America's Voice Blog

Posted 11/03/11 at 11:19am By Mahwish Khan

“The Border Patrol Has Become a Rogue Agency”

Border PatrolVery powerful op-ed in The Hill, written by Professor Randall McGuire about the Border Patrol titled, Border Patrol abuses of human rights must be stopped. McGuire analyzes the report, A Culture of Cruelty: Abuse And Impunity In Short-Term U.S. Border Patrol Custody," which was issued earlier this year by the group, No More Deaths. We wrote about the report, when it was released in September, here.

Professor McGuire cuts right to the problem with Border Patrol. It's a "rogue agency":

Rather than these abuses being the work of a few rogue agents, the Border Patrol has become a rogue agency. The report draws on interviews with almost 13,000 deportees conducted over 2.5 years. Deportees consistently report the same abuses. Some shared José Miguel’s experiences of physical injury, verbal abuse, and the withholding of food, water and medical care. Many others reported being separated from their families, being endangered in the desert by Border Patrol’s aggressive “dusting” tactic, not having credentials and money returned to them, being repatriated at night in a dangerous city, and being housed in unsanitary, overcrowded holding pens. Increasingly, deportees report psychological abuses that meet the definition of torture under international law.

Existing policies under the Department of Homeland Security for the treatment of individuals in custody and an international agreement between the United States and México concerning the treatment of Mexican deportees forbid these abuses.  Despite this fact, inadequate procedures exist within the Border Patrol for identifying and correcting systematic abuse.

The abuses continue as part of United States border policy. 

McGuire is right: "the Border Patrol has become a rogue agency." Who is going to rein it in?

Posted 10/26/11 at 03:12pm By Pili Tobar

Five Years After Bush’s Border Fence, Enforcement-Only Measures Are Still Not the Answer

border fenceThis October 26th marks the fifth anniversary of President George W. Bush’s signing the law to build a 700-mile fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. Five years later the “border security first” approach has gotten us nowhere. Yet, it’s still the number one response from GOP Presidential candidates when asked about immigration.

During the GOP Presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library on September 7th, Telemundo reporter Jose Diaz Balart asked GOP candidates what they would do to address the 11 million undocumented people in this country. The candidates’ overwhelming response was (and continues to be) that we need to secure the border before we can have that discussion.

The truth of the matter is the border is more secure today than it has been in the past. The border security budget has increased to $17 billion a year. There are now almost 21,000 boots on the ground and border apprehensions have fallen more than 70%. Yet for the GOP presidential candidates this isn’t enough - nothing ever will be. And they keep using that as an excuse to avoid having a broader discussion and introducing a real plan that will address our broken immigration system.

In the meantime states like Alabama are passing patchwork legislation that is leading to the suffering of many families – filled with citizens, legal residents, and yes, undocumented immigrants. The idea that we can enforce our way to a reformed immigration system has lead to a civil and human rights crisis that will only get worse without federal leadership.

The solution is not to build an electrified fence, as Herman Cain so graciously put it. It’s not to make life impossible for undocumented immigrants or anyone who “looks foreign” either.

Elected officials and candidates must address immigration reform and stop using border security as an excuse to ignore other vital aspects they don’t want to deal with.  The true challenge is not border security, but to find a comprehensive solution that will reform our visa programs and offer a path to citizenship to the 11 million undocumented people that are already in this country and contributing to our economy every day.

President Bush’s 700 mile fence was not the solution then, and a border security first approach is not the solution now. Border enforcement is only part of the comprehensive plan we need to address our broken immigration system. GOP presidential candidates need to stop hiding behind this excuse and give a real answer. We need sensible, humane immigration reform and we need candidates that have the guts to talk about it. Otherwise, five years from now we’ll find ourselves still stuck in the same place. 

Posted 10/17/11 at 04:16pm By Pili Tobar

Herman Cain’s “Electric Fence” Comment Not a Joke to Latino Voters

cain bachmannA new poll shows that Latino voters don’t know who the Republican 2012 presidential candidates are, but they don’t like what they’re hearing. 

This weekend, former Godfather Pizza CEO and newest GOP “front-runner” Herman Cain called for an electrified border fence capable of killing people, coupled with “real guns and real bullets” to deter border-crossers.

