President Biden recently tweeted in support of “even more resources to secure the border,” contrasting himself with “MAGA House Republicans” who are proposing to “slash funding for border security.” He’s positioning himself to the right of the more explicitly xenophobic and far-right “MAGA” branch of the Republican Party and their fear-mongering about fentanyl. The Biden administration’s record…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On 7 March 2023 EuroMed Rights issued the following statement regarding the situation in Tunisia:
For several weeks now, Kaïs Saïed’s presidentialist regime has been conducting a relentless campaign of arrests, intimidation, denigration and targeted attacks against political opponents, journalists, trade unionists and civil society representatives, under the pretext of an alleged conspiracy to undermine state security, accusations of corruption or contacts with foreign diplomats. International trade union activists who have come to participate in activities of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), such as Esther Lynch, the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, have been expelled and any other trade union representatives are now persona non grata in Tunisia.
“These arrests based on the crime of opinion and the widespread repression of freedom of expression in all its forms constitute a serious breach of the rule of law. They raise fears of a return to the practices of the authoritarian regime that preceded the January 2011 revolution. The national dialogue that the UGTT has initiated in partnership with the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), the National Bar Association and the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), towards a roadmap to overcome the political, economic and social crisis, must be supported,” said Wadih Al-Asmar, President of EuroMed Rights.
A justice system at the orders
Accused of being “traitors” and “terrorists”, the opponents of the regime put in place, month after month, by President Kaïs Saïed since his power grab of 25 July 2021, are challenging the concentration of powers, in particular the supervision of the Ministry of Justice and the dismissal of many judges and prosecutors. Controlling the judicial power is a weapon that the Tunisian authorities no longer hesitate to use and abuse to silence critics.
“The rule of law in Tunisia is on the brink of collapse,” added Wadih Al-Asmar. “The presumption of innocence is being flouted. Moreover, to declare that anyone who exonerates those prosecuted would be considered an accomplice is a denial of the role and independence of judges and prosecutors. The ban on demonstrations and the desire to isolate Tunisian civil society from its international contacts are other symptoms of the regime’s autocratic drift.”
Attacks on migrants
On 21 February, President Kaïs Saïed continued his diatribe by calling for “urgent measures” against the “hordes” of sub-Saharan migrants, endorsing the conspiratorial theory of the “Great Replacement,” which asserts the existence of a plot to change the demographic composition of the country. As a result, racist and violent attacks, both official and unofficial, against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa continue, leading to arrests and deportations.
“Migrants have been expelled from their homes and fired from their jobs; children have been removed from their schools; women of sub-Saharan origin have been reportedly raped. Fear is growing among migrants who have been living in Tunisia, some for years, causing many families to leave the country to avoid facing violence,” said Rasmus Alenius Boserup, Executive Director of EuroMed Rights. “The European Union and its Member States, in their bilateral relations with Tunisia, must make clear that arbitrary repression and incitement to racial hatred are unacceptable, and should express solidarity with all those arrested, defamed and subjected to violence.”
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
Britain’s plan to refuse to allow asylum seekers arriving in small boats the right to claim asylum may breach its international obligations. This was according to the EU’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, on 9 March. Johansson said she had spoken to home secretary Suella Braverman to discuss the planned legislation, which may breach European and UN conventions.
On 8 March, Braverman told ITV News that she had invited Johansson to study the UK proposal in more detail. However, she stressed:
We are no longer members of the European Union and so we are free to determine our own borders and migration policy.
PM Rishi Sunak also threatened to “take back control of our borders once and for all” by detaining and deporting any migrants caught crossing the Channel from France or Belgium in small boats.
Due to the UK’s already-unfit asylum system, the backlog of asylum claims now exceeds 160,000. The crossings, many organised by smuggling gangs, are incredibly dangerous. In November 2021, at least 27 people drowned in a single incident.
Opponents, rights groups, and the United Nations say the new draft law would turn Britain into an international pariah under European and UN conventions on asylum.
Unperturbed, Sunak hopes to strike a deal with France to halt the asylum seekers on its coast. The PM will meet President Emmanuel Macron at a summit in Paris on Friday. An aide to the French leader told reporters the pair were working on a deal to increase the border-policing resources.
However, arriving at the Brussels meeting, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin warned the proposed UK law could harm relations. He also stressed that Britain should work with the EU to better co-ordinate migrant policy.
Darmanin said Macron and Sunak would discuss the legislation on Friday. He stressed that the goal should be a treaty between the UK and the EU to provide legal access routes for migrants. Further, Britain also needs a system to return those refused asylum.
The EU ministers, meanwhile, were to discuss their own differences about how to better divide the task of sharing migrant arrivals and managing asylum claims
On Tuesday the UN refugee agency UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) said the plan removes:
the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom for those who arrive irregularly, no matter how genuine and compelling their claim may be.
By denying protection to asylum seekers and even the opportunity to put forward their case, the plan “would be a clear breach” of the international Refugee Convention, it said.
Campaign group Refugee Action also pointed out that the plans are unlikely even to reduce the number of refugees. It stressed that:
These deterrence policies will never work because a tiny minority of people fleeing war and persecution around the world will always want to come to the UK to seek safety.
Most have powerful reasons to want to come here that we can all understand – they have family here, or friends here, or community here. The Home Office’s own research has backed this up.
Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse
Featured image via Youtube screengrab
This post was originally published on Canary.
REVIEW: By Adam Brown
How to be a Bad Muslim is a collection of 19 short essays by Mohamed Hassan, an award-winning poet and an international journalist. He was born in Cairo, but moved to Auckland at the age of eight.
This personal history underlies much of his writing: his fond memories of Egypt and its collectivist society and extended families, versus his adolescence as a migrant with a clearly identifiable Muslim name in individualist New Zealand. After 9/11, suspicions deepened and Muslims were subject to collective guilt and racial profiling, despite that fact that Muslims around the world condemned the attacks.
“To be granted citizenry and promised equality but to always be held at arm’s length. To be accused of plotting disharmony when all we have ever fought for was integration, acceptance, peace.” In other words, to be “welcome, but not welcome”.
This is all documented in chapter 11: “How to be a bad Muslim.”
Memories from his youth include spooky childhood memories from Cairo (chapter 2, “The witch of El Agouza”), followed by real-life memories and standing up to being bullied in school in New Zealand by someone who later became an All Black (chapter 3, “Showdown in the Kowhai Room”).
As a Muslim, the author’s refusal to enter the binge drinking culture of New Zealand, while entering the local poetry scene, shows that it is possible to enjoy oneself without alcohol (chapter 4, “The last sober driver”).
The author is well acquainted with IT, the internet, YouTube, social media, etc. An important chapter is the first, entitled “Subscribe to PewDiePie”, being the last words of the Christchurch shooter before entering Al-Noor Mosque. The chapter documents the seemingly innocent growth of YouTube and social media over a decade, all leading ultimately to the Christchurch massacre.
Many passages in the chapters touch on the misrepresentation of Muslims and Islam, as the author reports from first-hand experience. He was bullied at school, given the cold shoulder at work, passed over for promotion, regularly subjected to “random” searches at airports, etc. His brother no longer goes with his two young sons to Friday prayers in Manukau, because he does not feel they are safe.
“The growing mistrust was fuelled by grotesque and irresponsible media narratives that portrayed Muslim immigrants as an existential threat, and the public believed it” despite the fact that the public knew little about Islam and Muslims, and failed to find out about it.
“A Sikh man studying at a café outside his medical school had police called to interrogate him after a woman spotted wires hanging out of his bag. They were headphone cables.”
In chapter 10 “Ode to Elliott Alderson”, he catalogues the misrepresentation of Muslims in film, involving famous actors such as Rami Malek, Omid Djalili, Hank Azaria, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christian Bale, and Sigourney Weaver.
Throughout the chapters, the author reports his memories and experiences, but often with a sense of humour, and with a poet’s turn of phrase. He describes his baby sister sleeping “as only an infant can, her fingers curled into themselves and her breath like a moth dancing around a faint sun”.
As an Egyptian Muslim growing up in New Zealand, he was “a kid who wore the question of belonging like an ankle monitor everywhere I went.” As a keen observer of the effect of IT, the internet and social media, he wonders, “Will our greatest of grandchildren unearth our metadata and try and decipher what our selfies said about our civilisation?”
This is an important book for anyone wanting to understand the problems immigrants — especially Muslims — face in New Zealand.
Dr Adam Brown is an Auckland academic, author and the editor of a New Zealand Muslim publication. This review is published in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
At least 58 migrants died when their overcrowded wooden boat smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart off southern Italy before dawn on Sunday, the Italian coast guard said. Survivors reportedly indicated that dozens more could be missing. “All of the survivors are adults,″ AP quoted Red Cross volunteer Ignazio Mangione. ”Unfortunately, all the children are among the missing or were found dead on…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
At least 58 migrants died when their overcrowded wooden boat smashed into rocky reefs and broke apart off southern Italy before dawn on Sunday, the Italian coast guard said. Survivors reportedly indicated that dozens more could be missing.
“All of the survivors are adults,″ AP quoted Red Cross volunteer Ignazio Mangione. ”Unfortunately, all the children are among the missing or were found dead on the beach.”
The Italian news agency ANSA said 20 minors are among the dead, including one newborn.
Italian state TV quoted survivors as saying the boat had set out five days earlier from Turkey with more than 200 passengers with people from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan onboard.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government-elected last year on a pledge to stop migrants from coming to Italy-has vowed to stop migrants reaching Italy’s shores and in the last few days pushed through a tough new law tightening the rules on rescues.
The Guardian reported:
The prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government, which came to power in October, imposed tough measures against sea rescue charities, including fining them up to €50,000 if they flout a requirement to request a port and sail to it immediately after undertaking one rescue instead of remaining at sea to rescue people from other boats in difficulty.
Rescues in recent months have resulted in ships being granted ports in central and northern Italy, forcing them to make longer journeys and therefore reducing their time at sea saving lives. Charities had warned that the measure would lead to thousands of deaths.
