Nations and organizations around
the globe observed yesterday as International Migrants Day. Twenty-two years
ago, on December 18, 1990 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted
the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their Families, affirming the fundamental principle of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "all human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights."
Unfortunately, this year the United
States' treatment of migrants has been dismal.
Nearly 400,000 people have been deported, often without adequate due
process. Anti-immigrant and xenophobic
laws have been passed in state legislatures of Alabama, Arizona, South
Carolina, and Utah. The US has increased
fear and isolation in our migrant communities.
Last week the U.S. Department of
Justice Civil Rights Division (DOJ), to its credit, made public the findings of
its investigation, initiated in March 2009, into civil rights violations in
Arizona by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MSCO) headed by the notorious
Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The investigation uncovered what many local advocates have
suspected for years: that Sheriff Arpaio and his subordinates engaged in a
pattern and practice of racial profiling against Latinos and also unlawful
retaliation against individuals critical of the Sheriff's policies.
Shortly after the DOJ's findings
became public, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ended its agreement allowing
certain Maricopa County deputies to act as immigration agents on behalf of the
federal government, a step community leaders have demanded for years. These agreements with local law enforcement,
called 287(g) agreements, are authorized by Congress under section 287(g) of
the Immigration and Naturalization Act to allow local police to act as
immigration officers. In ending the agreement
with Maricopa, DHS acknowledges that abuse of authority will occur when law
enforcement agencies, especially those like Arpaio's, get in the immigration
business.
However, while DOJ's investigation
and DHS' suspension of the 287(g) agreement with Maricopa are steps forward, a
hugely problematic situation remains.
DHS continues to have a relationship with the Maricopa County Sheriff's
Office through another program, Secure Communities, the federal deportation
dragnet program, which will continue its legacy of mass deportations and
destruction of communities.
Through Secure Communities, local
law enforcement agencies automatically provide immigration authorities
fingerprint information for every person arrested. After comparing the
fingerprint information with its own databases, ICE can either try to deport
the person or store the information in a massive database for future use.
Secure Communities is already used in 1882 jurisdictions and 44 states, even in
places where local officials and organizers have asked not to have any part in
the program and in jurisdictions with human rights records as horrific as
Maricopa County.
Think about the consequences of
such a widespread program. With Secure Communities, immigration agencies
automatically learn the identity of any non-citizen in the custody of local
police and can initiate deportation. This is the case even if the arrest was
illegal and even if the charges are dropped or never prosecuted.
Secure
Communities Through a Human Rights Lens:
First, a central norm in human rights is
proportionality: the punishment must fit the crime. With Secure Communities, we
have witnessed record deportations and detentions, often for minor offenses
where the criminal courts don't even seek jail time.
Second, even though human rights standards
require freedom from all forms of discrimination, Secure Communities is plagued
with racial and ethnic profiling. Anti-immigrant jurisdictions use it to hide
illegal and race-based arrests, and the federal government allows places like
Maricopa County, Los Angeles, New York and New Orleans, places with well
documented histories of racial profiling and abusive cops, to use Secure
Communities without meaningful oversight.
Third, human rights principles require full
and fair hearings and urge release from detention over incarceration, but in
localities with Secure Communities, immigration holds prevent release of
thousands of non-citizens at the expense of local jailers and with the
consequence of coercing criminal pleas and deportation.
Fourth, human rights treaties provide
special protections to women, children and victims of violence, but Secure
Communities is criticized for placing trafficking and domestic violence survivors
at risk of removal.
Fifth, a common thread in human rights
is the idea of engagement. A government should listen and engage with the
people it represents and allow us to have a real voice in setting policy. But
Secure Communities, despite heavy resistance and requests by states and
localities to end the program, has been forced on us. Even though the people and officials of
places like San Francisco, Santa Clara, and Arlington, and entire states such
as New York, Illinois and Massachusetts have said they don't want anything to
do with Secure Communities, it's being implemented anyway.
The
Center for Constitutional Rights has the honor and privilege of representing
one of the national leaders in the movement towards immigrant justice -- the
National Day Laborer Organizing Network -- in a lawsuit against federal agencies
for information about Secure Communities. Through this lawsuit we have
uncovered literally thousands of pages of internal documents that expose a
record of the federal government's deceit and misrepresentation. These documents have been used in a national
campaign to uncover the truth behind police and ICE collaborations. Advocates
around the country have questioned the government's policy, educated local
police and state officials and created a groundswell of resistance against
merging the criminal and immigration systems.
Secure
Communities is now a symbol of government dishonesty and deception. The Obama
administration was not transparent with Congress about Secure Communities' true
purpose when it asked for over $2 billion for the program; it tricked state and
local officials into believing they could limit or opt out of the program; and
worst of all the government sold untruths to the public to get this program
launched at any cost.
Kofi
Annan, former Secretary-general of the United Nations, once said: "Human rights
are what reason requires and conscience demands. They are us and we are them.
Human rights are rights that any person has as a human being. We are all human
beings; we are all deserving of human rights. One cannot be true without the
other."
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