As Brent A. Wilkes, vice chairman of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, said to the New York Times:

These folks who come across the border are at most committing a misdemeanor.  To suggest that they would be electrocuted or shot would be to treat them harsher than we treat murderers or rapists.

Cain later tried to walk back his comment—no surprise, considering that even the extremist Center for Immigration Studies thinks electrocuting border immigrants is a bad idea.  You can be sure that Latinos won’t be quick to forget his comment, however, which means continued tensions between this fast-growing demographic and an intolerant GOP.

Cain wasn’t even the only GOP candidate making incendiary comments about immigration this weekend.  Michele Bachmann went to the town of Perry, Iowa, where 33% of the population is Hispanic, to deliver a screed about the costs of illegal immigration (bolstered by wildly exaggerated cost estimates) and signed a border security pledge from the fringe group “Americans for Securing Our Border.”

Meanwhile, the Hispanic Leadership Network, a Republican-affiliated effort to improve Party competitiveness with Latino voters, can’t even muster up a pro-immigration policy for its website, relying on hackneyed platitudes like, “Now more than ever we need to bring our country together and find common sense solutions to address our broken immigration system.”  Another cop-out placeholder on the site: “Look for our policy position in the next few weeks.”

It’s no surprise that a new poll released today by Latino Decisions / impreMedia finds the Republican field facing both low name recognition and low Party approval numbers among Latino voters.  The polling found that 40% of Latino respondents had no opinion or were not familiar with Rick Perry, a figure that rose to 46% for Mitt Romney, 58% for Michele Bachmann, 73% for Herman Cain, and 75% for John Hunstman.

As a whole, the Republican Party also faces low approval numbers among Latino voters, as only 22% of the demographic said they were likely to support the Republican presidential nominee.  That’s a long way from the 40% minimum needed for the GOP candidate to re-take the White House.

The new polling also shows that Latino voters continue to be motivated by the immigration issue, ranking it as the top issue (alongside the economy/jobs) for Washington to address.  Instead of viewing this problem of low name recognition and poor brand image as an opportunity for Republicans to reshape Latino voter sentiment, the GOP presidential field has tacked hard right and seems to be doing everything it can to make the Party’s relationship with Latino voters worse.

As our own Frank Sharry, Executive Director here at America’s Voice, summarized: 

Republicans seem intent to double down on their existing image among Latino voters as insensitive, anti-Latino, and anti-immigrant.  It’s the height of short-sighted politics for the GOP field to continue to find new ways to tell Latino voters, many of whom live in mixed legal status families, that they are essentially not welcome in the Republicans’ vision of America.  It’s also a missed opportunity to view the field’s low level of name recognition among Latinos as a chance to redefine the Party as more welcoming to new immigrants and Latinos.

Exactly.

For more information, see:

America’s Voice report on the 2012 Republican Field and Immigration: Why Do Elephants Put their Heads in the Sand?

America’s Voice report on Latino Republican candidates: ATTN GOP: Latino Candidates Not Enough to Win Latino Vote

Posted 10/13/11 at 10:27am By Web Team

South Park Takes on Immigration and Border Patrol

For your viewing pleasure this morning, we're forwarding around clips from last night's episode of South Park, "The Last of the Meheecans."  Hilarious and relevant, it's also a sign of how thoroughly the immigration debate has permeated pop culture and the American consciousness.  Butters IS the "last of the Meheecans," immigrants from Mexico decide to return home, and the Border Patrol--among other Americans--realize how necessary immigrants are.

We can't embed the full episode, but below are a couple of clips.  The whole episode can be viewed here.

Posted 09/23/11 at 04:05pm By Mahwish Khan

New Report Documents Over 30,000 Counts of Border Patrol Abuse

detroit churchIn July, outside of a Catholic Church in Detroit, Border Patrol agents handcuffed a Latino man for what witnesses say was no reason at all. His only crime, according to on-lookers, was looking Latino. Later, it was found that the man arrested was residing in the US legally, and he was released. Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated indicident. Far from it according to a new report, A Culture of Cruelty: Abuse And Impunity In Short-Term U.S. Border Patrol Custody," which details rampant U.S. Border Patrol abuse of immigration detainees, deportees and migrants apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico Border." 

