America's Voice Blog

Posted 12/06/11 at 09:42am By Mahwish Khan

Occupy Birmingham Teams Up With Immigrant Rights Activists to Protest Gadsden Detention Center

Detention CenterOn Saturday, December 3, William Anderson, Ingrid Chapman, and Victor Palafox – some of my favorite organizers in Alabama  – teamed up with Occupy Birmingham and organized a protest of the Etowah County detention center in Gadsden, Alabama. According to Occupy Birmingham, followers of the popular “Occupy Wall Street” movement:

Opposition to the undue influence of money and corporate interests on the country’s politics has been one of the driving forces behind the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York as well as the hundreds of solidarity movements across the country. The same is true of the Occupy Birmingham movement, which plans to call attention to the link between corporate influence over state politics and Alabama’s new, repressive immigration policy, H.B. 56.

Various Occupy movements throughout the country have allied themselves with immigrant rights activists, frequently including a call for the DREAM Act and end to deportations in their list of grievances. In the end of November, Occupy LA called for "Los Angeles to be declared a sanctuary city for the undocumented, deportations to be discontinued and cooperation with immigration authorities be ended – including the turning in of arrestees’ names to immigration authorities," according to Southern California Public Radio. 

According to Lisa Rogers of The Gadsden Times, a crowd of about 150 to 200 people marched in the block near the courthouse and Etowah County Detention Center, yelling chants, such as “This is what democracy looks like,” “No papers. No fears," and "Immigrants are marching here.”

At one point, detainees, who were watching from the window, held up signs to thank the protestors for taking a stance.

“As I was leading chants I saw this and was temporarily silenced,“ writes William Anderson on his facebook page. “Makes you feel ...hopeful, yet haunted. People behind me looked confused, but I was choked up by the signs the detainees pressed to the window. ‘Help’, ‘I miss my children’, ‘Hungry’,’ Justice’…”

The Birmingham News reports that the Etowah County Commission approved on Nov. 1 for ICE to lease the third floor of the Etowah County Courthouse, an addition to the space it already leases from the county in the detention center. The Gadsden Times newspaper reported that ICE will pay about $111,000 a year to lease the jail and courthouse space.

Be sure to visit Occupy Birmingham's facebook page and thank them for standing up for immigrants who are being oppressed by the country's harshest immigration law. 

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

ARC Report: 5,100 Children of Deported Parents Now In Foster Care

Families SplitWe know that deportations can have a destructive impact on immigrant families. A new report from the Applied Research Center, Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, found that over 5,000 children of deported parents are now stuck in the foster care system. 

At Colorlines, Seth Freed Wessler provides an overview:

In a yearlong investigation, the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com, found that at least 5,100 children whose parents are detained or deported are currently in foster care around the United States. That number represents a conservative estimate of the total, based on extensive surveys of child welfare case workers and attorneys and analysis of national immigration and child welfare trends. Many of the kids may never see their parents again.

These children, many of whom should never have been separated from their parents in the first place, face often insurmountable obstacles to reunifying with their mothers and fathers. Though child welfare departments are required by federal law to reunify children with any parents who are able to provide for the basic safety of their children, detention makes this all but impossible. Then, once parents are deported, families are often separated for long periods. Ultimately, child welfare departments and juvenile courts too often move to terminate the parental rights of deportees and put children up for adoption, rather than attempt to unify the family as they would in other circumstances.

Wessler provides several examples of families that have been ripped apart. They are gut-wrenching, and the Secure Communities Program plays a role in this problem:

Local immigration enforcement is metastasizing through initiatives like the 287(g) agreements and, most significantly, through a controversial program called Secure Communities, which allows ICE access to data on every person booked into a county jail. As the federal government shifts its deportation tactics away from high-profile workplace raids and toward enforcement that’s silently tied to the day-to-day functions of local police departments, a growing number of long-time residents with families and deep ties to the U.S. are deported. The program is turning jurisdictions around the country into deportation hotspots. We have identified at least 22 states where children in foster care face barriers to reunifying with their detained or deported mothers and fathers.

Whatever the state of the debate, or rancor, over who should and should not be allowed to live in the U.S., the moral and bureaucratic fallout of deporting 400,000 people a year are accumulating to toxic levels. Child welfare caseworkers say that in the face of an opaque detention system, they are helpless to reunify families. And although federal law requires child welfare departments to make diligent efforts toward family reunification, when parents are detained that’s basically impossible.

The report provides a window into yet another problem with our broken immigration system. As Nancy Pelosi once said, "Taking parents from their children ... that's un-American."

