to detention);
• Security and technology (including the use of video hearings, restricted access to lawyers, or restricted access to a law library or computer technology); and
• Access to counsel in immigration court proceedings for detainees

Conference speakers will be announced and registration will open shortly. Feel free to e-mail me with speaker recommendations.

——————————

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE
MARCH 23, 2012Rutgers School of Law–Newark

123 Washington Street, Newark, NJ

IMMIGRANT DETAINEES: ALONE, UNREPRESENTED, AND IMPRISONED

A day-long conference examining the immigration detention system.

Co-sponsored by Rutgers School of Law – Newark, Seton Hall Law, Lowenstein Sandler PC, Rutgers-Newark Center for Migration and the Global City, Rutgers Immigrant Rights Collective, and the Rutgers Human Rights Forum

Enlace, in partnership with community groups and unions across the US, is calling on all public and private institutions to divest their holdings in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, America’s largest for profit prison corporations which have profited from billions in taxpayer money.

Together with Wall Street investors these companies finance anti immigrant laws like AZ Copycat Laws and lobby for anti immigrant federal policies like SCOMM.

Prison investors include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, General Electric, Fidelity, Wellington, and Vanguard.

Enlace is coordinating a National Day of Action on January 24th. Actions are being planned across the US.  To host an action and get involved contact Daniel at 213-284-3802 or Daniel@enlaceintl.org

Actions are being planning in:

• Tacoma, WA
• Portland, OR
• Los Angeles, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Austin, TX
• Denver, CO
• Wichita, KS
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Nashville, TN
• Hempstead, NY
• Washington DC
• Atlanta, GA
• San Jose, CA
• Boca Raton, FL

The remains of at least 6,000 migrants have been found in U.S. desert land since U.S.-Mexico border policies were implemented in the 1990s. Some groups estimate that for each set of remains recovered, those of 10 more people are lost to the harsh desert elements. Advocates and authorities attribute the escalating number of deaths not only to rising heat but also to ever-tightening border security forcing migrants into more remote and dangerous terrain. Deserted calls on viewers to recognize these deaths as a humanitarian emergency and human rights crisis.

The video includes chilling images of a morgue in Tucson, Arizona in which row after row of body bags contain human remains that may never be identified, of people whose families may never know what happened to them.

Stand with Breakthrough and recognize this human rights crisis that is taking place at our border. Watch and share this video, and take action against this human rights crisis with No More Deaths and Coalition de Derechos Humanos.

VIDEO CREDITS: Directed, filmed and edited by Dana Variano with Ishita Srivastava; music by Denver Dalley; post-production audio by Hobo Audio. Produced by Breakthrough.

via Anjela Jenkins

The National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights (NCIWR) will soon be releasing a white paper highlighting some of the challenges that immigrant women face in their daily lives, as well as in immigration detention and with the immigration “enforcement” system.

While we already have some personal stories spotlighted in our report, we wanted to reach out one last time to you all to see if any of you have clients willing to share their stores about experiences with law enforcement, accessing public benefits, being separated from partners or children (including separation of same-sex partners and of same-sex couples from their children), or sex/gender-identity-specific abuse in detention.

Please feel free to contact me (Anjela@latinainstitute.org) if you have stories you’d like to share or if your organization is interested in joining NCIWR and forming part of a community of advocates who work deliberately at the intersection of gender and immigration issues.

At an average rate of $200 per night/per inmate, private prison operators profit over $5 billion a year. How do they do it? Like con-artists, they lure town councils and local government officials with promises of easy money and increased revenue. However, what they don’t tell them is at what cost!