Border Patrol has become a national embarrassment.

"Instead of going after hard-core criminals, they would rather go to areas like southwest Detroit and harass people who have the wrong color," says Ryan Bates, Director of the Michigan office of the Alliance for Immigrants Rights and Reform.  Earlier this year, Ryan Bates headed the charge against ICE agents in Detroit who were stalking undocumented immigrants at a local elementary school.

Father Tom Supelveda who saw what happened at the Church told Michigan radio that the incident “disturbed” him, and he was worried over the effect that it would have over his predominantly Latino congregation. According to Michigan Radio’s Sarah Cwiek, “’It certainly is going to kill their desire to come in this direction, or the direction of any church,’ Supelveda says. ‘It’s as if no place is safe.’”

Ironically, the raid happened as special prayers were being held inside the Church for St. Anne, who was named this year as the patron saint of Detroit, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Of course, Border Patrol denies any wrong-doing. But, that’s a very hard sell after according to the new report which was released this week by No More Deaths – a group whose mission is to end death and suffering on the U.S./Mexico border through civil initiative. "A Culture of Cruelty" documents human rights abuses by the US Border Patrol. Through 4,130 interviews with 12,895 individuals who had been in the custody of Border Patrol, the report details more than 30,000 incidents of abuse in the past three years. Among them:

  • Denial of sufficient food and water

  • Failure to provide access to medical treatment

  • Inhumane processing center conditions

  • Verbal, physical, and psychological abuse

  • Separation of family members

  • Dangerous repatriation practices.

Via the Examiner:

Danielle Alvarado was a co-author of A Culture of Cruelty and also Crossing the Line, a similar report on Border Patrol abuse released in 2008. "A key takeaway from the report this time is that not only did these abuses continue, but the Border Patrol knows about them, and rather than addressing these concerns, they have adopted a position that they don't exist or are not worth taking a serious look," she said.

"There is no mechanism for oversight that can hold agents accountable for the mistreatment that we know happens on a regular basis," Alvarado said.

Posted 09/13/11 at 01:53pm By Van Le

Immigration Policy Center Explains Difference Between Border Security, Immigration Enforcement

border securityThe Republican primary candidates convened for another debate yesterday (livetweeted here) and no surprise, their answers to the night’s immigration questions were the same old, same old.

One after the other, the candidates tried to explain why immigration reform simply could not be pursued until after the border is secure, ignoring the fact that the border is more secure than ever and declining to give any idea of when exactly the border might be safe enough for them.  We don’t know who they’re trying to fool. Voters -- especially Latino voters -- understand that their talking point is merely a perpetuated deflect designed to protect them from having to talk about immigration.  But still, the GOP continues to stick its collective head in the sand.

In an event entitled “Is the Border Broken? Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom,” also held yesterday, a panel of speakers at the Immigration Policy Center discussed the dangers of this sort of approach and tried  to decouple the problem of border security from that of immigration enforcement.

“Illegal immigration is NOT a security issue,” said Josiah McC. Heyman, the Chair of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Texas-El Paso.  “If we want to prioritize cracking down on immigration, we must separate it from security, and vice versa.”

Heyman, along with fellow panelists Terry Goddard, the Former Attorney General of Arizona; Eric L. Olson, Senior Associate of the Mexico Institute; and Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center explained that politicians who were serious about securing the border would go after drug cartels.  This would involve persecuting money launderers, disrupting smuggling chains, and imprisoning whole organizations of offenders.

Marshaling the resources necessary to deal with this true threat, according to the panel, would mean that there would be no resources left to handle undocumented immigrants—nor should there be.  Undocumented immigrants, regardless of their positive or negative effects on the U.S. economy or social safety net, simply don’t have anything to do with security.  To waste limited resources going after them is to pursue a political agenda that forsakes true safety for an empty, xenophobic gain.

According to Heyman:

Security along the southwest border and across the whole nation requires that we focus on the critical role of targeted intelligence—slow, careful, long-term investigative work aimed at specific individuals and networks, focused on guns, money, and terrorism. This differs in crucial ways from the current approach to border security, which is unselective, inefficient, and massive: witness the costly and time-consuming, as well as inhumane, arrest annually of approximately 500,000 unauthorized migrants in the region, none of them terrorists and very few of them dangerous criminals.