\u201cAt least 58 migrants, including children, now known to have died in shipwreck just off coast of southern Italy https://t.co/UMpgDhZz9L\u201d— BBC Breaking News (@BBC Breaking News) 1677425651
\u201c#BREAKING: At least 58 people confirmed dead after overcrowded wooden boat carrying more than 120 migrants ran into trouble in rough seas and capsized at dawn near coastal town of Crotone, in Calabria, authorities in southern Italy say \nhttps://t.co/lxE4Wn1zzv\u201d— I.E.N. (@I.E.N.) 1677406274
\u201cAt least 43 people have died after a boat carrying migrants crashed against the rocks off the coast of southern Italy early Sunday, the Italian coast guard said in a statement. https://t.co/ZGTSQF9Opu\u201d— Axios (@Axios) 1677427602
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
Workers in California who grow and pick the majority of fruits and nuts in the United States are experiencing an acute crisis of un- and under-employment, and ensuing food insecurity, following the procession of atmospheric rivers that drenched the state in January. In a mere matter of days, many locations across the Golden State absorbed upwards of half the precipitation that tends to fall over…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Twenty-four volunteer rescue workers connected to the group Emergency Response Centre International face trial for human smuggling in Greece for giving life-saving assistance to thousands of migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, fleeing violence, poverty and persecution. A European Parliament report described the trial as Europe’s “largest case of criminalization of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Before heading to El Paso, Texas, on January 8 for his first presidential visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden announced a trifecta of hideous immigration policies, along with a familiar “crackdown” on “illegal” border crossings. The new initiatives include expanding the controversial Trump-era Title 42 to migrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti as well as refusing…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On 10 January 2023, rescuers and first responders will stand trial on the Greek island of Lesbos. Their crime? Saving the lives of refugees and migrants. The case is the first of its kind in Europe, where humanitarian help is officially criminalised by a state.
28-year-old Seán Binder, 27-year-old Sara Mardini, and 42-year-old Nassos Karakitsos will face trial along with 21 others. They worked as rescuers and first responders with the non-governmental organization (NGO) Emergency Center International between 2016 and 2018, supporting migrants and refugees who were making perilous journeys to Lesbos. They are accused of espionage, people smuggling, money laundering, membership of a criminal organisation, and a litany of other charges. If found guilty, they could face 25 years in prison. On 10 January the defendants will face the charges that are classified as misdemeanor crimes, while the felony charges are still pending investigation.
Among the spurious evidence against them is the fact that the defendants sent encrypted messages via WhatsApp, which is also used by two billion other users worldwide.
Binder, Mardini and Karakitsos already spent more than 100 days each in pre-trial detention in a high-security prison after they were arrested in 2018. They were released on bail after international pressure and campaigning from NGOs and activists. They were originally due to stand trial in November 2021. Mardini was refused entry back into Greece, and the trial would have gone on in her absence. The case was then adjourned until 10 January.
Binder grew up in West Kerry, Ireland. He is a trained maritime search and rescuer who went to volunteer in Lesbos after finishing a master’s degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics. When he was released on bail in 2018, he said:
We are not heroes – neither are we criminals.
Binder also said:
If I can be criminalised for mostly doing little more than handing out bottles of water and smiles, so can anyone.
Mardini is from Damascus, Syria, and now lives in Germany. In August 2015, she fled armed conflict and attempted the crossing from Turkey to Lesbos in search of safety. Sara and her younger sister, Yusra, who were both competitive swimmers in Syria, made news headlines when they saved 18 fellow passengers from drowning after their boat’s engine failed. They jumped into the sea and kept the flimsy dinghy on course, guiding it to the shore in the dark.
Karakitsos is from Athens, Greece. In 2016, he volunteered on the shoreline of Lesbos to help rescue refugees in distress, becoming the field director and search and rescue team lead of the Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI).
The court case is an attempt by the Greek state, along with the EU, to scare volunteers and NGO workers from actively saving lives in the Mediterranean. Indeed, it has worked. Binder said:
This trial is not about me, and Sara, or even the 22 other defendants. This trial is about the Greek authorities trying to crush compassion and prevent people from seeking safety.
Free Humanitarians pointed out that:
Since their arrest, rescue efforts have diminished, today there are no civilian efforts at all.
The criminalisation of refugees and migrants, along with the criminalisation of those who want to act in solidarity with them, has created a hostile, racist continent. Instead of spending money on saving refugees, the EU continues to strengthen fortress Europe, paying agencies like Frontex to prevent people from arriving, essentially leaving them to drown.
Indeed, in 2022, an average of six people drowned every day in the Mediterranean sea. Sea Watch, an organisation which rescues those in distress at sea, pointed out that:
The International Organization for Migration counts a total of at least 2,005 people who died on the move in 2022.
But those numbers are incomplete: Missing are those whose bodies didn’t wash up on the North African shores. Missing are those whose deaths no one could witness. Missing are those who died in Italian hospitals from the rigors of the crossing. The number of unreported cases is far higher than official bodies can record.
Free Humanitarians said:
It doesn’t matter if you’re on the right or the left, we should be able to agree that nobody should be abandoned to die.
European countries refuse to face the fact that it is their foreign policies that have forced so many people to leave their countries. They will never take responsibility for the fact that weapons made in companies in the UK and other European countries are responsible for the forced migration of millions of people. Instead, the governments of mainland Europe, as well as the British government, continue to demonise our comrades seeking a safe life, scapegoating them for our failing capitalist system with its collapsing economies, rising inflation, and crumbling health systems.
We must all stand in solidarity with those on trial – saving lives should never be a crime.
Featured image of Seán Binder via Twitter/screengrab
By Eliza Egret
This post was originally published on Canary.
Human rights defenders on Thursday condemned a decree by Italy’s far-right government limiting the operations of migrant rescue ships, warning that the new restrictions would add to a refugee death toll that’s already in the tens of thousands.
The year-end decree issued Wednesday by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her neo-fascist Brothers of Italy Cabinet compels ships to proceed immediately to an assigned port after a rescue instead of providing aid to other distressed vessels, as is commonly done. Critics say humanitarian vessels will be assigned to distant ports in order to keep them from the rescue zone for as long as possible.
“Imagine a car accident with many injured and ambulances forced to take them to hospitals in another region. At some point there will be no more ambulances available.”
Under the new rules, migrants must also declare while aboard a rescue ship whether they wish to apply for asylum, and if so, in which European Union country.
Captains of civilian vessels found in violation of the rules face fines of up to €50,000 ($53,500) and confiscation and impoundment of their ships.
“With the new rules imposed by the Italian government on NGO vessels, we will be forced to leave relief areas in the Mediterranean Sea unguarded, with an inevitable increase in the number of dead,” Doctors Without Borders Italy said in a statement. “Imagine a car accident with many injured and ambulances forced to take them to hospitals in another region. At some point there will be no more ambulances available.”
\u201cThe new decree of the Italian government is a call to let people drown. No government can prevent ships from fulfilling their duty to rescue. #SeaWatch operates in accordance with international law and will continue to do so.\n\nRead our full statement here: https://t.co/XEj1nStWLZ\u201d— Sea-Watch International (@Sea-Watch International) 1672325252
“In recent years we have tried to fill the void left by the absence of a state aid system,” the group noted, “but if they make the task more difficult, if not impossible, who is going to save lives?”
The NGO continued:
The captains and crews of the ships will be faced with an ethical dilemma, between the duty to provide rescue according to the law of the sea, and that of respecting the rules by heading to port after having carried out the first rescue. And to think that, until 2017, when our help was considered precious and there was a tested rescue mechanism, it was often the [Italian] Coast Guard who asked us to stay at sea one more day to cover an area and make up for their lack of means.
Oliver Kulikowski, spokesperson for the Berlin-based rescue group Sea-Watch, said in a statement that “the Italian government’s new decree is a call to let people drown.”
“Forcing ships into port violates the duty to rescue should there be more people in distress at sea,” he added. ” We will also resist this attempt to criminalize civil sea rescue and deprive people on the move of their rights.”
“The politically motivated allocation of distant ports endangers the health of rescued people and is intended to keep rescue ships out of the Mediterranean for as long as possible.”
Sea-Watch medical coordinator Hendrike Förster asserted that “the politically motivated allocation of distant ports endangers the health of rescued people and is intended to keep rescue ships out of the Mediterranean for as long as possible.”
“The Italian government thereby makes itself directly responsible for health consequences on board the rescue ships,” Förster added.
Since being elected three months ago on a xenophobic, anti-migrant platform, Meloni and her government have cracked down on rescue ship activity, claiming humanitarian groups are boosting, if not working with, human traffickers.
\u201cHow will a far-right leadership in Italy under Giorgia Meloni affect migrants trying to make it to Europe?\n\nJournalist & filmmaker @raulgaab shares his experience aboard a rescue ship \u2935\ufe0f\u201d— Al Jazeera English (@Al Jazeera English) 1664456401
Within 48 hours of entering office, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi issued a directive prohibiting two rescue ships, Humanity 1 and Ocean Viking from entering Italian ports. Humanity 1 was allowed to dock in Catania, Sicily in November.
After being denied permission to disembark in Italy, Ocean Viking, which is run by the group SOS Méditerranée, sailed for France, where, amid a diplomatic row between the two countries, more than 200 migrants were allowed to come ashore after weeks at sea.
Ocean Viking has returned to Italy with another 113 rescued migrants aboard and is being forced to travel 900 nautical miles around the “boot” of Italy to Ravenna on the Adriatic coast in the country’s northeast.
\u201cAbdou* is 17 days old today. He is the youngest survivor currently on #OceanViking. He was rescued in the middle of the night with 112 other people from an overcrowded rubber boat. His 18-year-old mother spent over a year in #Libya before escaping, taking the sea with her newborn\u201d— SOS MEDITERRANEE (@SOS MEDITERRANEE) 1672425039
The Italian Interior Ministry says around 102,000 asylum-seekers have disembarked in Italy this year, an increase from about 66,500 in 2021. In 2016, the figure was 181,000. Migrants, who often undertake the perilous voyage from North Africa in inflatable dinghies or rickety wooden fishing boats, are fleeing wars and other armed conflicts, the climate emergency, hunger, and economic privation in their home countries.
According to the International Office on Migration (IOM), more than 2,000 migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year. Since record-keeping began in 2014, IOM says that over 25,000 migrants have gone missing while crossing the sea.
Migrant rescue organizations have been the target of Italian government surveillance and infiltration for years. Following an undercover sting operation based at least partly on the conspiracy theory that rescue groups are funded by “globalist elites” in league with Libyan traffickers, four members of the German NGO Jugend Rettet were arrested and are on trial in Sicily for aiding and abetting illegal immigration. The activists—who deny the charges—face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
\u201cA collection of 30,000 pages of court documents obtained by The Intercept sheds light on the magnitude of the case against four members of @jugendrettet on trial for aiding and abetting illegal immigration, the largest of its kind in European history. https://t.co/sUrVStidyN\u201d— The Intercept (@The Intercept) 1671657007
Twenty-one people in total—including the crews of the Jugend Rettet’s Iuventa rescue ship and members of groups including Sea-Watch, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders—stand charged with colluding with human traffickers to bring migrants into Italy in 2016 and 2017.
Jugend Rettet says Iuventa‘s crew rescued 2,000 people in the summer of 2016 alone.
“Instead of sea rescuers being charged for saving lives, Italian and European politicians should be charged with crimes against humanity,” a lawyer for the defendants told Open Democracy last year. “It is really the world upside down, and we will make it right.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
The Biden administration has condemned Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott for transporting migrants from his state to the Washington, D.C. residence of Vice President Kamala Harris on Christmas Eve, when temperatures in the city were well below freezing. Abbott’s administration had not coordinated with any organization or government entity before bussing the migrants, and had not developed any plan…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Human rights defenders condemned Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and “extremist Republicans’ cruel values” after several busloads of migrants were dropped off outside U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ Washington, D.C. home in subfreezing temperatures on Christmas Eve.