Littlefield, Texas found out the hard way. Private prison operators promised increased “product” (aka detained immigrants) and alleged prosperity for a town that was struggling with an economic crisis. Instead, what Littlefield got was a mega-complex private facility, an additional $10 million contractual debt, and a fleeing population.

reposted from the ACLU blog
District Court Rules that “Arriving Aliens” May Not Be Subjected to Prolonged Detention Without a Hearing To Determine Whether Detention Is Justified

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

SAN DIEGO — A district court today ruled that the Department of Homeland Security may not detain an immigrant for a prolonged period without proving that detention is justified in an individualized hearing. It is the first ruling to find that immigrants classified as “arriving aliens” – a large group encompassing all individuals stopped at the border, including asylum seekers – are entitled to fair hearing protections against arbitrary detention. DHS had argued that it has sole discretion to decide whether to detain or release an “arriving alien” and that the law does not require detention hearings.

The San Diego ACLU brought a habeas petition on behalf of Glorismel Centeno Ortiz in August 2011 after he had languished in immigration detention for three years. The government had held Centeno without a hearing to determine whether his detention was justified by classifying him as an “arriving alien,” a category that can apply even to individuals who have lived in the United States for decades with legal status. The government relies on Cold War-era rulings to justify its position that “arriving aliens” like Mr. Centeno have no due process rights to physical liberty.

Mr. Centeno, an asylum seeker who has lived in the United States since he was 11 years old was released from custody shortly after the ACLU filed the habeas petition. The government then argued that the habeas petition was moot.

Today’s ruling by Chief Judge Irma Gonzalez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California rejected both the government’s mootness argument and its position that arriving aliens could be detained without so much as an individualized hearing to determine whether their detention is justified.

“Under the court’s ruling, asylum seekers who are fleeing persecution and torture in their home lands should finally receive a fair hearing to determine whether their detention serves any purpose,” said Sean Riordan, staff attorney of the San Diego ACLU. “For too long the government has withheld this kind of minimal due process protection to those who need it most.”

Centeno was brought to Los Angeles by his mother, who was fleeing the violence of the Salvadoran civil war, in which her brother was killed by guerillas. As a teenager, Centeno became entangled with gangs and was convicted of armed robbery and deported to El Salvador, even though his petition for asylum was still pending. Fearing for his life Centeno returned to Los Angeles and obtained counseling from Homies Unidos, an organization that helps young people leave gangs.

Since his return to the United Sates, Centeno has dedicated his life to helping other young men leave the life of gangs. He has lead camping trips and given talks at schools, all the while working as a dishwasher, car mechanic, air conditioning repairman and raising his son. According to a senior staff member at Homies Unidos, Centeno is “one of our most reliable and committed volunteers.”

In 2007, Centeno went to Tijuana to enjoy a night out with friends. When he returned to the border, he was immediately arrested and charged with criminal illegal reentry after deportation. In July 2008, a judge dismissed criminal charges against Centeno, but he remained in detention several more years, until his release in September.

via Annie Sovcik of Human Rights First

A dialogue among experts in the criminal justice/corrections and immigration detention systems

As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security takes steps to reform the immigration detention system – a patchwork of 33,400 beds scattered throughout the country in over 250 different facilities, holding a diverse population under its “civil” immigration enforcement authority – there are lessons to be learned from experiences, challenges and best practices in the criminal justice/corrections system. Please join our panel of distinguished experts in a discussion of conditions of confinement, access to legal counsel, alternatives to detention/incarceration, barriers to release, and use of discretion in decision to detain/incarcerate.

Monday, January 30, 2012
8:30 – 10:00 AM
Coffee and a light breakfast will be served beginning at 8:00 AM

Hosted by Arnold & Porter L.L.P.
555 12th Street Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20004

** Facebook Event Listing **

PROGRAM

• Moderator: Samuel M. Witten, Counsel, Arnold & Porter, and former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (2007 – 2010).