An IPC blog summarizing the event concludes:

Anyone who lives in or near a border town can tell you that building a taller fence and investing yet more resources into chasing undocumented immigrants do nothing to address real threats to our security. Only by focusing enforcement resources on bringing down the cartels responsible for smuggling drugs, guns, money and people across the border can we say that we’re serious about security. Anything less—like conflating undocumented immigrants with crime—is just cheap political pandering to those, as Goddard describes, “whose real intent is not to fix the border, but to stop and reverse all immigration in the United States.”

Posted 09/08/11 at 02:54pm By Mahwish Khan

Did Border Patrol Agents Miss the Memo on the New Immigration Policy—or Are They Ignoring It?

Woman in HandcuffsA lot of our attention has been focused on the practices of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency -- and rightly so. But lately, we've been hearing a lot more stories about the harsh tactics employed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers. We were led to believe that the enforcement priorities of ICE and CBP would change in light of the new deportation policy announced last month by the Obama administration, but an article by Julian Aguilar at Texas Tribune raises more concerns about how the agency is complying with the new directive. The full article is a must read. Here's an excerpt: 

Lara, originally from Delicias, Chihuahua, is five months pregnant and the mother of two U.S. citizen children. She is in the country illegally because she overstayed a visa. Her attorney says she’s the “poster child” for leniency under the June directive. 

Instead, Lara was detained and processed by immigration authorities in Anthony, N.M., last week after she admitted to having expired documents when local police and U.S. Border Patrol agents came to the door looking for her sister.

It means the “left hand isn’t aware of what the right hand is doing,” said Carlos Spector, Lara’s El Paso-based attorney. "I think it’s important to note that this [directive] has not reached the lowest levels of ICE ... because [Border Patrol agents] are still picking up pregnant women."

In the June directive, ICE Director John Morton told prosecutors to evaluate several factors when determining which illegal immigrants to place in deportation proceedings, part of a plan to concentrate ICE’s finite resources on removing the most dangerous criminal aliens. These factors included immigrants' health, their children’s immigration status, how long they had been in the country, and whether or not they were “low profile” — the government’s term for nonviolent, nonessential deportees. That memo was followed last month by an announcement that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Customs and Border Protection, would review the cases of the 300,000 people currently in deportation proceedings to determine if any should be released and subsequently allowed to apply for work authorization.

Lara was released from detention, but not until she was hospitalized after becoming panic stricken and physically ill during her stay. She says an agent threatened to deport her to Ciudad Juárez, where drug cartel violence is widespread.

It's difficult to see how Roxann Lara is a high priority for the Department of Homeland Security. Clearly, there's much work to be done to educate the agents on the front line:

“The most critical part of this policy is going to be how they monitor it in the field,” [Director of the Migration Policy Institute at the NYU School of Law Muzaffar] Chishti said. “How are you going to notify people ... and what is the accountability if an officer chooses not to exercise the discretion on the basis of the guidelines?"

Lara’s case indicates that, at least in certain Border Patrol sectors, the jury is still out. 

The jury is still out. We and other immigrant activists will keep watching ICE and CBP to see if they're following the new policy.

Posted 08/24/11 at 03:48pm By Mahwish Khan

How Secure Communities, ICE and Border Patrol Undermine Public Safety

Safety First Secure CommunitiesLocal and national immigration experts spoke on a call with reporters to relate stories and highlight concerns that Secure Communities and other police-immigration collaboration efforts are destroying the relationship between police and immigrants and making communities across the country less safe.  The federal Secure Communities (S-Comm) program has come under fire from law enforcement, elected officials, and immigrant advocates from across the country for its lack of focus and dangerous impacts on community security.  

As we reported earlier today, the Arlington, Virginia community is scheduled to speak out tonight about this damaging program in the final field hearing of Department of Homeland Security Secure Communities Task Force.  The Task Force is a non-governmental body convened by DHS to examine the program and make recommendations to improve it. 