Posted 10/19/11 at 04:25pm By Pili Tobar

On Immigration, Romney Has No Soul, Republicans Have No Game, and DHS Has No Clue

Last night, there were two television options for people interested in immigration reform. PBS premiered a documentary, "Lost in Detention," which was produced by Maria Hinojosa, which "examine[d] the Obama administration’s controversial get-tough immigration policy." Meanwhile, CNN broadcast another GOP presidential debate, this one from Las Vegas. "Lost in Detention" exposed our controversial immigration policy while the GOP debate showed the ugly side of immigration politics. Both could impact the 2012 elections.

The sprint to the right by the Republican presidential candidates, which was on display yet again at last night's debate, should be helpful to President Obama's reelection. It should be. But, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to undercut his Latino outreach efforts.

Last night’s debate, as expected, featured more fireworks over the issue of immigration and turned into a contest of who could talk tougher on the issue.  Governor Rick Perry (TX) launched an attack on Governor Mitt Romney's (MA) employment of undocumented workers. In an attempt to defend his record, Romney tried explained why he insisted his workforce be legal by saying: 

I'm running for office for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals.

Watch part of Romney's exchange with Governor Perry here:

 

Click here to read more.
Posted 10/18/11 at 11:40am By Van Le

Detention Watch Network Video: End Mandatory Detention!

To mark the 15-year anniversary of the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, a coalition of faith, immigrant rights, and community-based organizations joined Detention Watch Network (DWN) today to announce the launch of a new “Dignity, Not Detention” campaign:

The coalition is calling on Congress to repeal all laws mandating the detention of immigrants.  Since IIRIRA passed, there has been a dramatic increase in number of people subject to mandatory detention.  The law requires the government to lock up immigrants—including legal permanent residents and asylum seekers—without the right to due process.

As Silky Shah, Field Organizer for DWN, explained in a press release:

Everyone deserves fair and equal treatment under the law, regardless of their immigration status.  But for the past 15 years, mandatory detention has denied countless people the right to a fair day in court, tearing apart families and communities across the country, and fueling the expansion of a broken immigration detention system.

For the past six months, newlyweds Hope and Nazry Mustakim have suffered under the reality of IIRIRA.  Nazry is a 31-year-old legal permanent resident from Singapore who was detained by ICE in March for a felony drug possession from five years ago.  Even though he has been sober since then and has changed his life around completely, Mustakim’s drug possession charge makes him subject to mandatory detention under IIRIRA, and he has been in a Texas detention center ever since.

Said Hope Mustakim:

My husband has been clean and sober for 5 years now and has dedicated his life to helping others recover from addiction.  We were only married for 8 months before he was taken away from me. Now I only see him twice a month through the pane glass at the detention center, which is a 260 mile drive from my home. The emotional and financial cost of our separation has been devastating, and it saddens me to know that this is happening to other families caught up in the detention system across the country.

Since 1996, the immigration detention system has grown rapidly, from 70,000 people detained annually to about 400,000. The US now maintains a sprawling network of detention facilities, comprised of more than 250 federal, state and private prisons and county jails, at an annual cost of $1.7 billion to taxpayers. The expansion of the detention system has been accompanied by increasing levels of abuse, ranging from substandard living conditions to over 120 immigrant deaths since 2003.

Through its “Dignity, Not Detention campaign”, Detention Watch Network is calling on Congress and the Obama Administration to:

Repeal all laws mandating the detention of non-citizens.

Put an end to all policies and programs that use the criminal justice system to target people for detention and deportation.

Bring the U.S. into compliance with its obligations under international human rights law, which prohibits arbitrary detention.

Posted 10/17/11 at 10:40am By Mahwish Khan

Meet Derrick Cotterel, Seeking Political Asylum. Hindered by the System and His Stutter

derrick cotterelThe Associated Press introduces us to Derrick Cotterel. His story is wrenching -- and says so much about the failings of the immigration detention system in the U.S.:

Derrick Cotterel was a farmworker who came to the United States from Jamaica, picking citrus in Florida and apples in West Virginia for 10 years, before a pay dispute with a landscaping employer led to his arrest last year on robbery charges.

Given his long-expired visa, the arrest landed Cotterel in immigration custody in York, Pa. But judges there struggled for nearly a year to understand his request for political asylum.

Cotterel, 42, speaks a Jamaican patois, or Creole, that might alone be difficult for Americans to grasp. But his speech is further compromised by a severe stutter that makes him nearly impossible to understand.

Nor can he read or write. So many of his thoughts remain trapped inside of him.