For the second time since September, Central and South American migrants were bussed from Texas to the vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory in the nation’s capital. According to reports, some of the asylum-seekers were wearing only t-shirts and shorts as the mercury dropped to 18°F (-8°C) on Saturday.
“This was intended to be a cruel stunt by Greg Abbott, but people are working around the clock to treat these families with the dignity they deserve.”
While it is not known who ordered the migrants bussed to the capital, advocates pointed fingers at Abbott. The Republican Texas governor—along with GOP Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Doug Ducey of Arizona—have bussed more than 10,000 migrants to Democratic-led cities since April to protest what they falsely call the Biden administration’s “open border” immigration policies.
“What we’re seeing are Greg Abbott and extremist Republicans’ cruel values,” tweeted the youth-led Sunrise Movement. “This is who they are. Don’t forget that.”
Amy Fischer, a volunteer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, told CNN that her group was prepared for the migrants’ arrival.
“The D.C. community has been welcoming buses from Texas anytime they’ve come since April. Christmas Eve and freezing cold weather is no different,” she said. “We are always here welcoming folks with open arms.”
\u201cWorthless @GovAbbott dropping off people with no money and no means on Christmas Eve in 15 degree weather near the VP\u2019s residence. How Christian of you, Greg Abbott. Being a heartless POS isn\u2019t going to make you the next Republican President.\u201d— Joaquin Castro (@Joaquin Castro) 1671947163
In a separate interview with The Guardian, Fischer said that “it really does show the cruelty behind Gov. Abbott and his insistence on continuing to bus people here without care about people arriving late at night on Christmas Eve when the weather is so cold.”
Progressive activist Jenn Kauffman tweeted that “the only reason these families were outside so briefly is because of the work of the D.C. Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network.”
“This was intended to be a cruel stunt by Greg Abbott, but people are working around the clock to treat these families with the dignity they deserve,” she added.
In a letter to President Joe Biden last week, Abbott said that “you and your administration must stop the lie that the border is secure and instead immediately deploy federal assets to address the dire problems you have caused.”
Earlier this week, Abbott deployed hundreds of National Guard troops and state police to the Mexican border in service of what the advocacy group Border Network for Human Rights called a “racist, anti-refugee, xenophobic agenda.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned migrants that the Biden administration is still enforcing Title 42, a section of the Public Health Safety Act first invoked by the Trump administration as the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020.
On December 19, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted a request from 19 Republican-led states to temporarily block the Biden administration from ending Title 42 expulsions.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
The UK’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda is lawful, the High Court ruled on Monday.
The policy, which involves Britain forcibly sending tens of thousands of migrants to Rwanda in an alleged effort to tackle the record number of refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats, has been mired by controversy.
Many asylum seekers have had a lack of access to legal representation and advice and no access to translated documents from the Home Office.
“People who have suffered the horrors of war, torture, and human rights abuses should not be faced with the immense trauma of deportation to a future where we cannot guarantee their safety. We believe that sending refugees to Rwanda will breach our country’s obligations under International Treaties and we continue to believe this policy is unlawful,” Care4Calais said after the court ruling.
The ruling came as a relief for newly appointed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has made a high-stakes political promise to tackle the ‘migration problem’ in Britain.
However, the plan has attracted criticism from opposition parties and human rights organizations in the UK, as well as across the international community, including the UN. “UNHCR remains firmly opposed to arrangements that seek to transfer refugees and asylum seekers to third countries in the absence of sufficient safeguards and standards. Such arrangements simply shift asylum responsibilities, evade international obligations, and are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention,” the UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, announced back in April.
A report published by Medical Justice condemns the UK government’s deportation plan, claiming that Rwanda deportees include victims of torture and human trafficking. It adds that many asylum seekers have had a lack of access to legal representation and advice and no access to translated documents from the Home Office relating to their imminent removal and deportation to Rwanda.
For many, the deal represents a crisis of responsibility, rather than a “migration crisis”. It ignores the UK’s international commitments and sets a dangerous precedent for other countries looking to leverage migration for political ends. Denmark is one of the countries considering a similar deal with Rwanda.
However, for the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, the deal adds unnecessary pressure on the small African state. “Rwanda is a small country. We are also not economically a rich country, like the UK. So we still have many economic challenges, issues of water, distribution, scarcity, issues with electricity, and issues of gas. So we are not anywhere [near] ready to receive people coming from the UK,” Frank Habineza, a politician from the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, told MEMO.
In spite of the court’s green-lighting of the plan, there is currently no airline willing to carry asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the last company pulling out following pressure from activists. Having already spent £120 million on the deportation scheme, the coming year will see the British government wrangle new ways to make the plan – and its effort to reduce migrant numbers – a success. With only two years before the next general election, a lot is at stake. So far, in spite of the risk of being deported, more asylum seekers have crossed the Channel to the UK in 2022 than in previous years, this has brought into question the effectiveness of the plan and whether or not the “unlawful” policy can really get off the ground.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
We get an update from immigrant justice advocate Guerline Jozef, who is in Mexico to look at the impact of the Biden administration’s expansion of Title 42 to turn away Venezuelan asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Trump-era policy lets the government expel asylum seekers on public health grounds. “It is unacceptable today for the government to try to expand Title 42, and forcing people to continue to die,” says Jozef. Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced it will allow 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the country by air if they have a financial sponsor in the United States. Applicants must first apply online. The program is similar to one set up for Ukrainians earlier this year. Jozef notes immigrants from Venezuela and Haiti are treated harshly, while Ukrainians fleeing similar political instability back home are welcomed, and that the immigration system should be structured to treat everyone with compassion and dignity.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re in Mexico City looking at migrants. And I wanted to turn to the issue of Haitian migrants and also the Biden administration’s new policy on Venezuelan asylum seekers. All Venezuelans who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border will now be turned away under Title 42, a Trump-era pandemic policy that’s been used to block at least 2 million migrants from applying for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced it’s going to allow 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the country by air if they have a financial sponsor in the United States — of course, which many don’t. Applicants must first apply online. The program is similar to one set up for Ukrainians.
This is Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaking last week in D.C.
DHS SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: To reduce the number of people arriving at our southwest border irregularly and create a more orderly and safe and humane process for people fleeing the humanitarian and economic crisis in Venezuela. Those who attempt to cross the southern border of the United States illegally will be returned. Those who follow the lawful process we announced yesterday will have the opportunity to travel safely to the United States and become eligible to work here.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said last week the Biden administration has no plans to reduce sanctions on Venezuela. Some studies estimate the sanctions have killed tens of thousands of people in Venezuela. A few years ago, it was Mike Pompeo, under Trump, who offered a pathway to lift the sanctions, predicated on regime change in Venezuela and replacing the president with Juan Guaidó.
How much of this situation can you attribute to U.S. policy against Venezuela? And then, what is happening with this massive deportation of Venezuelans? And also talk about Haitians being turned back.
GUERLINE JOZEF: Thank you so much, Amy.
Again, I am not an expert in Venezuelan politics, but what I can tell you is that the 24,000 Venezuelans who have been announced by Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration is a piecemeal, because what we are seeing, we are seeing hundreds of thousands of people still fleeing Venezuela. We are seeing a expulsion, deportation of at least 1,000 Venezuelans a day from the United States back to Mexico. And we are seeing that the piecemeal that is being offered to the Venezuelan population is also being used as a deterrent factor for people who have already been on the road to seek for protection, people who are still traversing the Darién, people who are here in Mexico, who do not have the ability or the privilege to fly from Venezuela to the United States. I think when we are looking into how we are welcoming people, we must center compassion, not just using a carrot and a stick just to deter people, but really provide wholesome protection for folks.
So, I am here in Mexico City looking into how it is affecting, impacting the migrant population, people in mobility, people in displacement, people who are searching for asylum and protection. Whether they are from Venezuela, whether they are from Ukraine or from Haiti, they must all welcome with dignity. And what we are seeing happening to the Venezuelan community is unacceptable. Although we welcome the idea of providing, you know, the protection for the 24,000, but what will happen with the hundreds of others who are already at the U.S.-Mexico border? What will happen to the Haitians who are still stuck at the U.S.-Mexico border because of Title 42? It is unacceptable today for the government to try to expand Title 42 and forcing people to continue to die.
Amy, as I’m speaking to you right now, we are in the middle of doing three funerals in Tijuana. Three Haitians have died in Tijuana this past week alone, including a 2-year-old girl, a man who was killed, and another one who died due to lack of medical care. So, what we are seeing is that the use of Title 42 continues to destroy lives. And there is no reason that the U.S. government, under President Biden, should continue to use Title 42 as a way to deter, and definitely being able to see death at the U.S.-Mexico border.
So we must continue to push. We must continue to hold everyone accountable as we move forward, to understand that support, protection must be provided for the Venezuelans, support and protection must be provided for the Haitians, the same way we are welcoming and continue to support the Ukrainians. The reality is —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Guerline — Guerline, if I can ask you —
GUERLINE JOZEF: — we cannot return —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: If I can ask you — we just have a few more minutes. I wanted to ask you about the role of the Mexican government in cooperating with the Biden administration in terms of people being sent back to Mexico. And also, what do you say to these local leaders around the United States, even in places like New York City, that are now being inundated with the asylum seekers that are being shipped by bus from Texas and Florida to Northern cities and Northern states, the sheer numbers of people they’re suddenly having to deal with?
GUERLINE JOZEF: I don’t think we are being inundated by asylum seekers. I believe that we did not prepare, intentionally or unintentionally, to actually receive people in mobility, people in need of protection. As a country, the same way we did for the Ukrainians, we did not have anyone on the news complaining about Ukrainians coming to New York or to other cities. They were received and welcomed and placed into a sponsorship program and supported full, full on. So I don’t believe we are being inundated. I believe that we need to be better prepared to receive people, and not allow the false narrative that we are in the middle of a crisis in order to deter cities, such as Chicago or New York, or states, like Massachusetts, to receive people.
And we applaud the states and the cities who are receiving people, but we know that the federal government can provide the support needed to welcome those people, just as we have done for the Ukrainians. And we still have yet to see any welcoming program for the Haitians. We still have yet to see any meaningful change within the immigration system to be able to address those issues. We are seeing a response to false narrative. We are seeing a system that is being built to deter people. We are seeing a narrative that is being creating against immigrants. That’s what we are seeing right now.
And we are calling on accountability for all people who are a part of this misleading information. And we really are here — we are in communications with many organizations in New York, in Chicago, in D.C., who are willing and able to support people arriving.
AMY GOODMAN: Guerline Jozef, we want to —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And —
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, go ahead.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh, no. And Mexico’s role? I asked you about Mexico’s role, as well.