During the press call, America’s Voice Education Fund (AVEF) released a new report, “Public Safety on ICE: How Do You Police a Community That Won’t Talk to You?”, documenting how immigration enforcement by local police creates a “chilling effect” in immigrant communities, making victims and witnesses of crimes afraid to get help from cops who might deport them. The report includes cases from community advocates and law enforcement officials, demonstrating that the “chilling effect” is being felt in communities around the country as a result of Secure Communities and other policies that blur the distinction between local police and federal immigration agents. Here's one example that Flequer J. Vera-Olcese from the AMOS Project in Cincinnati, Ohio, shared of a recent case.  The example illustrates how pervasive the fear of police is in immigrant communities: 

Fifteen year-old Laura, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and a special-needs child, was kidnapped and raped.  When Laura turned up missing, her parents were afraid to go immediately to the police and instead investigated on their own.  After several days they found Laura, and her mother took her to the police so she could report what had happened.  More than a month later, the family remains afraid of following-up with the police, seesawing through a mix of emotions.  While they want justice for their daughter, they also fear that multiple contacts with the police could lead to the entire family’s deportation.:

Criminals should be afraid of the police. Immigrants should NOT be.  Programs that involve state and local police in immigration enforcement—like S-Comm and 287(g)—are destroying the relationship between police and the immigrant community.  These programs violate the core principles of community policing because they make immigrants afraid of having any contact with the police.  This means immigrants are less likely to report crimes, more criminals go free, and entire communities are less safe. (For more on this, read Lynn Tramonte's blog post, "'Secure Communities' Leads to Insecure Communities".)

Enforcing our point, Alexsa Alonzo, Associate Director of Advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said:

Using local law enforcement efforts as a gateway to immigration enforcement erodes immigrant communities’ trust in the police and local governments and makes us less safe.  Police are perceived as no longer just protecting public safety but also as enforcing immigration law.

“Fear of police in immigrant communities along the U.S.-Canada border is palpable and only heightened by Border Patrol’s increased collaboration with local law enforcement,” said OneAmerica Policy Director, Ada Williams Prince. “Put simply, immigrants stop calling the police during emergencies when they know that Border Patrol will follow close behind.”
 
The call also featured Marisa Vertrees, Social Justice Coordinator of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, who has been working with members of the community to prepare for tonight’s Task Force hearing.  Like earlier field hearings in Dallas, TX; Los Angeles, CA; and Chicago, IL, the Arlington hearing will no doubt demonstrate the level of frustration and fear that Secure Communities has caused in immigrant communities.  Arlington County has been trying to opt-out of the program, but has been unable to do so because of the federal government’s mandate that all cities and states participate.
 
According to Vertrees: “Through our work with the immigrant community, we in the faith community have seen the harm that local enforcement does to the community.  Tonight at the hearing we will bring forward the stories we have heard from families who have been torn apart by overly aggressive enforcement programs, as well as immigrants, both documented and not, who are now afraid to deal with the police and are forced to live in the shadows. And because for the first and only time translation services will be available at the hearing, the Task Force will have the chance to hear these stories from the immigrant community themselves.  We hope that bringing forward what we have seen will convince the administration to end the deeply flawed Secure Communities program.”

Posted 08/18/11 at 10:43am By Mahwish Khan

Washington Post Blasts GOP’s “Scare Tactics on the Border,” Singles out John Cornyn

border securityA scathing editorial today in the Washington Post blasts the Republican Party's "scare tactics" on border security:

Given the clear data, it is hard to view these scare tactics as anything but a cynical effort to distort the debate on immigration reform. The intent is to distract Americans from the problem of 11 million immigrants here illegally by pointing to an imaginary wave of crime and instability at the border. Of course, goes the argument, we need immigration reform, but we can’t possibly achieve it until order is restored.

The Republican strategy is dishonest and effective.

Absolutely right.

The Post singles out the Texas Senator John Cornyn for his blatant hypocrisy on the immigration issue:

Members of Congress, such as Mr. Cornyn, have tried to have it both ways. On the one hand, as a senator with a large constituency of Hispanic voters, he’s acknowledged the pressing need for immigration reform. On the other hand, Mr. Cornyn has voted against virtually all serious legislation aimed at fixing the nation’s immigration system, including bills sought by the Bush administration.

