This week’s immigration blog roundup discusses recent protest over the direction immigration reform is headed under the Obama administration, two new reports on immigrant detention violations, and more.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform
On Wednesday, immigrant advocates rallied out outside the offices of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, where Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was giving a speech. Advocates protested her recently announced expansion of the 287(g) program, which authorizes local law enforcement to apply immigration laws, and the administration’s embrace of the E-verify system, an electronic verification system for employers.
Although Napolitano held a closed-door session in Seattle, Washington on Monday to discuss immigration issues with immigrant advocates, state officials, business leaders, law enforcement officers, and farm worker representatives, among others, many immigration advocates feel a sense of betrayal.
"We are getting to the tipping point. Immigrant communities that helped to elect President Obama strongly believed that there would be reforms. Now, there is a creeping sense of betrayal," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, which organized the demonstration."There is a huge disconnect and contradiction between what the President is saying and what Secretary Napolitano is doing. You can’t have it both ways."
National, local and community level immigration news
A new report, A Broken System: Confidential Reports Reveal Failures in U.S. Detention Centers, outlines the failures of current immigration detention centers that have systematically violated the basic human rights of detainees. The 170 page report released by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the ACLU of Southern California, and the international law firm of Holland & Knight, LLP provides a comprehensive analysis on the conditions, such as a denial to basic necessities, suffered by immigrants in government-run detention centers.The report also offers policymakers specific recommendations to improve the situation.
Another report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded that immigrants were held in “unacceptable conditions,” with their rights to due process “compromised after having visited various centers in Texas and Arizona. The IACHR delegation visited a family detention facility, three adult detention facilities, two unaccompanied minor shelters, and met with representatives from civil society organizations focused on U.S.immigration issues according to a press release.
These reports come as the Obama administration has refused to make legally enforceable rules for immigration detention after rejecting a federal court petition by former detainees and their advocates. The decision disappointed immigration advocacy organizations around the country that point to the vast array of evidence of the government’s failure to enforce basic standards and prevent violations of human rights.
"This whole detention system that has been created is a human rights nightmare," said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the National Immigrant Justice Center.
Massachusetts will provide partial coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants after the legislature voted to restore $40 million to the budget, but it was left unclear how much care the affected immigrants, permanent residents who have had green cards for less than five years, would qualify for.
"It’s a first step, and we’re pleased they will be covered,” Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said of the partial restoration. “But we still remain very concerned as to what type of coverage they will receive."
Read more at The Opportunity Agenda’s website.