GUERLINE JOZEF: Yes, Juan. The thing is, we understand that the U.S.-Mexico summit happened last week in San Diego. We were not privy of the decisions or how the communications went. But as a result, we see Mexico is receiving folks. So, we just are here and pleading and asking the Mexican government to do the right thing by the migrants and people in — displaced people in immobility.
AMY GOODMAN: Guerline Jozef, we want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, today joining us from Mexico City in Mexico.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Treasury Department acknowledged that it will be investigating Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s use of federal funds to transport Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last month.
Legal challenges to DeSantis’s actions — including a lawsuit from the migrants themselves alleging that the governor and others caused “economic, emotional and constitutional harms” to them and their families — have already been brought forward. A sheriff in Texas has also opened an investigation into the matter.
But the action by the Treasury Department marks the first time that a federal agency or department has announced that DeSantis’s political stunt is being scrutinized.
Responding to correspondence from Massachusetts Democratic lawmakers demanding an investigation, Treasury Department Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar wrote that an inquiry would be opened “as quickly as possible.”
Those lawmakers had questioned whether DeSantis and other Florida lawmakers had improperly used federal funds given to the state, intended to help with COVID-19 recovery efforts, to fly the migrants out of Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. The department said it would audit the state’s spending.
“As part of its oversight responsibilities for the [State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund], TIG [the Treasury Office of Inspector General] has audit work planned on recipients’ compliance with eligible use guidance,” Delmar said in his letter.
“We have already sought information from Florida about appropriate use” of monies from the coronavirus relief fund that was laid out in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Delmar added.
According to reporting from Politico, DeSantis didn’t use funding from the federal government directly to pay for the flights. Rather, the funds were derived from interest earned from COVID-19 relief. The Treasury Department inspector general’s office will determine whether that type of funding violates federal law.
Roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants, inside the U.S. legally, were flown last month from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. They were not told they were going there, but rather to Boston, and were promised food, shelter and job security once they landed — promises that were lies, they soon discovered, upon arrival. Residents at Martha’s Vineyard were quick to provide care for the migrants, offering them food and shelter, until a more permanent solution for their needs could be found.
A group of those migrants has filed a lawsuit against DeSantis, stating that he “manipulated” them, stripping them “of their dignity,” and “deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection [rights] under law.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
More than 40 House Democrats on Friday urged the Biden Justice Department to open an investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ inhumane scheme that transported dozens of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, alleging the Republican leader and other officials involved may have violated federal law.
“Harrowing interviews and reports reveal officials in Florida intentionally misled the migrants to believe they would be flown to Boston to receive expedited work papers,” the 44 Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“Instead, the deceived migrants were packed onto buses, put onto two privately chartered flights, and prohibited from taking photos of the journey that made two unannounced stops before landing in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts,” the letter continues. “It is alleged that immigration officials knowingly falsified mailing addresses for the migrants by selecting arbitrary homeless shelters across the United States, with the expectation that migrants would be required to attend court proceedings as early as next week in states thousands of miles away or face forced removal.”
Spearheaded by Reps. Gerry Connolly (Va.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas), Ted Lieu (Calif.), and Mondaire Jones (N.Y.), the letter calls on the Justice Department to “investigate whether any federal funds were used to operate a fraudulent scheme and request the Department of Justice make a determination as to whether officials in Texas and Florida violated federal law.”
“The actions of the officials in Texas and Florida were not only fundamentally cruel and uniquely un-American; there remains a likelihood that federal laws were violated,” the House Democrats wrote.
NEW: I teamed up with @RepSylviaGarcia, @RepTedLieu, @RepMondaire, and 41 of our colleagues to request a DOJ investigation into the cruel migrant flights organized by Republicans.https://t.co/SzQKRSya61 pic.twitter.com/WFcttS3cri
— Rep. Gerry Connolly (@GerryConnolly) September 23, 2022
Dozens of migrants arrived in Massachusetts last week after DeSantis — in partnership with the GOP-aligned aviation firm Vertol Systems — arranged for them to be flown to Martha’s Vineyard from San Antonio, using human beings as props for political messaging. A Texas sheriff on Monday launched a criminal investigation into the ploy, which he said “preyed upon” the vulnerable migrants.
Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who has engaged in similar schemes, insists he wasn’t involved in the flights organized by the Florida government.
On Tuesday, some of the Venezuelan asylum-seekers filed a federal class-action lawsuit alleging that DeSantis and Florida’s transportation secretary “designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting this vulnerability for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial, and political interests.”
Numerous state-level officials, including Massachusetts Rep. Dylan Fernandes, have demanded a federal probe, characterizing the Florida governor’s actions as “fraud, kidnapping, deprivation of liberty, and human trafficking.” Members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, meanwhile, have pressured the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate the matter, citing possible abuse of federal funds.
Additionally, Florida state Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat, has filed a lawsuit aiming to bar DeSantis from spending any more taxpayer money on the migrant flights.
In their letter on Friday, the 44 House Democrats stressed that “the federal government retains jurisdiction over cases that involve interstate travel” and should intervene.
“The Bexar County, Texas sheriff’s office has already opened a criminal investigation into this scheme,” they wrote. “We urge your department to do the same and conduct a thorough investigation and deliver accountability to those that violated the law.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Three of the roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard last week are suing Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, alleging that he deceived them with promises of food, shelter and job security and that his actions violated their rights.
Last week, DeSantis and other Florida officials coordinated a flight of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The migrants were coerced into boarding the chartered plane by scouts at a migrant resource center, who assured them they would have jobs and shelter waiting for them in Washington D.C. or Boston upon arrival.
When the flight landed, however, migrants quickly discovered that jobs and shelter had not been arranged for them. Although DeSantis hadn’t warned Martha’s Vineyard residents that the flight would be arriving, community members rushed to help the migrants, providing them with food and shelter until they were relocated to a facility with further resources.
Three of those migrants are suing DeSantis and other officials, claiming that the stunt caused “economic, emotional, and constitutional harms” to them and their families, including their children.
“These immigrants, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the United States, experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country,” the lawsuit states.
The actions by the Florida governor and others were a “premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting” the migrants’ vulnerabilities to advance the “personal, financial and political interests” of DeSantis and his allies, the suit alleges.
DeSantis and the other defendants named in the lawsuit “manipulated [migrants], stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the Federal Government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda,” the suit adds.
The lawsuit states that the migrants’ Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and their 14th Amendment due process rights were violated.
Officials representing DeSantis claim that consent forms signed by the migrants free him of any liability for harms they may have experienced. Taryn Fenske, a spokesperson for the governor, described the lawsuit as “political theater.”
The consent forms, which were released publicly by DeSantis, showcase that the governor’s defense may not hold up in court, however. The version of the form shared by journalist Judd Legum on Twitter includes three paragraphs in English, but only two of the paragraphs are translated into Spanish. The paragraph that wasn’t translated into Spanish includes information on the migrants’ final destination, but still only specifies that they would be going to “Massachusetts.”
The migrants’ lawsuit also acknowledges that they were given consent forms, but claims they were rushed into signing them and that they weren’t provided with proper translation services.
“DeSantis may have gotten the immigrants to sign consent forms — but if there was fraud (and it sounds like there was), then any purported contract was and is void,” said lawyer Tristan Snell on Twitter.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday claimed credit for sending two planes carrying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
DeSantis, apparently seeking to one-up Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who have sent buses carrying migrants to Democrat-led cities that have expressed support for migrant protections regardless of their status, sent two planes carrying undocumented migrants to Massachusetts, which has a Republican governor. A spokesperson for DeSantis said the governor is targeting locations with “sanctuary” policies as part of a $12 million program the state authorized to remove undocumented migrants, according to Fox News, which first reported the stunt.
“States like Massachusetts, New York, and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden Administration’s open border policies,” DeSantis spokeswoman Taryn Fenske told the outlet.
DeSantis, who is running for re-election and has been widely discussed as a potential 2024 presidential contender, previously threatened to send migrants to Democrat-led states and sued the Biden administration over immigration enforcement.
About 50 migrants from Venezuela and Colombia traveling from San Antonio through Florida arrived at Martha’s Vineyard Airport on Wednesday, according to local news reports.
Massachusetts state Rep. Dylan Fernandes, a Democrat, decried the stunt as “evil and inhumane” but touted local support for the new arrivals.
“Many don’t know where they are. They say they were told they would be given housing and jobs,” he tweeted. “Islanders were given no notice but are coming together as a community to support them.”
A spokesperson for Republican Gov. Charlie Barker told Axios that the governor’s office is “in touch with local officials regarding the arrival of migrants in Martha’s Vineyard.”
“At this time, short-term shelter services are being provided by local officials, and the Administration will continue to support those efforts,” Baker spokesperson Terry MacCormack told the outlet.
Fernandes said the migrants were “not met with chaos” but with “compassion.”
“Our island jumped into action putting together 50 beds, giving everyone a good meal, providing a play area for the children, making sure people have the healthcare and support they need,” he wrote. “We are a community that comes together to support immigrants.”
Our island jumped into action putting together 50 beds, giving everyone a good meal, providing a play area for the children, making sure people have the healthcare and support they need. We are a community that comes together to support immigrants. pic.twitter.com/kG5bglhbLe
— Dylan Fernandes (@RepDylan) September 15, 2022
State Sen. Julian Cyr, a Democrat who represents Martha’s Vineyard, told CNN that officials scrambled to set up hurricane-style shelters after receiving no prior notice of the arrivals.
“They set that up in a matter of hours and these families received a meal,” he said. “They were Covid tested and are spending the night in shelters at several churches on the island.”
Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., whose district includes the island, tweeted that residents are called DeSantis’ “bluff and rising to meet the challenge because that’s what Americans do.”
“History does not look kindly on leaders who treat human beings like cargo, loading them up and sending them a thousand miles away,” he wrote, blasting DeSantis’ decision to “prioritize cruelty & chaos over human dignity in today’s taxpayer-funded stunt.”
Back home, a coalition of Venezuelan-American groups announced a Thursday press conference to condemn the stunt, accusing DeSantis of a “blatant disregard for human life” and of lying to Cuban and Venezuelan communities earlier this month when he vowed not to send migrants from those countries out of state, according to Florida Today.
“Even for Ron DeSantis, this is a new low,” Florida Democratic Chairman Manny Diaz said in a statement. “There is nothing that DeSantis won’t do, and nobody that he won’t hurt, in order to score political points… Ron DeSantis is playing games with the lives of people who came here in search of freedom and opportunity in order to boost his campaign fundraising and Fox News ratings.”
Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee facing DeSantis in his re-election battle, condemned his opponent for “spending $12 million to fly innocent migrant children out of our state when that money could be spent on fighting to help Floridians and lower costs.”
“Everything Ron DeSantis does is to score political points and feed red meat to his base in his thinly veiled attempt to run for President – but it’s really Floridians who pay the price,” he tweeted, adding that “this is just another political stunt that hurts our state.”
This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.
