Summer 2015 National Immigrant Solidarity Network Monthly News Alert!

Summer 2015 National Immigrant Solidarity Network Monthly News Digest and News Alert! National Immigrant Solidarity Network No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights! URL: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org e-mail: Info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org Information about the Network: FLYER Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990 Los Angeles: (213)403-0131 Every Donation Counts! Please Support Us! Send check pay to: National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ National Immigrant Solidarity Network P.O. Box 751 South Pasadena, CA 91031-0751 (All donations are tax deductible)

Life and Death in the Border, Mass Detention: Another U.S. violation of Human Rights

Please download our latest newsletter: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Summer15.pdf

ACLU: Border Patrol Violence Must Stop!

June 5, 2015

Two days before graduating from the State University of New York-Canton with a degree in law enforcement leadership, 21-year-old Jessica Cooke was stopped in her car by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint on NY Route 37 along the St. Lawrence River’s maritime border with Canada.

Ms. Cooke has driven through such checkpoints frequently, and she even completed the first phase of U.S. Customs and Border Protection physical training to apply for a CBP job. As she arrived at the checkpoint, there was no indication she’d crossed the border; indeed, she showed a driver’s license to confirm her identity and stated where she was coming from, which is more information than she’s required to provide.

The last thing Ms. Cooke could have expected happened: two Border Patrol agents physically assaulted her and shocked her with a stun gun after refusing to answer her repeated question, “Why am I being held?” They explained her detention by saying she looked “nervous.” The Border Patrol agent who assaulted Ms. Cooke preceded his violence with a smug “Go for it” after she warned him she’d sue if he touched her. Contrary to policy, he wasn’t wearing a visible nametag.

CBP has a terrible track record of use-of-force incidents. Until a new commissioner ordered policy changes last year, the agency strongly resisted releasing a damning external report on its uses of force. SinceAnastasio Hernández Rojas was beaten and tased to death on video five years ago, at least 35 people have been killed by CBP agents with zero accountability. CBP’s own former head of internal affairs says thousands hired during an unprecedented expansion in the post-9/11 era are “potentially unfit to carry a badge and gun.” This recent history has left a dark cloud over CBP as a whole, including the many officers and agents who act with integrity.

Border Patrol claims authority to operate checkpoints within 100 miles of any land or water border. They are supposed to be limited to immigration-status inquiries but have unconstitutionally morphed into general crime control, resulting mostly in minor drug arrests. The agents’ excuse for detaining Ms. Cooke was to wait an hour for a dog to sniff her car, yet she wasn’t arrested for contraband or any other reason. The ACLU has long worried that while the 100-mile zone is not literally “Constitution free,” because constitutional protections still apply, “the Border Patrol frequently ignores those protections and runs roughshod over individuals’ civil liberties.”

Ms. Cooke’s shocking treatment is sadly symptomatic of a pattern: Border Patrol violence is all over the Internet, victimizing those people who question being excessively harassed during their daily activities (and of course not every incident is caught on camera). Take a look at Border Patrol smashing a trucker’s window, or hauling a man out of his car while his toddler’s in the back seat, or Clarisa Christiansen’s story of what Border Patrol agents did to her and her five- and seven-year-old kids on a remote Arizona road. The incident was so traumatic that it led her to homeschool her children because they became too scared to ride in the car. These incidents occurred 60, 35, and 40 miles from any border.

CBP Commissioner Kerlikowske has improved use-of-force reporting, which the inspector general found badly deficient. CBP claims that incidents are down by almost 30 percent this fiscal year. But the agency’s use-of-force policy failed to incorporate a clear definition like the Justice Department’s standard — any force beyond peaceful handcuffing that compels someone to comply, including pointing a firearm — so we don’t know what those stats really mean.

CBP needs to accurately report how many incidents take place and what happens to personnel involved in incidents like Ms. Cooke’s.  Are they immediately placed on administrative leave? Are they eventually suspended or fired?  How can the public trust that CBP agents they encounter understand constitutional rights, de-escalation techniques, and proper uses of force?

Ms. Cooke’s senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, met with CBP about her incident and emerged with “serious concerns about lack of transparency and accountability.” CBP must urgently implement the same best police practices the Obama administration recommends for state and local police reform: comprehensive data collection addressing uses of force and racial profiling, body-worn cameras with privacy protections, and a responsive complaint process.