The full article warrants a read to get a better understanding of how broken the immigration detention system is. Cotterel's case provides a glimpse.

Cotterel fears death if he's returned to Jamaica--he was injured and scarred in a 1998 machete attack. But, so far, deportation is his fate. An appeal is underway:

York immigration lawyer Craig R. Shagin is frequently asked to take cases pro bono, but can only take a few, and chooses those he thinks have merit. He recently agreed to help Cotterel — who lost his asylum bid — with his appeal. He believes his client could be killed if he returns to Jamaica.

"These types of cases, you basically have death-penalty consequences while employing traffic-court procedures. It's very frightening," Shagin said.

Very frightening, indeed. 

Posted 07/26/11 at 08:46am By Mahwish Khan

Lamar Smith Holds Hearing on HALT Act with David Vitter as Expert Witness on Hypocrisy

Lamar Smith and David VitterSeriously, you can't make this stuff up.

One of the things people hate most about Washington is when Members of Congress imagine problems instead of solving real ones. Case in point: Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) “HALT Act” will get a hearing in the House Immigration Subcommittee today, Tuesday, July 26th.  Also known as the “Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation Act,” this bill would eliminate some of the few remaining safety valves in our immigration laws. It would strip out provisions that allow a small number of undocumented immigrants with extremely compelling cases to remain in the United States.  

This bill has nothing to do with targeting violent criminals—just the opposite.  It’s targeted at people like Haitian orphans, spouses of U.S. military veterans, victims of domestic violence, and young people who qualify for the DREAM Act. 

Among the expert witnesses that Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) and Smith will call to testify in support of the bill is Senator David Vitter (R-LA), who introduced the Senate version.  Vitter certainly is an “expert witness”: he’s intimately familiar with the application of prosecutorial discretion.  But apparently Vitter thinks he should be the only one to get a break.   

It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched the immigration debate over the last five years that the HALT Act is not only mean-spirited, but politically-motivated too.  Its provisions expire in 2013, when the next president takes office.  Smith and Vitter aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they are willing to destroy people’s lives to score political points.

We’ve been waiting for years for our representatives in Congress to pass a real immigration solution.  With the way congressional Republicans are handling this issue, it’s clear that playing politics is more important than problem-solving. Most Americans would agree that any talented young man or woman who have lived in this country since they were babies, or who want to serve this country by joining the military are not ‘enforcement priorities.’  In a world of limited resources, it’s just common sense that deportations should focus on dangerous criminals over DREAM-eligible youth and the spouses of American citizens.

This is a blatant attempt by Rep. Lamar Smith and Sen. Vitter to bully the President. They believe in mass detention and mass deportation, with no exceptions.  The American people know that this is not the solution. 

The Obama Administration should stand up to Smith and Vitter’s bullying, and make an even stronger commitment to stabilizing the lives of DREAM-eligible young people and family members of U.S. citizens.  And Republicans in Congress should stop playing politics with people’s lives and get to work on real immigration reform.”

According to the legislation, Rep. Smith and Sen. Vitter think these people, and others like them, should be deported:

Frances Barrios, Wife of Army Spc. Jack Barrios (Humanitarian Parole)

Army Spc. Jack Barrios, 28, was born in Los Angeles, California. He married 25-year-old Frances, who came to the United States when she was 6 years old. Frances had been unaware of her undocumented status until high school, when she realized she would not able to go to college or work. In 2004, Jack joined the Army looking to serve his country.  He was deployed to Iraq in 2006, when their first child Matthew was only a few months old. Upon his return from Iraq, Jack suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. “I saw a lot of violent stuff in Iraq; kids bleeding and dying,” he said.

Jack was working 15 hours a day at two jobs while being treated for his PTSD. At the same time, Jack sought help from a lawyer to remedy his wife’s immigration status—and discovered that Frances was in deportation proceedings. Frances was pregnant with her second child at the time. If she were deported, she would have faced a 10-year ban on returning to the U.S. This would mean being separated from her husband and first-born child, who the couple had agreed would stay in the United States.  Luckily, Frances was given humanitarian parole, allowing her to stay in the United States and receive work authorization. “I fought two battles-for my country and for my wife,” Jack said. “It was so hard. You have no idea what I went through to keep my family together.”

For more information on Frances, check here and here.