One hundred human beings were inside an 18-wheeler without water or air conditioning in the blistering 100-degree Texas heat. Fifty of them are now dead. Sixteen more people were taken to a hospital — including four children. That was this Monday in San Antonio. This is the deadliest of such tragedies in recent years, but it is not the first. In 2003, 19 migrants were found dead inside 18-wheelers in Victoria, Texas. In 2017, there were 10 migrants found dead in 18-wheelers — also in San Antonio.
Summer is the peak season of deadly state-produced violence. Anybody who has done decarceration work will tell you that summer is one of the most dreaded times for heavily policed and imprisoned communities. Summer is also when the most migration-related deaths occur.
Two hours from San Antonio, a migrant attempting to reach a local ranch for a drink of water was found dead yesterday in Kinney County, Texas. The Sheriff’s Office report states: “It’s the 5th dead illegal alien so far this year in the County.” The disregard for migrant lives has never been clearer.
The news reported heat stroke and dehydration as the main causes of death in San Antonio. Though that’s certainly what autopsies will reveal, to blame the heat or the smugglers alone would be to dishonor the human beings whose lives have been robbed by local, state and federal immigration policy. Whether related to border crossing or detention, every single migration-related death is preventable.
On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott took to Twitter to blame President Biden for the deaths. The way in which migrant lives are used as political pawns denies people basic respect and dignity, even in death. As a formerly undocumented immigrant organizer who has called Texas home for the past 20 years, I can tell you what we see from the ground: One of those men is actively trying to kill us, while the other one is leaving us to die.
In March of last year, Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, a $4 billion political operation that deployed law enforcement and national guard members from all over the state (and a few other states) to flood border communities and arrest migrants with misdemeanor trespassing charges to then be sent to state prisons for up to a year. Over 3,000 people have been charged and imprisoned through Operation Lone Star since its inception. This is Abbott’s attempt to create his own immigration enforcement and deterrence program.
We in Texas have been urging the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to stop enabling Operation Lone Star, and the Department of Justice to begin an investigation. On both fronts, there’s only been inaction — inaction whose end result, predictably, is premature death.
There is often a villain and a savior narrative along partisan lines that defines the dialogue on immigration policy in the United States. But these deaths remind me of James Baldwin’s powerful statement:
I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it. And I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it … it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.
Those in power are responsible for this violence. They are the authors of devastation regardless of whether their actions are considered a crime by the legal system, and regardless of whether they aggressively push xenophobic agendas or fail to intervene to protect the victims of those policies.
Just last week, Democrats in Congress approved an amendment to the DHS budget bill that would extend the racist and inhumane Title 42 policy that prevents people from seeking asylum at the border. President Biden failed to end the policy when he first came into office, knowing full well that it was put in place by Stephen Miller to end migration.
Biden’s hesitation enabled Governor Abbott and other Republicans to politicize the issue creating the conditions for this type of tragedy to take place. With Title 42 and other policies foreclosing safer pathways, migrants will continue to enter the U.S. through pathways like the one that ended in mass death in San Antonio yesterday.
As a political system, Texas is a violence and death-oriented state. From the attacks on transgender youth, to the Uvalde tragedy, to the trigger ban on reproductive rights, our state mass-produces death and then spreads it to other places.
The federal government, while publicly showing outrage and disdain for places like Texas and the broader South, is an accomplice and enabler of the violence that robbed migrants of their lives in San Antonio this week.
The embrace of policies that orient toward care and health — rather than exclusion and violence — could have prevented yesterday’s mass deaths. Yet even though those lives were robbed by death-making policies, those human beings were much more than that. So are the survivors.
Those who died are human beings with loved ones — with strength, with hope, with faith, with stories that should matter to all of us. Their search for a more bearable life, for survival, for resources and for sustenance was met with death instead of welcoming and care.
As we learn their names, may they weigh heavy on our tongues, and may no one dare say they did not die in vain — they did. This is the root cause that people need to reckon with: In the absence of life-sustaining migration policies, pointless state-sanctioned deaths will continue.
We in Texas will keep doing what we can to keep each other safe, even through what on most days seem like impossible conditions.
Those in other places should take note. The policies and technologies that facilitate death in Texas will not remain within our state borders, and organizing to undo Biden’s deadly indifference and Abbott’s active assaults is the only way forward.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
At the end of the just-concluded Summit of (some of) the Americas, President Joe Biden announced a “Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection,” claiming that participant countries are “transforming our approach to managing migration in the Americas … [recognizing] the responsibility that impacts on all of our nations.”
Recognizing that the U.S. has some responsibility for addressing the causes of migration is important. But President Biden stopped well short of acknowledging the U.S.’s two centuries of intervention in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, which lies at the root.
Biden pledged $300 million to help U.S. “partners in the region continue to welcome refugees and migrants” augmented by further World Bank loans. World Bank loans are often tied to demands for austerity and reforms to attract corporate investment, and therefore themselves are a cause of poverty and displacement. Aid and loans will not stop the flow of migrants because dealing with the root causes of migration requires fundamental, structural change in the relationship between the U.S. and Latin America.
When we go to the border and listen to people in the migrant camps, or talk with the families here who have members in immigration detention centers, we hear the living experiences of people who have had no alternative to leaving home. Escaping violence, war and poverty, they now find themselves imprisoned, and we have to ask, who is responsible? Where did the violence and poverty come from that forced people to leave home, to cross our border with Mexico, and then to be picked up and incarcerated here?
Overwhelmingly, it has come from the actions of the government of this country, and the wealthy elites it has defended.
It came from two centuries of colonialism, from the announcement of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, when this government said that it had the right to do as it wanted in all of the countries of Latin America. It came from the wars that turned Puerto Rico and the Philippines into direct colonies over a century ago.
It came from more wars and interventions fought to keep in power those who would willingly ensure the wealth and profits of U.S. corporations, and the misery and poverty of the vast majority of their own countries.
Smedley Butler, a decorated Marine Corp general, told the truth about what he did a century ago, writing, “I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.”
When people in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti tried to change this injustice, the U.S. armed right-wing governments that made war on their own people. Sergio Sosa, a combatiente in Guatamala’s civil war who now heads a workers’ center in Omaha, Nebraska, told me simply, “You sent the guns, and we buried the dead.”
Over 1 million people left El Salvador in the 1980s and an estimated half million crossed the border to the U.S. at that time. How many more hundreds of thousands crossed from Guatemala? How many more after the U.S. helped overthrow Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti? How many from Honduras after Manuel Zelaya was forced from office in 2009, and U.S. officials said nothing while sending arms to the army that used them against Honduran people?
Since 1994, 8 million Mexicans have come as migrants to work in the U.S. In 1990, 4.5 million Mexican migrants lived in the U.S. In 2008, the number peaked at 12.67 million. About 5.7 million were able to get some kind of visa; another 7 million couldn’t but came nevertheless. Almost 10 percent of the people of Mexico live in the U.S.
The poverty that forced 3 million corn farmers, many of them Indigenous, from Mexico to come here was a product of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), making it impossible for them to grow the maize they domesticated and gave to the world. Archer-Daniels-Midland and Continental Grain Company used NAFTA’s stolen inheritance from Indigenous Oaxacans to take over the Mexican corn market. One of the most important movements in Mexico today is for the right to stay home, the right to an alternative.
What has produced migration from rural parts of Mexico is the same thing that closed factories in the U.S: Green Giant closed its broccoli freezer in Watsonville, California, and 1,000 immigrant Mexican workers lost their jobs when it moved to Irapuato in central Mexico, where the company could pay lower wages.
In a Tijuana factory assembling flat panel televisions for export to the U.S., a woman on the line has to labor for half a day to buy a gallon of milk for her children. Maquiladora workers live in homes made from pallets and other materials cast off by the factories, in barrios with no sewers, running water or electrical lines.
Because our two economies are linked, Mexico suffers when the U.S. economy takes a dive. When recessions hit the U.S., customers stop buying the products made in the maquiladoras, and hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs. Where do they go?
When the U.S. sought to impose the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on El Salvador in 2004, then-U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Otto Reich told Salvadorans that if they elected a government that wouldn’t go along with CAFTA, the U.S. would cut off the remittances sent by Salvadorans in the U.S. back to their families at home.
Young people, brought from El Salvador as children, joined gangs in Los Angeles so they could survive in the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Then they were arrested and deported back to El Salvador, and the gang culture of L.A. took root there, with the drug trade sending cocaine and heroin back to the U.S. barrios and working-class neighborhoods here.
When people arrive at the U.S. border, they are treated as criminals. John Kelly, the dishonest general who advised Donald Trump in the White House, called migration “a crime-terror convergence.”
Yet people coming to the U.S. are part of the labor force that puts vegetables and fruit on the table, cleans the office buildings, and empties the bedpans and takes care of people here when they get old and sick. Turning people into criminals and passing laws saying people can’t work legally makes people vulnerable and forces them into the lowest wages in our economy.
To employers, migration is a labor supply system, and for them it works well because they don’t have to pay for what the system really costs, either in Mexico or in the U.S. Trade policy and immigration policy are inextricably bound up with each other. They’re part of the same system.
NAFTA didn’t just displace Mexicans. It displaced people in the U.S., too. In the last few decades Detroit lost 40 percent of its population as the auto industry left. Today many Ford parts come from Mexico. But the working families who lost those outsourced jobs didn’t disappear. Instead, hundreds of thousands of people began an internal migration within the U.S. larger than the dustbowl displacement of the 1930s.
Knowing where the violence and poverty are coming from, and who is benefitting from this system, is one step toward ending it. But we also have to know what we want in its place. What is our alternative to detention centers and imprisonment? To the hundreds of people who still die at the border every year?
The migrant justice movement has had alternative proposals for many years. One was called the Dignity Campaign. The American Friends Service Committee proposed A New Path. What we want isn’t hard to imagine.
We want an end to mass detention and deportations, and the closing of the detention centers. The militarization of the border has to be reversed, so that it becomes a region of solidarity and friendship between people on both sides. Working should not be a crime for those without papers. Instead, people need real visas that allow them to travel and work, and the right to claim Social Security benefits for the contributions they’ve made over years of labor.
But we also want to deal with the root causes of migration.
U.S. auto companies employ more workers in Mexico now than in the U.S. Every flat-panel TV sold here is made in Mexico or another country. While the workers at General Motors’s Silao factory in Guanajuato, Mexico, recently voted courageously for an independent union and negotiated a new contract with important wage gains, a worker in that factory still earns less in a whole day than a U.S. autoworker earns in an hour.
Decades of trade agreements and economic reforms have created that difference and forced people into poverty. For many, that makes migration involuntary, the only means to survive. We need hearings in Congress that face that history squarely — its impact on both sides of the border.
We have a long history of solidarity with progressive Mexican unions in our own labor movement. That’s a big part of the answer to the problems of NAFTA and free trade that we’ve always advocated. Our unions on each side need to support each other, so that we can lift up workers regardless of the location of their factories.