Panelists:

• Steve J. Martin, Attorney, corrections consultant, and former General Counsel of the Texas prison system
• Laura Sullivan, Correspondent and Investigative Reporter for National Public Radio
• Gary Mead, Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• Ruthie Epstein, Researcher & Advocate, Refugee Protection Program, Human Rights First

RSVP to plummerk@humanrightsfirst.org by Friday, January 27th

PRESENTERS

Steve J. Martin
Attorney, Corrections Consultant, and former General Counsel of the Texas Prison System
Steve J. Martin is a career corrections professional currently engaged in private practice as a corrections consultant. He is actively involved in a variety of roles as a consulting expert, federal court monitor and court-appointed expert in 15 states plus the American Virgin Islands. He served as a corrections expert for the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, for approximately 15 years and currently serves as an expert for the Department of Homeland Security, Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He has served or currently serves as a federal court monitor in three prison systems and four large metropolitan jail systems. During more than 39 years in the criminal justice field, Mr. Martin has worked as a correctional officer, probation and parole officer, and prosecutor. He is the former General Counsel/Chief of Staff of the Texas prison system as well as having served gubernatorial appointments in Texas on both a sentencing commission and a council for mentally impaired offenders. He coauthored a book on Texas prisons (Texas Prisons, The Walls Came Tumbling Down, Texas Monthly Press, 1987), and has written numerous articles on criminal justice issues. He has served as an adjunct/visiting faculty member at seven different universities including the University of Texas School of Law and Queens University, Belfast. Mr. Martin has been continuously involved in institutional reform litigation since 1981. This work includes extensive experience in the largest confinement operations (prison, jails, and juvenile facilities) in the United States. He has appeared/testified before a large variety of oversight entities including the U. S. Congress. He has extensive experience in the development of correctional standards, policies, procedures and guidelines for confinement operations across the United States.

Laura Sullivan
Correspondent and Investigative Reporter for National Public Radio
Laura Sullivan is a NPR News investigative correspondent whose work has cast a light on some of the country’s most disadvantaged people. Ms. Sullivan joined NPR in 2004 as a correspondent on the National Desk. For six years she covered crime and punishment issues, with reports airing regularly on Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other NPR programs. Over the years, Ms. Sullivan’s work has been honored by many of journalism’s highest awards, including two Peabody Awards and two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Batons. “Bonding for Profit” – a three-part investigative series that aired on Morning Edition and All Things Considered in 2010 – earned Ms. Sullivan her second duPont and Peabody, as well as awards from the Scripps Howard Foundation, Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, and the American Bar Association. Working with editor Steve Drummond, Ms. Sullivan’s stories in this series revealed deep and costly flaws in one of the most common – and commonly misunderstood – elements of the U.S. criminal justice system. Also in 2011, Sullivan was honored for the second time by Investigative Reporters and Editors for her two-part series examining the origins of Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB 1070. Before joining NPR, Ms. Sullivan was a Washington correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, where she covered the Justice Department, the FBI and terrorism.

Gary Mead
Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Gary Mead is the executive associate director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Washington D.C. Mr. Mead oversees a $2.5 billion budget and 8,395 employees. ERO promotes public safety and national security by removing national security threats, high-risk criminal aliens, illegal alien fugitives, and absconders; and ensuring safe and effective custody management for more than 30,000 illegal aliens in custody each day. Between 1974 and 2006, he served in the U.S. Marshals Service where he held a number of Senior Executive Service law enforcement and administrative positions at the associate and assistant director levels. His areas of responsibility included Prisoner Operations, Asset Forfeiture, JPATS, Management and Budget, Human Resources, and the U.S. Marshals Service Training Academy. Between 2006 and 2008, he served as the assistant director for management, deputy director and acting director for the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations (currently, ERO). From 2008 to 2009, Mr. Mead was a self-employed criminal justice and immigration consultant. He returned to ICE in November 2009 as deputy assistant director, and then assistant director, of Detention Management. Mr. Mead holds a master’s degree and has received two Senior Executive Service Presidential Rank Awards.