In horrible pain after being manhandled and electroshocked, Ms. Cooke screamed several times at her government assailant: “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Link to the Article: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1649

6/10: Plaintiffs seek an end to unconstitutional Border Patrol detention practices

NILC, AIC, ACLU of Arizona, LCCR, Morrison & Foerster LLP

TUCSON — Tucson Sector Border Patrol holds men, women, and children in freezing, overcrowded, and filthy cells for extended periods of time in violation of the U.S. Constitution, a group of legal organizations allege in a class-action lawsuitfiled Monday. The class-action suit, which was filed on behalf of two people detained in the Tucson Border Patrol Station as well as a Tucson man detained multiple times in that facility, describes Border Patrol limiting or denying access to beds, soap, showers, adequate meals and water, medical care, and lawyers, in violation of constitutional standards and Border Patrol’s own policies.

The National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Council, the ACLU of Arizona, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, and Morrison & Foerster LLP filed the suit after interviewing the plaintiffs as well as more than 75 former detainees. Both current and former detainees consistently recount being subjected to days of mistreatment, abuse, and neglect. 

“Our plaintiffs were detained for civil matters, but there is nothing civil about being deprived of water, provided inadequate or expired food, and being subjected to sleep deprivation,” said Nora Preciado, staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. “We filed this lawsuit because the federal government has systemically failed to adhere to its own meager standards and constitutional requirements and thousands of people have suffered as a result.”

Former and current detainees describe being packed into crowded cells with only concrete benches or the floor for a “bed.” They are stripped of warm clothing and provided with only flimsy aluminum sheets that do not protect against the frigid temperatures. In most cases, the lights are left on 24 hours a day, making sleep difficult, if not impossible. Immigrants have no soap or water to wash after using the restroom and before meals, and do not have access to showers.

“Thousands of people are subjected to these inhumane and intolerable conditions every year,” said Mary Kenney, senior staff attorney with the American Immigration Council. “Our investigation revealed that these filthy, overcrowded and punitive conditions are the norm in all eight Border Patrol stations within the Tucson Sector.”
The government’s own standards state that people should be detained in holding cells like those in the Tucson Border Patrol facility for no more than 12 hours, but all of the plaintiffs were held for much longer. In fact, Border Patrol’s own records show that, during a six month period in 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained over 58,000 people for 24 hours or longer in holding cells within the Tucson Sector; more than 24,000 of these individuals were held for 48 hours or longer.

“Border Patrol seems to think these brutal conditions, and the human suffering that results, will deter immigration, but the fact is that many of these people are fleeing persecution and violence, reuniting with family, or are themselves U.S. citizens,” said James Duff Lyall, an attorney with ACLU of Arizona. “These policies and practices serve no legitimate purpose, violate the U.S. Constitution, and offend basic American values.”

Children traveling with their mothers are subjected to similar abuse. Several declarants described their children crying through the night from hunger and cold. One declarant reported that she did not receive clean diapers for her two-year-old for the duration of her 28 hours in detention. The woman’s declaration reports that she was finally forced to remove her two-year-old daughter’s soiled diaper—with nowhere to dispose of it and no replacement available.

“All detainees should receive basic medical care in these facilities,” said Travis Silva, Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. “CBP routinely confiscates medication from detainees, even those carrying a valid prescription. This behavior endangers lives and inflicts unnecessary suffering.”

CBP fails to screen detainees for health conditions and does not provide adequate medical attention even in extreme cases. One woman who survived sexual assault during her journey reported heavy vaginal bleeding and failed to receive any medical attention at the facility. Agents confiscated another woman’s pain medication; she was eight months pregnant and her ankle was broken. Agents told her not to cry because she “was just going to be deported,” she said.

“It is important to break through the secrecy that surrounds these holding facilities,” said Colette Reiner Mayer, Palo Alto partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP. “No American would accept how the government treats people whose only crime is wanting a better life.”

Doe, et al. v. Johnson, et al. was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. Attorneys on the case include Preciado, Linton Joaquin, and Karen C. Tumlin of the National Immigration Law Center; Kenney, Emily Creighton, and Melissa Crow of the American Immigration Council; Mayer, Harold J. McElhinny, Louise C. Stoupe, Kevin M. Coles, Pieter S. de Ganon, and Elizabeth Balassone of Morrison & Foerster LLP; Silva of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area; and Lyall, Victoria Lopez, and Dan Pochoda of ACLU of Arizona.