In a congressional hearing, he pressed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to specify how much additional “time and efforts” are needed to secure the border. But at the same time Mr. Cornyn has never defined what a secure border would look like, and he’s only glancingly acknowledged that illegal crossings have plummeted.

There's a reason America's Voice gave Cornyn the "Biggest Hypocrite on Immigration" Award earlier this year.  He has tried to have it both ways, but without ever actually doing anything to solve the problem. Instead, he continues his irresponsible rhetoric on border security. 

The conclusion is especially powerful:

Horror stories about an out-of-control border are untethered from the facts. They’re also irresponsible. By using the myth of escalating border insecurity as an excuse for inaction on the pressing reality of a broken immigration system, politicians perpetuate both a lie and the national disgrace of a dysfunctional policy.

It's rare for an editorial to accuse politicians of lying. But that's exactly what Republican politicians are doing on the issue of border security, and it is a national disgrace.

Posted 08/11/11 at 05:00am By Mahwish Khan

The “Creepy” Mission of the Customs and Border Patrol: Harassing Immigrants

US Border PatrolOver the weekend, the Washington Post ran a feature on Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and the work the agency does at Dulles Airport.

The people who work in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at Dulles International Airport — seizing joints, ivory, dirt, live crabs, caches of Iranian jewelry, leopard skins, all manner of sausages and anything anyone could ever think to smuggle in — see the world tucked into this luggage arriving from overseas.

The favorite flavors people miss from home, the pets people can’t bear to leave behind, the scams they run, the souvenirs they can’t pass up, the drugs they hide in children’s juice boxes, the religious items they cherish. It’s all right there.

“Every day is like opening presents. Every day you find something really unusual,” said Kristi Currier, an agriculture specialist who leads a small, cheerful beagle around the luggage carousel to sniff out apples, pork and other threats.

That's one side of the CBP story. But in reality, much of the other work of CBP is not just "like opening presents."  For example, in March, the agency was instrumental in deporting a four year old US citizen back to Guatemala. A month later, we reported that a Los Angeles musician was tasered into a coma by an Arizona border patrol agent.

The CBP has seen a massive increase in its budget. So massive that the agency has expanded its mission far beyond what most people think. It's become a de facto police force in towns and cities along both borders. Seattle Weekly wrote an extensive expose about the intrusive work of CBP. We've done one post on this important piece, and it's a read rich with information about CBP. One thing is clear: They're not just looking for jewelry and ivory. They're looking for people -- and harassing citizens and immigrants along the way.

The article begins by documenting the death of Roldan Salinas:

Salinas' death traumatized the Hispanic population of Forks—about a third of the town's 3,500 residents—and cast light on the Border Patrol's aggressive presence in town. Agents have stopped and questioned Hispanics paying their water bill at City Hall, filling up at the gas station, leaving the grocery store, and riding their bikes. High-school students as well as adults have been asked for their papers, according to the Forks Human Rights Group, which has compiled nearly 80 stories of such encounters.

Agents also hover in the woods for hours, sometimes deep into the night, says Mayor Bryon Monohon. "It's creepy," he says. "People just disappear and we have no way of tracking them." (The nearest immigration detention center in Tacoma, roughly 160 miles away, does not readily provide information about detainees.)

Just as troubling to the mayor is what the Border Patrol is doing in Forks in the first place. The town is nearly 60 miles from the nearest port of entry from Canada, in Port Angeles, which is served by a small ferry that travels between the Olympic Peninsula and the picturesque city of Victoria on Vancouver Island. The nearest land border crossing, much more heavily trafficked, is 200 miles away, in Blaine.

The Border Patrol, however, claims jurisdiction over all territory 100 miles from an actual border. Federal law has long granted the agency the authority to work this far inland. But it is only since 9/11, as the federal government has granted the agency more money and manpower, that its resources have matched its ambitions. The change has been especially noticeable on the northern border, where the number of agents has increased exponentially.

In 2000, there were a little more than 300 agents patrolling up north. By last year that number had ballooned to 2,263, an increase of more than 700 percent.

Officers in the agency have also been known to fight boredom by falling asleep.  For more on how your tax dollars are used to fund their naptimes, click here. 

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