We also want an end to military intervention, to military aid to right-wing governments, and to U.S. support for the repression of the movements fighting for change.
U.S. companies have been investing in Mexico since the late 1800s. They are not simply going to abandon their investment in Mexico, and the U.S. government is not going to abandon its effort to control the Mexican economy because wages rise. The key elements in how we fight against what this means for workers on both sides of the border is unity and coordinated action.
In both countries copper miners have been on strike against the Mexican conglomerate Grupo Mexico in the last decade. Their unions see solidarity as the answer. So do the United Electrical Workers and the Frente Auténtico del Trabajo, and my union, Communications Workers of America, as well as the Sindicato de Telefonistas de la República Mexicana, and others.
If you think this isn’t possible or just a dream, remember that a decade after Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. (That same year, Congress put the family preference immigration system into law — the only pro-immigrant legislation we’ve had for 100 years.)
That was no gift. A civil rights movement made Congress pass that law. When that law was passed we had no detention centers like the ones that imprison migrants today. There were no walls on our border with Mexico, and no one died crossing it. There is nothing permanent or unchangeable about these institutions of oppression. We have changed our world before, and a people’s movement can do it again.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
It’s 9 pm in Thessaloniki, Greece, and on the third floor of a beaten-up office block on the outskirts of town, a presentation is taking place. The lights are switched off, and the audience settles in across two sofas and a scattering of plastic stools.
“Yes, that’s good,” the presenter says. “Next slide please.”
The presenter is Elaine Harrold, an employee of the Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) in Greece. She turns to the large dust sheet behind her. Propped up across two clothes rails, the sheet has a shaky projected image cast across its center.
“Here’s just one report of a pushback we collected in 2021,” Harrold says. “Pushbacks consist of forcing individuals across national borders without documentation or the provision of basic rights like access to translation. They are illegal, often violent, and stand against every piece of refugee protection legislation in Europe.”
Harrold turns, pointing to the pixelated satellite image behind her. “On September 12, 2021, the respondent we interviewed described being approached by a group of armed police in the center of Thessaloniki, where he was detained, loaded into a van and transported to a cell on the outskirts of the city.
“After two days spent in the cell, a time in which the respondent reports multiple accounts of physical and mental abuse, he was loaded into a police bus with around 30 others, and driven four hours east to Feres. Feres is a border town on the Evros river. The surrounding region is somewhat of a dark zone for media access, but reports speak of ‘warehouse style’ asylum-seeker holding facilities, where basic welfare standards and human rights protections are completely disregarded.
“Here the respondent was collected with around 90 others and driven to the border. At the edge of the river, the groups were forced onto dinghies and ordered to cross to Turkey. The authorities selected individuals from the detainee population themselves to drive the boats, promising the drivers reentry into Europe if they agreed.”
Harrold tracks her finger across the border to Turkey, “The river crossing here is very dangerous and the site of countless asylum-seeker disappearances. The crossing is highly weather dependent, and the detainees are sometimes forced onto the islands in-between the two nations and guarded from accessing either side of the riverbank.
“Sadly, events like this one are just a routine occurrence at the southern borders to the European Union, and since 2016, BVMN has collected 1,353 reports of illegal pushbacks across the Balkan entry points. But violent methods of immigration control are no surprise when put into the wider context here.
“In the hierarchy of political and geographical privilege, less powerful states like Greece and Turkey are offered massive incentives to limit asylum seekers entering the EU. The issue of harboring and managing the migrating populations is outsourced to these countries, and with the geographical distance and complexities of shared responsibility, the EU politicians who fuel the subsequent human rights abuses rarely have to answer for them directly.”
The following afternoon in Thessaloniki, at the headquarters of the city’s largest refugee support organization, a mother in a giant puffer jacket shields her daughter from the wind. Beside her stand two young men, one of them leaning up against a wall with a crutch in his hand.
These individuals are part of the community of “People on the Move” (POTM) in Thessaloniki. “People on the Move” is the most recent descriptor for the complex population of migrants on European soil, encompassing both refugees and asylum seekers. Many of these individuals lack documentation, and, unable to gain access to the labor market or health care system, they often rely on volunteer organizations for help.
But today this small group will be turned away. It’s mid-afternoon and they’ve missed their chance to be treated. The volunteer organization space is dual-use, and in the afternoon the makeshift hospital becomes a distribution center, packed with donated clothes and vegetables. There is a great requirement for such services in the city. The community of POTM here are mostly homeless or living in temporary government housing. They exist in various states of engagement with the Greek asylum system, many of them deterred from interaction with the police by the threat of long-term detainment.
On November 16, 2021, Oxfam released “Detention as default,” a briefing on the asylum situation in Greece. Across this 31-page document, Oxfam paints a damning picture of the Greek asylum system, suggesting that Greece and the EU are colluding against asylum seekers, creating an inhumane and hostile environment, and using detainment centers to undermine any real attempt to form a productive asylum system.
Referencing figures from June 2021, Oxfam cites the 3,000 migrants in administrative detention, meaning detention without criminal charges, arguing that, although detention used to be considered a final resort for migrants in Greece, recent shifts in the law have moved it to the center of the asylum process.
The line of waiting POTM is long that afternoon, and during food distribution, an old saloon car pulls up with a plain clothes police officer in it. “They usually don’t bother us too much anymore,” says Bill O’Leary, a retired teacher from the United Kingdom, and the coordinator for that afternoon’s distribution, “They just come here to count the POTM, … trying to track the numbers in the city.”
It’s Friday evening in Thessaloniki, and the waterfront promenade is busy with shoppers, bar-hoppers and teenage couples walking hand in hand. Here is a city organized around the sea, and to the east of the promenade, a wooden pier, dotted with benches and groups of teenagers, stretches out into the Mediterranean.
“When I was in Turkey, we worked every day,” says Robin, one of the community volunteers. “I was a tailor, working in a T-shirt factory. It’s not very complex work you understand, very basic and hard.”
Robin is Afghani. He’s in his mid-20s with a boyish face and impeccable English. “You take one piece of fabric,” he says, mimicking the action with his hands. “You attach it to another. It is good to have work, but the conditions are very bad and the migrants have no security.”
Behind Robin’s head, the lights of a pirate-themed tourist ship sail peacefully across the bay. “You work all month, and at the end of the month, the boss decides to pay you or not. It is unfair, but the migrant has no power or protection.” The group around him nod solemnly.
Ever since the Syrian civil war in 2014, the context of migration in Turkey has been increasingly problematic. Following the breakdown of government in Syria, huge waves of displaced people crossed the border into Turkey, or fled onward toward Greece and Italy.
To react to the necessary demand for refugee registration, Turkey created “Temporary Protection” (TP), a new status of legal registration for migrants. In its original conception, the TP status would be a short-term crisis measure, offering speedy and basic protections while avoiding the complexities and international guarantees around the status of asylum seekers. But with the wider economic and political situation at play, this “short-term” plan for TP registration was to come under pressure.
With the signing of the EU Turkey agreement in March 2016, 6 billion euros in financial aid was promised to Turkey, to support and harbor refugees, and to limit the number coming to Europe. This was the groundwork for a huge refugee outsourcing economy, and with Turkey now operating as an active asylum-seeker barrier, the role of temporary protection status would be instrumental in managing the additional population.
One of the fundamental rights under the TP status was the migrants’ ability to access the labor market. Under TP, an individual could be granted a work permit, offering a minimum wage and basic standards of welfare. Importantly however, the responsibility to apply for these documents lay in the hands of the employer, and the incentive was often to bypass government formalities and pursue casual agreements instead.
“You have not worked hard enough,” Robin says dramatically, lifting the blade of his hand into the air. “You are not worth your full salary. I pay you only half.” He drops the act and smiles, “It is very bad treatment we know. But the migrant has no documents, so they cannot argue.”
***
Eight years after the Syrian migrant crisis began, the country now holds the largest population of refugees in the world, the majority of whom are registered under temporary protection. With the breakdown of democracy in Afghanistan, a new wave of refugees is now moving into Turkey. But along with this great increase of displaced people at the border, there are other, more insidious growth factors at play.
In June 2021, following consistent pressure from the EU, Greece designated Turkey as a “safe third country” for asylum seeker deportation. As a premise, the use of such “safe third countries” is simple. If a prospective asylum applicant has passed through, or has a sufficient connection with a previous country where they could have applied for asylum, then they can be returned to that country to pursue an asylum application there.
In theory, the move to make Turkey a “safe third country” cut Greece’s responsibility for asylum-seeker protection by two-thirds. But for many critics, this was an explicitly cynical play from Greece and the EU.
“The concept of a safe third country presupposes the provision of a level of protection in accordance with the Geneva Convention on Refugees by the third country,” stated Vasilios Papadopoulos, president of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles and member of the Greek Council for Refugees. It also suggests “the existence of an essential link between the asylum seeker and that country and the consent of the third country. In the case of Turkey, none of the above is the case.”
According to its critics, adding Turkey to the “safe-third-country” list had not only endangered the human rights of the asylum seekers but further extended the means for asylum-seeker outsourcing. With the “safe-third-country” principle in play, a dangerous legal framework had been extended, and the EU now had greater freedoms to use financial and political incentives to pressure Turkey into harboring asylum seekers.
As the spring months roll on through Thessaloniki, the Balkan migratory routes become more easily passable again, and the foot traffic increases. But where the mountains and borders of the European landscape remain unchanged, the advent of war in Ukraine has created a vastly different geopolitical climate.
Make no mistake, Russia’s aggressive invasion has catalyzed both an acute European refugee crisis and a very long tail of humanitarian support required across the region. To put the numbers into perspective, in 2015, at the peak of the Syrian migrant crisis, 1.3 million refugees crossed the borders into Europe. Flash forward to 2022, and the last three months have seen more than four times that number crossing the Ukrainian border, an estimated 7.2 million people in need of immediate refuge and long-term support.
So how will this new crisis affect the already-strained context for migrants on the continent? Stepping back to view our present moment in history, it seems the next five years could bring a final pinch point in the story of immigration policy in Europe.
With this huge growth in POTM on the continent and an already unstable economic climate, governments will now face unavoidable questions, and the dangerous practice of outsourcing refugee support to less-stable nations will be forced into the public conversation.
As to the results of those discussions, it is perhaps too early to tell. But in the face of increasing crisis and hardship, the morality of European citizens will be truly tested: Are they ready to open up to the realities of human displacement and war on their border, or are they prepared to close their eyes, close their borders, and use their financial, political and geographic privileges to remain insulated?
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Prime Minister has come under fire for “attacks” on lawyers who are “simply doing their jobs” as the Government faces legal action over plans to send migrants to Rwanda.
Boris Johnson claimed “liberal lawyers” will attempt to scupper the deal as Downing Street said flights for the one-way trip to the east African nation may not take place for months, in the wake of criticism and legal challenges.