Ruthie Epstein
Researcher & Advocate, Refugee Protection Program, Human Rights First
Ruthie Epstein works as a Researcher & Advocate in the Refugee Protection Program at Human Rights First, with a focus on U.S. domestic asylum policy and immigration detention. Ms. Epstein is the author of “Jails and Jumpsuits: Transforming the U.S. Immigration Detention System – A Two-Year Review,” released in October 2011. She presented the preliminary findings of this report in August at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association. Ms. Epstein has also worked extensively on the issue of Iraqi displacement and wrote the report “Promises to the Persecuted: The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act” (2009). Previously, she helped to run Human Rights First’s pro bono legal representation program for indigent asylum seekers in New York and New Jersey. She holds a Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia University and an A.B. in history from Washington University in St. Louis.

Samuel M. Witten
Counsel, Arnold & Porter, and former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration
Samuel Witten has an extensive background in international law, the development and implementation of corporate compliance programs, international dispute settlement, and international law enforcement cooperation. He represents domestic and international clients in litigation and arbitrations and in domestic enforcement and regulatory matters. Before joining Arnold & Porter, Mr. Witten served in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser for 19 years, including five years as Assistant Legal Adviser for Law Enforcement and Intelligence and six years as Deputy Legal Adviser (equivalent to Deputy General Counsel), where he supervised the State Department’s legal work on law enforcement, human rights, and refugee issues. He served for three years (2007-2010) as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (“PRM”), where he helped manage the U.S. government’s worldwide programs for the relief of refugees and the admission of refugees into the United States for resettlement. He was Acting Secretary of State for PRM from 2007-2009 and directed the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs in 2009. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Women’s Refugee Commission and is President of the Washington Foreign Law Society, a nonprofit group that advances the understanding of international law and foreign affairs.

via Andrea Black, Detention Watch Network:

Dear Colleagues,

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants is seeking submissions on immigration detention worldwide. The deadline is 1/30/12.

Michele Garnett McKenzie of the Advocates for Human Rights and Laura Rivas and Cathi Tactaquin of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights have offered to coordinate a joint submission for DWN allies to sign on to that will include:

• A brief background of immigrant detention in the U.S., the status to date of promised detention reforms, and a list of 5 priority issues linked to international human rights for the Rapporteur’s investigation.
• An appendix of recent reports on detention and past submissions to international human rights bodies

Here are ways that you can be involved:

• You are welcome to send any reports, case examples, and other materials that you think should be included in the collaborative submission. Please send these directly to Michele Garnett McKenzie at mmckenzie@advrights.org
• Given the very short timeframe, we are not able to have a more collaborative process. However, you are welcome to send suggestion for priorities to Michele as well. We will do our best to draft as comprehensive a submission as possible.
• There will be an opportunity for organizations to add your name to the final submission.
• We also encourage you to submit your own materials directly to the UNSR if you have the capacity and resources.

There will also be other opportunities to share your expertise on immigration detention with international human rights bodies throughout 2012, including drafting of the ICCPR Shadow Report. We will keep you posted.

Please join other DWN members and allies, along with friends from OccupyDC, to protest the private prison corporations who are driving the mass incarceration of people of color in the United States, including nearly 370,000 immigrants every year.

The action will take place Tuesday January 24 at 5:00pm at the Wells Fargo branch in Tivoli Square (between Park Road and Monroe Street off of 14th in Columbia Heights ). If you are interested in helping with the last stages of planning for the action, please send me an email. There will be a poster making party this weekend at the DWN offices. We are also looking for singers and musicians to help liven things up on what will likely be a cold night, so if you or someone you know has some talent that they would be willing to lend to the occasion, please get in touch!

Tuesday’s action will be one of a dozen simultaneous protests taking place across the country as part of Enlace’s Private Prison Divestment Campaign. For more information on the campaign and the national day of action go to:  http://enlaceintl.org/programs/prison-divestment/.

If you can’t make the protest, please help advertise it!

Use the Facebook event listing

Attached is a two-sided PDF flier in English and Spanish with the details of the event. Distribute far and wide.

via Ariel Shidlo of Research Institute Without Walls:

The Research Institute Without Walls, an NGO that does collaborative research on the impact of human rights violations on LGBT mental health invites you to join the Collaborative Working Group for LGBT Asylum and Refugees.