Link to the Article:

http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1652

How US Private Prisons Profit from Immigrant Detention

May 12, 2015
Melanie Diaz and Timothy Keen - Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

In February 2015, a large-scale prison uprising broke out at the Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, Texas. The detention center has experienced riots like this in the past over several other issues, such as inadequate health services, inhumane conditions, and sexual abuse.[i] However, the grievances that sparked this most recent uprising are representative of a larger and more elusive epidemic. The covert and insidious world of the prison industrial complex (PIC)[1] is witnessing the rise of for-profit prisons largely devoid of oversight and regulatory measures, allowing rampant human rights abuses to persist.[ii] Unfortunately, events that took place in Raymondville are far from isolated incidents under this new paradigm.[iii] Operating in the shadows of U.S. bureaucracy, private prison corporations (PPCs) have garnered an infamous reputation for profiting from the government-subsidized business of immigrant detention. Due to this, for-profit prison corporations lobby extensively and provide exorbitant political contributions so that Congress will appropriate more money into immigration enforcement, fueling the revenue of the PIC.

How It Works
The increased detention rate of undocumented immigrants in the United States is primarily caused by a cyclical process occurring between three main actors: government agencies, private prison corporations (PPCs), and Congress. Each of these entities play their own role in adding to the existing problem, but together they create a cycle that is difficult to break. While Congress passes anti-immigration legislations, government agencies enforce these laws and contract with PPCs to facilitate an increasing number of federally convicted detainees. In return, PPCs, whose profits are dependent on the number of incarcerated individuals, rely on lobbying efforts to influence Congress into passing laws and appropriating spending to increase strict immigration policies.[iv] These efforts allow PPCs to reap better financial deals from contracts with government agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which enforce the anti-immigration laws passed by Congress.[v] These combined factors cause incarceration rates to skyrocket, thus making PPCs the ultimate winner in this deceptive cycle that hinders progressive immigration reforms and the promotion of immigrant rights.

The Role of ICE
The government agency responsible for the enforcement of immigration laws is the Bureau of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), organized under the DHS. According to ICE’s website, the agency’s mission is to identify, apprehend, detain, and remove “criminal aliens and other removable individuals located in the United States.”[vi] In 2005, however, the DHS launched its zero-tolerance Operation Streamline policy, making it a federal crime for undocumented immigrants to enter and re-enter the United States. This immigration policy, which criminalizes more immigrants than before, is one of the primary reasons for the rise in detention rates. Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS) and former President of the Latin American Studies Association, describes the anti-immigration laws throughout the early 1990s as “prevention through deterrence,” and Operation Streamline is just a later policy of this same tactic.[vii]

ICE is attempting to deter immigrants from coming to the United States by criminalizing undocumented entry, and housing migrants in detention centers. The United States has even detained immigrants seeking refugee status, which is an act that is highly controversial in the public arena. The Artesia Detention Center, for example, housed 287 families from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in 2014.[viii] These families were completely made up of mothers and children (no men at all), totaling to 603 people.[ix] Not only is it an international abnormality for children immigrants to face detention, but it is also extremely difficult for these women and children to receive separate hearings to determine their refugee status. Finally, the result of ICE’s attempts to increase the number of detained people is the predictable over-crowding of its own facilities. Therefore, ICE has begun to reach out to PPCs in search of a solution.

Link to the Article:

Part One:
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1640
Part Two:
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1641
Part Three:
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1642

Also Read..

5/19: An alleged beating is generating new criticism for the Northwest Detention Center, which holds people living in the country without legal permission
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1643

5/21: China university rebukes US espionage allegations
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1644

5/27: Tea party bills targeting immigrant tuition, sanctuary cities die
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1645

5/29: Graphic Novel Illustrates the Architecture of Immigration Detention
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1646

6/1: Muslim woman alleges discrimination on US flight
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1647

6/2: Supreme Court Smacks Down Another Racist Arizona Law
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1648

6/8: Young voices from the border: Fear and unaccompanied migrant children
Part One:
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1650
Part Two:
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1651

6/11: Study: Private contracts encourage federal immigrant detentions
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1653

6/12: ACLU, Partners File Suit Against US Border Patrol for Savage Treatment in Detention Facilities

Please download our latest newsletter: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/Newsletter/Summer15.pdf

Useful Immigrant Resources on Detention and Deportation

Face Sheet: Immigration Detention--Questions and Answers (Dec, 2008) by: http://www.thepoliticsofimmigration.org

Thanks for GREAT works from Detention Watch Network (DWN) to compiled the following information, please visit DWN website: http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org

Tracking ICE's Enforcement Agenda
Real Deal fact sheet on detention
Real Deal fact sheet on border

- From Raids to Deportation-A Community Resource Kit
- Know Your Rights in the Community (English, Spanish)
- Know Your Rights in Detention
- Pre-Raid Community Safety Plan
- Raids to Deportation Map
- Raids to Deportation Policy Map

More on Immigration Resource Page
http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/resource.htm

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