Number 10 insisted the Government was not waiting for court cases to be resolved before putting the policy into practice but questions remain as to whether it is ready to be launched, with very little detail about how it will work being made public so far.
Officials are yet to confirm when the first flights will take off despite reports that Mr Johnson wanted to see this by the end of the month.
Johnson said there would be “legal eagles, liberal lawyers, who will try to make this difficult to settle” but insisted the Rwanda deal was a “very sensible thing” and that this was a “humane, compassionate and sensible” solution to tackling Channel crossings.
At the same time, the Home Office warned migrants were being cast adrift in the Channel by people smugglers using “dangerous, flimsy and unseaworthy boats”.
Mark Fenhalls QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said:
Attacks on men and women for simply doing their jobs are irresponsible and undermine the rule of law.
Fenhalls explained:
Few details of how the proposed scheme may operate have emerged but the Government has published a ‘factsheet’ that says: ‘Everyone considered for relocation will be screened and have access to legal advice. Decisions will be taken on a case-by-case basis and nobody will be removed if it is unsafe or inappropriate for them.’
It is unclear who will be making these decisions or what criteria they be applying. But, as the Government acknowledges, the lawyers who provide legal advice in such cases will be fulfilling their professional duties.
Sir Jonathan Jones QC, a former head of the Government Legal Department and now a senior consultant at law firm Linklaters, said it was
not fair to blame the lawyers for bringing such challenges.
He told the PA news agency:
If there are legal risks (which seems very likely) the Government will no doubt have been warned about them. It’s not improper (or particularly uncommon) for the Government to proceed with a policy/decision where there is some risk of successful legal challenge.
It’s not fair to blame the lawyers for bringing such challenges – they are just serving the best interests of their clients, as they are professionally bound to do.
Jones also said:
It’s certainly not fair to blame the claimants’ lawyers if a challenge is successful – by definition that is a court saying that the Government is acting unlawfully: that’s not the lawyers’ fault.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said:
The Government’s desire to treat people as human cargo and expel them to Rwanda is not only cruel, nasty and unprincipled, but it is also completely unworkable and lacking key details.
Given this, it isn’t surprising it is facing legal challenges. Such brutal policies will do little to deter desperate people jumping on boats, because they do nothing to address the reasons people are forced to come here.
Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action, which is one of the organisations threatening legal action, accused Mr Johnson of playing
dangerous games by inciting far-right hatred against lawyers when he knows very well that his Rwanda policy is unlawful, unworkable, neo-colonial and inhumane.
By The Canary
This post was originally published on The Canary.
Doctors in Southern California are connecting former President Donald Trump’s efforts to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall that “can’t be climbed” with soaring rates of serious injuries and deaths among migrants.
Seven physicians at the University of California, San Diego detailed new statistics and their observations about local trauma cases in a research letter published Friday in the journal JAMA Surgery.
Under Trump, a 30-foot wall was installed across more than 400 miles, often replacing shorter barriers. The doctors focused on admissions to their trauma center after the new wall went up in California’s Imperial and San Diego Counties.
Before the higher barrier was built, “there were 67 fall admissions from the border wall compared with 375 during the after period,” the letter states, explaining that “this increase of more than five times is still significant” when the doctors factor in average apprehensions by U.S. immigration officials.
After the wall was raised, there was also a jump in deaths — from zero to 16.
In @JAMASurgery – The 30 foot US – Mexico border wall was associated with 16 deaths and 5X increase in injuries In San Diego and Imperial Counties after completion in 2019. These patients were treated at trauma centers with the pandemic. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2022.1885 pic.twitter.com/jKo2JJB4OE
— UCSD Trauma Burn (@UCSDTrauma) April 29, 2022
“Once you go over 20 feet, and up to 30 feet, the chance of severe injury and death are higher,” Dr. Jay Doucet, chief of the trauma division at UC San Diego Health, told The Washington Post. “We’re seeing injuries we didn’t see before: pelvic fractures, spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, and a lot of open fractures when the bone comes through the skin.”
As the newspaper reported:
At Scripps Mercy Hospital, the other major trauma center for the San Diego area, border wall fall victims accounted for 16% of the 230 patients treated last month, a higher share than gunshot and stabbing cases, according to Vishal Bansal, the director of trauma.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bansal said in an interview. “This is crazy.” His trauma ward treated 139 border wall patients injured by falls last year, up from 41 in 2020.
Hector Almeida, a 33-year-old dentist from Cuba who was sent to UC San Diego Health after fracturing his left leg Monday, told the Post that “I never expected we would have to climb the wall.”
According to the paper, “Smugglers led his group to the wall with a ladder and told them to climb up and slide down the other side, said Almeida, who said he saw one woman fall and break both legs, and an older man with a severe head injury.”
I’m glad to see this in the national news. The terrible morbidity and mortality is very apparent to those of us working border-adjacent trauma #palliativecare. “Border wall fall” is now a common “reason for consult” short-hand. #hapc #palliative https://t.co/Sn7kyFFVub
— Kyle P. Edmonds, MD (he/him) (@kpedmonds) April 29, 2022
The San Diego Union-Tribune shared what happened to a Mexican family trying to flee drug cartel violence after they were turned away by U.S. officials under the Title 42 policy while seeking asylum at the San Ysidro Port of Entry:
On a foggy night in mid-March, several family members from the Mexican state of Michoacán followed smugglers’ instructions to climb the first of two border barriers to reach U.S. soil near San Diego.
One of the women felt her grip slipping on the first fence from the moisture in the air as she struggled over. When she approached the second wall, looming 30 feet above her, she realized it would be impossible for her to get over safely. As she panicked, the smugglers told her to wait to the side for Border Patrol to get her so that other migrants could cross.
It was only after she reached the Border Patrol station that she learned that her 14-year-old daughter, whom the smugglers sent with an earlier group, had fallen from the 30-foot wall.
“It was the worst night of my life,” said the woman, whose daughter remains mostly bedridden after spending a week in the hospital with a fractured skull, neck, and back. “We had come to save our lives, not to risk them in such an awful way.”
Border walls don't stop immigration, but they do cause deaths #ViolentBorders https://t.co/n6S53Hl6fv pic.twitter.com/XJKAux5czg
— Dr. Reece Jones (@ReeceJonesUH) April 29, 2022
Along with the human impact, the rise in falls has taken a financial toll. The letter notes that “the increased hospital costs of the surge in admissions exceeded $13 million in 2021 dollars.”
The surge also coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has strained the U.S. healthcare system, the paper points out, adding:
The care of these injured immigrants is not only a humanitarian problem but also a public health crisis that further worsened trauma center bed capacity, staff shortages, and professionals’ moral injury. Most of these patients had significant brain and facial injuries or complex fractures of the extremities or spine, with many requiring intensive care and staged operative reconstructions. Lack of health insurance made most patients ineligible for rehabilitation facilities or post-discharge physical therapy, further lengthening prolonged hospital stays.
“This isn’t a fracture you get when you fall off your bike, and you get a cast on it,” Dr. Amy Liepert, medical director of acute care surgery at UC San Diego Medical, told the Union-Tribune. “These are bones broken in multiple pieces that need to be pinned back together, sometimes with external fixation devices.”
The letter says that the Title 42 policy enabling U.S. officials to swiftly expel many migrants like the family from Michoacán “may have increased the numbers and desperation of persons crossing the border away from ports of entry and increased the number of falls.”
The Title 42 policy was implemented under Trump and continued under Biden, who plans to end it next month — though some lawmakers are pushing to extend it with a bill that critics say “ignores individuals and families in desperate need of safety and their right to seek protection from persecution.”
The doctors’ paper asserts that “future border barrier policy decisions should include assessment of the impact of increased injuries on the local healthcare systems as well as humanitarian consequences.”
As for the existing segments of the wall raised under Trump, Jules Kramer of the Minority Humanitarian Foundation, a San Diego nonprofit that has cared for injured migrants, told the Post that “it’s absolutely tragic, and it’s not deterring anyone — it’s only harming people.”
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the termination of the harmful Title 42 expulsion policy on April 1, but immigration advocates are frustrated that the implementation won’t begin until May 23. According to the CDC website, the extra time is meant to implement COVID-19 mitigation protocols, including COVID-19 vaccinations for migrants and preparing for the resumption of regular migration under Title 8, which lists an extensive series of reasons why a person could be deported, including having committed a crime within five years of being admitted into the U.S., violating a protective order, and being found in possession of drugs. It was a welcome announcement for immigration advocates who have been fighting for the end of what they say is a racist policy. But advocates say many questions remain with regards to implementing the end of the policy and, most importantly, that migrants seeking safety cannot wait almost two months for help.
“The announcement to terminate Title 42 is long overdue,” said Haddy Gassama, the UndocuBlack Network’s national director of policy and advocacy. “Organizations such as UndocuBlack and Haitian Bridge Alliance and many others have been pushing for the end of this policy for pretty much the two years since its inception. But, we weren’t able to celebrate immediately because there were so many questions around the implementation of that termination and what it would look like. There’s still quite a bit of advocacy, but it’s certainly a welcomed first step.”
Title 42 is a 76-year-old, World War II-era public health law that allows the CDC to bar certain individuals from entering the U.S. if it fears the spread of diseases or viruses. In March 2020, former President Donald Trump enacted the policy, despite the CDC’s scientists saying there was no evidence it would slow the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, President Joe Biden has continued the illegal policy of denying lawful asylum and turning away the vast majority of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the policy, the U.S. has expelled over 1.7 million people at the Southern border without due process, with recidivism rates soaring immediately after the policy was enacted.
Advocates say the policy exposes migrants to violence in Mexico, deprives them of their right to seek lawful asylum, forces them to return to the dangerous and unstable conditions they were trying to flee in the first place, and disproportionately impacts Black and brown migrants. According to Witness at the Border, there have been 175 ICE Air removal flights to Haiti since September 2021, returning around 19,000 Haitian migrants. Since January 2021, there have been 212 ICE Air return flights to Haiti, returning about 21,000 Haitian migrants. As the clock continues to tick until May 23, migrants will continue to be expelled under the policy.
“The harm that Title 42 is inflicting is still happening,” said Ronald Claude, the director of policy and advocacy for Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). “There is a lot of concern about what is to come and how that is going to negatively impact Black migrants.”
Claude and other advocates are concerned the termination of Title 42 will result in more enforcement of “Remain in Mexico,” another policy that deters migrants and asylum-seekers from safely entering the U.S. “Remain in Mexico,” or “Migrant Protection Protocols,” makes them wait in Mexico during their immigration proceedings.
“We can’t switch one evil for the other,” said Cynthia Garcia, United We Dream’s national campaigns manager for community protection. “We have to continue to build out an infrastructure that advances racial justice in the immigration lens.”
Claude said there should be a community-oriented approach to welcoming migrants into the country that collaborates with advocates for the Black migrant community to create a “fair, just, compassionate, and dignified system that was promised from the onset of this administration and that has not been reciprocated.”