Physician for Human Rights, Immigration Equality, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility are our first member groups.

The purpose of the Collaborative Working Group is to share information and coordinate research on the psychological effects of persecution and torture because of sexual orientation and gender identity in asylum seekers. This population faces special mental health challenges when navigating the challenges of rebuilding their lives.

We invite groups and individuals to join us in the formation and development of a working group that will allow us to collaborate on documenting the experiences of our clients. Gathering empirical data will allow us to more effectively help LGBT asylum seekers and refugees.

Our first project is a collaboration with Mike Corradini, asylum advocacy associate and attorney at Physicians for Human Rights. We are conducting the first empirical study on the impact of immigration detention on the mental health of LGBT refugees.

We are seeking LGBT persons who have been in detention who are willing to be interviewed about their experiences.

Please let us know if you would be interested in joining the Collaborative Working Group and/or might be able to refer to us LGBT persons who’ve been in immigration detention, who may be willing to be interviewed. Participation is confidential and interviews can be  conducted by telephone. For more information, you can contact Ariel Shidlo, PhD at ariel.shidlo@riww.org

Written by Steven H. Schulman of AKIN GUMP STRAUSS HAUER & FELD LLP:

Appleseed is currently writing a follow-up report to the 2009 Assembly Line Injustice [PDF], which documented the problems in the immigration court system and offered recommendations for fixing those flaws.

Our conclusions about the progress towards implementing those recommendations are based on court observations and interviews, and we would like additional confirmation (or disagreement) from you to ensure what we learned actually reflects the realities across the country.

Toward that end, we are requesting your participation in a simple, short survey (I promise – SHORT!) that asks whether you agree or disagree with each of the findings stated and let us know whether you think the particular circumstance described has gotten better or worse since 2009. There is also room for you to provide comments if you wish.  Thank you in advance.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/immigrationcourtsurvey

via War on Immigrants Report, a segment of Global Movement, Urban Struggles on Pacifica Radio

To listen, click on the black arrow below

January 12th, 2011

HOSTED THIS MONTH  BY:  Donald Anthonyson and Abraham Paulos of Families For Freedom

As Haiti marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake, along with what has been labeled the world’s worse cholera epidemic, killing an average of 200 Haitians per month, the US is still deporting people back to a country that even the State Department warned its citizens against traveling to Haiti. In June 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights  also weighed in by “ordering” the US to stop the deportations of Haitians back to the country, based on obvious health, safety and human rights concerns. During this show, we examined the current situation in Haiti and also what Haitian nationals are facing when they are at risk of being deported. Special Guests:

• Michelle Karshan, a long time social justice activist, has been working with youth and adults in conflict with the law in New York State — both in the community and in prisons — for the past thirty years. When Michelle moved to Haiti in 1996, she founded Alternative Chance — the first reentry program in the world dedicated solely to assisting, and advocating on behalf of, criminal deportees.  Alternative Chance is currently a co-petitioner before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calling on the United States to stop deportations to Haiti.  You can find out more information on the website  www.AlternativeChance.org and on Facebook at Alternative Chance. For information call 212-613-6033

• Caroline Bettinger-López is an Associate Professor of Clinical Legal education and Director of the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. Her scholarship, advocacy, and teaching focus on international human rights law and advocacy, including the implementation of human rights norms at the domestic level.  Her main regional focus is the United States and Latin America, and her principal areas of interest include violence against women, gender and race discrimination, and immigrants’ rights. Bettinger-López regularly litigates and engages in other forms of advocacy in the Inter-American Human Rights system, federal and state courts and legislative bodies, and the United Nations. Prior to joining Miami Law, Bettinger-López was the Deputy Director of the Human Rights Institute and Lecturer-in-Law and Acting Director of the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. There, she helped to coordinate the Human Rights in the U.S. Project and Bringing Human Rights Home Lawyers’ Network, a network of over 450 lawyers who are actively involved in domestic human rights strategies in the U.S.