Click here to read more.
Posted 07/15/11 at 10:22am By Mahwish Khan

Rep. Lamar Smith Moves Bill That Could Lead to Indefinite Detention for Immigrants

lamar smithYesterday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), one of the most extreme anti-immigrant voices in Congress, succeeded in getting an egregious and probably unconstitutional detention bill out of the House Judiciary Committee, which Rep. Smith chairs. American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) press release provides an explanation of the bill and yesterday's vote in the Judiciary Committee:

The House Judiciary Committee (HJC) today voted out of committee a costly and unconstitutional bill that would authorize the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain thousands of immigrants, potentially indefinitely, without due process. The HJC democrats offered many amendments in an attempt to make the indefinite detention bill constitutional. Under the provisions of the bill, called the "Keep Our Communities Safe Act," many detainees would be deprived of bond hearings before an immigration judge, which are a basic component of justice in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly opposes this bill, H.R. 1932, because it violates both the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings protecting the rights of immigrants against indefinite detention.

Though the bill's author Lamar Smith (R-TX) asserts it will protect people from "dangerous criminal immigrants," the legislation would in fact lead to the detention of thousands more immigrants for years without first having a hearing before a judge. Some would be subjected to prolonged detention under the bill without ever having been charged with a crime and, in some instances, even after having won their cases before an immigration judge. Worsening a broken immigration detention system that costs $1.9 billion a year, the legislation would lock up lawful permanent residents, victims of persecution and torture, parents of U.S. citizen children and other upstanding members of our communities who have jobs, houses, businesses and significant American roots. The bill would also enormously expand DHS's program of detaining indefinitely immigrants whom the government cannot deport to their countries of origin because of diplomatic problems, leading to potentially lifelong detention without the federal court oversight that our Constitution requires.

Rep. Smith led the charge on this legislation, just as he's the prime mover behind the flawed E-Verify bill and the audaciously hypocritical HALT Act.

In a post at Politico, ACLU's Washington Director Laura Murphy explained the dangers of the legislation:

The Supreme Court has also ruled that noncriminal detention, more generally, is only valid when there are strong procedural protections that prevent unnecessary deprivations of liberty.

These cases make clear that the Due Process Clause of the Constitution protects all “persons” — regardless of immigration status.

Despite these constitutional protections, this law could subject two particularly vulnerable groups to prolonged, and potentially indefinite, detention. Arriving asylum seekers and long-term lawful residents reentering the country could be detained by the Department of Homeland Security while they contest their removability — without any opportunity to challenge their detention in a proceeding before a neutral decision-maker.

For individuals who cannot be removed to their country of origin, H.R.1932 could mean indefinite imprisonment, lacking essential independent judicial oversight. Criminal offenses are serious matters, but people who have paid their debt to society for old crimes as minor as passing a bad check or petty theft could face detention for the rest of their lives.

If this bill is enacted, immigrants face lifetime imprisonment not because of their own actions, but because the U.S. lacks diplomatic relations with their home countries.

It could also subject some of our society’s most vulnerable to the equivalent of life imprisonment without parole, at great cost to taxpayers — without proportionate benefits to public safety.That’s bad policy which must not become law.

Posted 06/24/11 at 09:54am By Mahwish Khan

House Republicans—Led by Reps. Smith, Gallegly, and King—Declare Open Season on Immigrants

lamar smith House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Immigration Subcommittee Chair Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Immigration Subcommittee Vice Chair Steve King (R-IA) -- our "three amigos" on immigraton -- keep advancing their wish list of immigration “reforms” that would tighten the screws on immigrants of ALL statuses.

Yesterday, Smith’s House Judiciary Committee was scheduled to have marked-up one of the first in a series of anti-immigrant bills, H.R. 1932. If you heard Smith talk about it, you would think the bill is narrowly focused on dangerous criminals. It in fact does nothing of the sort. The bill would sweep up innocent asylum-seekers fleeing persecution and long-term lawful permanent residents who, because of Smith’s harsh 1996 laws, are facing deportation due to minor, non-violent crimes they may have committed decades ago. 

The Smith bill creates an immigration gulag of sorts, and gives the government the broad authority to lock people up forever, with no rights to demand release. 

Smith claims he is trying to address the problem that certain countries refuse to accept their own nationals who have been issued deportation orders. But Smith’s bill doesn't do that. He never addresses that particular issue, and he refuses to acknowledge workable ideas that do.  For example, the Obama Administration’s State Department and Department of Homeland Security have crafted a new strategy to compel better international cooperation by imposing stiffer sanctions on such countries.  He seems to have ignored their strategy entirely.

House Republicans, led by Rep. Smith, have declared open season on immigrants. Today it’s a bill to give government the power to lock up immigrants and throw away the key. Tomorrow it’s mandatory E-verify legislation that Smith thinks –wrongly— will drive millions of undocumented immigrants out of the country.

