UN Human Rights Day for Immigrants is on ICE

SAN FRANCISCO (12-11) - On December 10, nations around the world celebrated Human Rights Day, marking the 77th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Paris in 1948. The UDHR was the first international document to affirm “unalienable rights” and to set forth “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” calling for the universal protection of these rights. Unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, the Declaration is widely regarded as the foundation of modern international human rights law, emphasizing the principles of freedom, justice, and peace. Since that time, the declaration has been translated into 577 languages, from “Abkhaz to Zulu” making it the most translated document in the world.

The Human Rights Day observed in San Francisco had an historic overtone as the United Nations was founded here in 1945 in the aftermath of WWII. Human rights activists commemorating Human Right Day gathered on the steps outside City Hall where several speakers addressed the present state of human rights both here and abroad. This was followed by a series of participants who each read one of the 30 articles contained in the UDHR.

When addressing those assembled, Hene Kelley of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee AD 19, related the importance of the role that women played in the creation and establishment of the UDHR through 81 meetings held by a United Nations Committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. She went on to say that the declaration never used “he” or “she” in its entirety thus rendering it generally neutral in making the point that human rights are for all people. Instead, it uses the words “everyone” and “people” throughout its entirety. She characterized the UDHR as “perfect,” going further to reflect, too, that the United Nations “listened to those women.” Her upbeat comments were followed by the reality of Human Rights in today’s world.

In opening the rally, a statement by Human Rights Watch was read relating that “The current Trump administration has also drastically and lethally cut foreign human rights efforts and is partnering with rights-abusing governments in ways that fuel rising authoritarianism around the world.”

Much of what was to be discussed by the speakers respective to Human Rights violations evolved around the notion of fear. In his book, Anger, Fear, Domination—Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech, William A. Glaston discusses “The Rhetoric of Fear” by reflecting that fear is a tool used by “ambitious leaders” to manipulate their followers’ aspiration for security which they promise to assuage at the cost of their liberty. Acknowledging that while “Events can generate fear…human decisions shape its consequences.”

This sobering assessment was followed by Bismah Jaffer, civil rights attorney at CAIR-SFBA, who opened her comments by saying that we exist as human beings and that “we have universal rights inherent to us all. We all have the right to life, to food, to education, to health and liberty.” She followed with the reality of how many people struggle in their daily lives to meet even their most basic needs.

In speaking on the present state of human rights in today’s world, she related that she has had clients whose children have “faced teachers who are bullying and encouraging discrimination against Palestinian students as young as five years old.” And conversely, that she has met good honest educators who have been “terminated for teaching the facts about the genocide in Palestine.”

Referring to human rights regarding ICE and their sowing quiet fear, she said that “My colleagues walk into immigration appointments with their clients and walk out alone. Their clients are detained by ICE for no discernable reason…I cannot ignore ICE agents showing up to people’s homes and putting them in custody. I cannot ignore the changing rules and their inequitable enforcement. I cannot ignore the everyday person choosing their morals and speaking up against genocide and losing their job…ICE agents, even the president, do not know the basics of law.”

She concluded her comments by noting that “We got here by failing to vilify the White supremacists, the racists, the Nazis. This time there will be no place to hide not in South America, not in our White House, nowhere.”

Savanah Landau from The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador Bay Area (CISPES BA) spoke on the state of human rights in El Salvador under the self-proclaimed “world's coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele. When in March of 2022 in reaction to gang violence that saw more than 85 people killed in a single violent incident, the government in El Salvado implemented “a state of exception” that suspended constitutional rights, many of which are enshrined in the UDHR. Consequently, El Salvador has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of prisoners per capita (1,659 per 100,0000) of any country in the world. The large number of prisoners is due, she said, to “arbitrary suspicions that officers can decide upon. Thus, people out on daily errands or walking around can be gathered up and imprisoned merely on ‘suspicion.’ It is not a coincidence that Donald Trump has implemented very similar tactics against migrants in our communities, by targeting them, arresting them, and not giving them due process.”

Landau mentioned how San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie met with El Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ullola on December 8 to “establish a relationship with the government of El Salvador” that she characterized as “a press tour to restore their (El Salvador’s) image” in light of their human rights abuses that included the jailing of Venezuelans deported from the US that are being held in the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT ) prison.

“We should condemn Daniel Laurie for meeting with the vice president of a government that is using ‘a state of exception’ similar to how Donald Trump is occupying other blue cities in this country, attacking migrants in our communities.”

Bruce Neuberger, of the First Unitarian Universalists of San Francisco and member of a Holocaust family, reflected on the differences between Nazi Germany in the 1930s and America in 2025. “What did not exist in Germany in those years was a mass movement of resistance. We have such a movement.” He cited as evidence mass protests against the Trump regime as embodied in nationwide and worldwide actions such as “No Kings” and others along with local organizing to defend against the attacks on immigrant communities by ICE.” These actions, he concluded, “show the potential to defeat Fascism and possibly even plant the seeds of a more just social order. That could even fulfill the vision expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

At the conclusion of the rally, several human rights activists visited the offices of elected representatives in City Hall and the nearby California State Office Complex where at several representatives offices they hand-delivered copies of the UDHR and encouraged staff members to convey their message in asking their representatives to always keep the principles of the declaration in mind in all decisions they make.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

© 2025 nuzeink all rights reserved worldwide