We will also be speaking to two Haitian nationals who are facing deportation to Haiti.

Groups Demand That ICE Prioritize Release and Alternatives to Detaining Immigrant Families Contact:

• Bob Libal, Grassroots Leadership, blibal@grassrootsleadership.org, (512) 971-0487
• Kirsten Bokenkamp, ACLU of Texas, kbokenkamp@aclutx.org, (713) 942-8146 X 109
• Michelle Brané, Women’s Refugee Commission, MichelleB@wrcommission.org, (646) 717-7191

AUSTIN – A broad coalition of more than 65 national, state, and local immigrant, civil rights, and faith organizations today called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to end the practice of detaining immigrant families, including small children and infants. In an open letter (PDF) to ICE director John Morton, the groups urge ICE to prioritize release and alternatives to detention for immigrant families awaiting asylum or immigration hearings. ICE has issued a Request for Proposals for 100 new family detention beds in Texas in a closed, secure facility. The new detention center would replace the Berks County Family Shelter Care Center in Pennsylvania, which will be closed in March. “In the last 10 years, our government has created a large-scale immigration lock up system that pulls in thousands of the country’s most vulnerable, including asylum seekers and families with children, at enormous cost to the U.S. taxpayer,” said Lisa Graybill, Legal Director for the ACLU of Texas.   “Putting innocent children in jail is not just bad policy – it is inhumane and un-American, and it is time for the government to stop.”

The current Request for Proposals seeks submissions for closed, secured facilities.  A 2007 report by the Women’s Refugee Commission and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service that examined the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas and the Berks facility concluded that both facilities place families “in facilities modeled on the criminal justice system, with little regard to national and international standards for the care and protection of children and families.”

The Hutto detention center, where ICE housed families from 2006 to 2009, became a national embarrassment as reports emerged that children as young as eight months old were forced to wear prison garb, locked in prison cells, denied adequate food, and threatened with separation from their parents if they cried too much or played too loudly. The Hutto detention center was the subject of a lawsuit, a human rights investigation, multiple national and international media reports and a national campaign to end family detention.

“We are acutely disappointed in the Obama Administration for continuing the needless detention of families,” said Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership.  “The Obama Administration took positive steps in rolling back family detention in 2009 by releasing families from the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, and canceling a solicitation for three new family detention centers,” the signatories wrote to ICE.  ”The closure of the Berks facility is an excellent opportunity for the administration to continue to demonstrate its commitment to detention system reform by ending the practice of detaining families for once and for all.”

“We call on the administration to prioritize release of immigrant families in all cases. We urge the administration to assign social workers to manage families’ cases rather than placing them in detention. For families without housing, the administration should partner with non-profit shelter or child welfare organizations experienced in supporting asylum-seeking and immigrant families to resolve any issues preventing the direct release of families.  Social workers with proven track records providing family and child welfare services offer the only appropriate expertise for supporting families in civil immigration proceedings.”

“Most of these families are asylum seekers or victims of violence.  They are very vulnerable and often have no place to go. NGO’s are willing to work with ICE to develop shelter options that are both humane and more cost effective than closed detention,” says Michelle Brané of the Women’s Refugee Commission.

Signatories to the letter include

• American Civil Liberties Union
• America’s Voice Education Fund
• Catholic Legal Immigration Network
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• Detention Watch Network
• DreamActivist.org
• Grassroots Leadership
• Human Rights First
• Human Rights Defense Center
• Justice Strategies
• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services
• National Day Laborer Organizing Network
• National Immigration Forum
• National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health
• Religious Institute
• Rights Working Group
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society
• Women’s Refugee Commission
• and 50 state and local organizations from across the country.

To read the full letter and the list of signatories, please visit http://grassrootsleadership.org/journalists.html

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