These are all bad ideas. Piled on top of the broken immigration system that he himself helped forge, his ideas will only make the situation worse. The Republicans seem to only be interested in political theatre and not in finding real solutions. They fail to realize that the audience is filled with Latino voters.

With Lamar Smith in the driver seat on immigration policy for the GOP, the Republicans’ already tainted image will only get worse. 

Click here to read more.
Posted 06/17/11 at 07:23am By Mahwish Khan

URGENT: Sign the Petition to Keep Coach Miguel From Being Deported Today

Coach Miguel DeportationIt’s been more than 20 years since Miguel Aparicio has been in the United States. He moved here when he was 15 years old with his grandmother.  He graduated high school, and with a cross-country scholarship, Aparicio was able to attend college. His love for the sport inspired him to coach others, and since then, he has completed 12 seasons as a volunteer cross-country assistant coach at one of the toughest high schools in Phoenix, Arizona. He and head coach Carlo Borja have led the Phoenix Alhambra boys cross-country team to state championships in 2007, 2009 and 2010. They even won the state runner-up title in 2008. Since they first started coaching together, the two of them have also sent 10 athletes to college with academic and/or athletic scholarships. There’s more on him in this Runner’s World article (worth the read) written by John Brant:

Miguel Aparicio lived for his coaching, which he performed on a volunteer basis and subsidized out of his own pocket. Every year he bought the team new uniforms and each summer rented a cabin for a two-week preseason training camp in the mountains near Flagstaff. He also spent heavily on gas, driving the boys home after practice, and to the movies and other outings on weekends and vacations. He racked up these bills without complaint because the team formed his family. The seven boys and their two coaches had stuck together through withering summer training and the highs and lows of the state championships. 

In April of 2009, he was detained for allegedly running a school stop sign, but the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition tells a different story:

In April 2009 he was stopped by a Sheriff Deputy in Casa Grande, for no reason. He spent seven weeks in an immigration detention center. 

According to United We DREAM:

The community loves Miguel so deeply that when he was told by the school district he longer could be assistant coach, both Head Coach Borjas and the students rallied together. Coach Borjas was fired for non-compliance and the students refused to run for another coach.

Although Coach Carlos was able to regain his position as the head cross-country coach, Coach Miguel was not allowed to continue volunteering with them. What is worse, he is currently scheduled to be deported today! If he is deported, every student and their family who was part of the Alhambra cross-country team would be forced to say good-bye to their coach who, to some, served as a father figure.

Now 38, Miguel would not be able to benefit from the DREAM Act if it were passed. But as United We DREAM points out, his story has inspired and changed the lives of many – both undocument and not.  

United We DREAM has started a petition asking Secretary Janet Napolitano to halt his deportation. Please sign it, and share his story on facebook. Your signature could help Coach Miguel at home with those he loves – and those who also clearly love him.

Posted 06/10/11 at 02:37pm By Maria Ponce

Nancy Pelosi: Secure Communities is a “Waste of Taxpayer Money”

Nancy PelosiIn a recent meeting with La Opinión’s editorial board, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi criticizes the Administration’s implementation of the controversial Secure Communities program. La Opinión quotes:

I understand that this is a program that is designed for a specific purpose, not simply to catch the undocumented but dangerous criminals.

I think what we’ve seen is that the government has been applying the program too enthusiastically, even though they deny it.  We know what’s happening in the communities.  I think that it’s a waste of taxpayer money.

We couldn’t agree more. 

In fact, three other Democrat Governors and key allies of the Obama Administration, Pat Quinn, (D-IL), Andrew Cuomo, (D-NY), and Deval Patrick (D-MA) are on the same page as Pelosi. All three have spoken against the initiative because evidence shows that "Secure Communities" is actually making communities less safe.  So have a number of law enforcement leaders, and elected members of Congress, such as Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), both of whom called for an investigation regarding the program. Just today, at a press conference held in Los Angeles, California Reps. Xavier Becerra (D-31), Judy Chu (D-32) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-34) called on Governor Jerry Brown of California to opt out of “Secure Communities.” 

Let's also not forget members of the mainstream (and influential) print media. This recent editorial from the New York Times called out the Obama Administration for its support of the program:

This is a failure of decency and good sense. It merely punishes and does nothing to actually come to grips with the problem of illegal immigration. Resistance has mostly been heard at the ground level, from immigrants and advocates who say families are being split apart, workers frightened and exploited, the American dream dishonored. So it’s good to hear powerful Democrats — Mr. Obama’s friends and allies from large states — telling him that with Secure Communities he has gone way overboard.

Click here to read more.

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