Garcia said the Biden administration should support border community groups that are already supporting migrants by connecting them with health care, secure housing, and the ability to provide for their families.
“Instead of falling for the false choice of increasing the budget for ICE and CBP, or increasing the number of detention centers, we should actually increase funding for community centers, for relief for folks to have access to health care,” Garcia said. “That doesn’t just impact immigrants, it impacts the community at large.”
The news follows the Biden administration’s national messaging that the COVID-19 pandemic is in decline and the public can return to normal life. In March, the breadth of Title 42’s implementation was also limited. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the administration could not send migrants to countries where they would face persecution or torture. Separately, the CDC terminated the policy for unaccompanied minors altogether. Advocates say the termination should apply to all migrants, regardless of demographics, including single adults.
“Prioritizing family units over single adults could result again in disproportionately harming and endangering not only Black migrants, but also migrants who identify as LGBTQ+ who oftentimes present at the southern border as single adults,” Gassama said. “This interim period is one that is very dangerous. We hope that between now and May 23, while the administration is getting their ducks in a row, that there shouldn’t be any expulsion flights.”
Since the CDC made its announcement, Republican lawmakers have been trying to pass a coronavirus relief bill with a Title 42 amendment by the end of this week. Additionally, three Republican-led states (Missouri, Arizona, and Louisiana) have already sued the Biden administration over the decision to lift Title 42.
“We need to be able to push back against that harmful narrative that Republicans are driving,” Garcia said. “We need to continue to push against the fearmongering and lean into the Biden administration to continue to open up the asylum process.”
Until May 23, Claude, Garcia, and Gassama say they want to see the complete end of Title 42 immediately, for the Biden administration to fully restore the asylum system, and to create a process for addressing the millions of migrants who were unjustly deported under the policy.
“This decision is the result of the hard work and fighting of almost two years from Black immigrants rights organizations and local community members,” Gassama said. “But we know the fight is far from over.”
Prism is an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This post was originally published on Human Rights at Home Blog.
Poland must investigate all allegations of harassment of human rights defenders, including media workers and interpreters, at the border with Belarus, and grant access to journalists and humanitarian workers to the border area ensuring that they can work freely and safely, UN human rights experts* said on 16 February 2022.
“I am receiving several reports of harassments from human rights defenders who assist migrants and document human rights violations against them at the Polish-Belarusian border, and I am deeply concerned at this practice,” said Mary Lawlor, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.
Jakub Sypiański, a volunteer interpreter assisting migrants and asylum-seekers, was reportedly stopped by armed soldiers when driving home in November 2021. The soldiers, who were in an unmarked vehicle, did not identify themselves nor explain their actions. They forced open the car door, took the keys out of the ignition and tried pulling him out by his legs.
“Most of the migrants at the border do not speak Polish,” said Mary Lawlor. “Interpreters play a vital role in ensuring their human rights are protected both at the border and in immigration detention centres.”
At around the same time, armed soldiers reportedly harassed journalists covering the arrival of migrants and asylum seekers. Soldiers who did not identify themselves stopped, searched and handcuffed photojournalists Maciej Moskwa and Maciej Nabrdalik outside a military camp. The soldiers searched their equipment, scrutinising their photos, and documented their phone messages and incoming calls.
Journalists Olivia Kortas and Christoph Kürbel, along with two local Polish residents, were allegedly harassed by soldiers while filming a documentary about the human rights situation of migrants at the border.
“Reports that these journalists are being persecuted for documenting such human rights violations are appalling,” said Irene Khan, the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression. “Their work is crucial for everyone’s access to information about the situation unfolding at the border. If they are not allowed to do their job, there are very serious consequences for the human rights of migrants”.
“Interpreters and journalists, along with medics, lawyers and others who peacefully work for the protection of human rights or who provide humanitarian aid, are human rights defenders, according to the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. Poland should bear this in mind and ensure that they are able to carry out their legitimate work in a safe and enabling environment and with full access to the border area,” said Lawlor.
The experts are in contact with the Polish authorities on the matter.
The experts’ call was endorsed by: Mr. Felipe González Morales, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, and Ms. Elina Steinerte (Chair-Rapporteur), Ms. Miriam Estrada-Castillo (Vice-Chair), Ms. Leigh Toomey, Mr. Mumba Malila, and Ms. Priya Gopalan, Working Group on arbitrary detention.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112032
This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.
Private sector ships could be leased to stem the flow of migrants across the English Channel. At least, according to defence minister James Heappey. In a flustered interview on LBC, Heappey said the extra ships would be used in the channel to stop refugee boats.
But there is a problem with this plan. Just weeks ago an ex-navy commander warned against virtually every aspect of it. And called for a move away from the rhetoric of ‘pushback’.
Here’s Heappey stumbling his way through some moderately challenging questions from LBC presenter Tom Swarbrick:
Armed Forces Minister James Heappey admits the Royal Navy ships deployed in the channel can't intercept migrant boats because their platforms are too high.@TomSwarbrick1 pic.twitter.com/1Wakaw0tKx
— LBC (@LBC) February 17, 2022
Stopping the flow
Heappey seemed to be saying up to ten ships, and an unknown number of smaller vessels, would be leased by the military. He seemed to think these would be manned by military personnel. Measures in home secretary Priti Patel’s new Borders bill (here’s our take on this racist legislation) could then be used to arrest refugees “in the channel.”
But Heappey’s comment were confused. And they contravened the advice of a former navy commander called before the defence select committee just weeks ago. However when pressed on who would be arresting refugees. Heappey admitted the Navy’s sailors and marines had no legal power to do so.
Heappey also said that navy platforms were too big to ‘cross-deck’ people from dinghies to ships. And that:
…we are looking that we would need anywhere up to another ten of the larger vessels that you would use to do the mid-channel cross-decking, and I’m guessing that we would need a number of smaller vessels to shadow dinghies to the shore.
The plan was yet to be modelled, Heappey added, before suggesting 10 ships would be the upper end figure.
Select committee
But let’s look at what Heappey has said in comparison to recent testimony at the defence select committee on this exact issue or ‘Operation Isotrope’ as the military calls it’s involvement in the anti-refugee effort.
The English channel is a busy global shipping lane, retired commander Tom Sharp warned the committee on 26 January. And he said that using boats to stop dinghies carried its own risk to life:
In my view, we need to move our mindset very slightly away from this idea of large boats or small boats coming alongside overladen rubber dinghies. You are creating a safety of life issue right there, even though you are trying to help.
Tremendous risk
As currently envisaged, the operation carries serious risks to people’s lives, Sharp said:
There is a tremendous amount of risk just associated with what is being discussed, which is why I do not think it is the right solution.
Committee member Mark Francois asked about Rules of Engagement (ROE). This term usually describes the conditions under which the military can use violent force. Sharp did not approve:
I am not even sure “rules of engagement” is the right term. This is a bit like confusing the inherent right of self-defence with rules of engagement.
Immutable laws of the sea
He also explained that it was “immutable” maritime law that mariners helped other mariners if they were in distress:
SOLAS and UNCLOS 98 are immutable requirements that are nothing to do with rules of engagement. The rules of engagement will be set from the centre. They are then defined by lawyers.
Francois then asked about “pushback” – the notion that small boats at sea could be turned around and sent back. Sharp rejected this terminology, and the ideas behind it:
I would be happy if the expression “pushback” were never used again. I cannot conceive of a situation where you are physically turning these ships back that is either legal or, perhaps more importantly, safe
Clearly the Tories love to sound hawkish on this issue. Refugees are one of their favourite punchbags to distract from internal crisis and appeal to their base. Former senior military officers would be the last place one would expect a nuanced view from. Yet the kind of views and plans put forward by people like Francois and Heappey have run aground on reality.
The evidence is that there aren’t enough actual navy ships for the job; that the whole belligerent framing of the debate around ‘pushback’ and ‘rules of engagement’ is wrong; and that putting even more ships into an incredibly busy shipping lane is, according to people who actually know, a really bad idea.
That’s before even getting into the heartlessness it takes to turn refugees away.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/PO Lee Blease, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under Open Government Licence.
By Joe Glenton
This post was originally published on The Canary.
Immigrant rights advocates led by Witness at the Border released an open letter on January 17, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, urging the Biden administration to honor his memory by upholding the rights of migrant victims of family separation to full reparations and restorative justice. They argue these steps should include the creation of a truth commission to investigate and document serious human rights crimes on both sides of the border. This is especially appropriate, as well, amid ongoing observances of Black History Month.
The Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families created by President Joe Biden’s February 2021 executive order is a necessary but sorely insufficient step toward broader remedies that correspond to Trump-era cases of family separation. The administration’s duty to take these steps is being drastically undermined by its current policies.
The Trump administration’s policies of family separation were clearly unconstitutional, violating fundamental rights of family integrity and substantive due process. They also included practices which violated the U.S.’s obligations pursuant to international law. These acts were equivalent to torture and forced disappearances, according to leading legal and clinical experts.
Such practices have been defined as “crimes against humanity” pursuant to Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. All victims of human rights crimes of this kind are entitled to just and adequate remedies. International crimes of this order of magnitude trigger state duties to fully redress victims’ rights to truth, justice, and to material and symbolic forms of reparation, as well as guarantees of non-repetition, according to internationally recognized standards.
No administration, and no public official has the “discretion” or “option” to promote or implement policies that are unconstitutional and/or which violate international human rights standards. This is especially so, as in the cases of family separation during the Trump era, where the acts at issue (forced disappearances and torture) rise to the level of “crimes against humanity.”
Thus, it is especially appropriate that the Biden administration take full measures to respect, protect, and fulfill victims’ rights to memory, justice, full reparations and restorative justice in Dr. King’s memory. His universalist commitment to human rights, as well as his foundational commitment to restorative justice and reparations in compensation for historical crimes against people of African descent in the U.S. underscore the urgent need to honor these principles not only in the context of anti-Black racial injustice, but also in the context of crimes against humanity on the border.
The Biden administration should also take urgently needed remedial steps within this latter context because of the persistent disproportionate impact of U.S. immigration policy and border policy on communities of color. Family separation, and the continued use of Title 42 and the “Remain in Mexico” policy as pretexts for the negation of the right to seek asylum, reflect these continuing legacies today, with the active complicity (and thus ultimate responsibility) of both U.S. and Mexican authorities.
Racism and xenophobia have been the intertwined, guiding threads of U.S. border and immigration policies since their origin. This includes the genesis of forcible processes of family separation in the African slave trade and African slavery, and in the genocidal policies imposed within the framework of European settler-colonialism against Indigenous communities throughout North America.
These culminated in compulsory residential or boarding schools for Indigenous children and continuing abuses within the framework of family and child welfare systems, the administration of orphanages, and adoptions. The overall objective of these policies, as in Canada and Australia under similar circumstances, was to “assimilate” these children by destroying their identities. Trump-era family separation policies shared crucial features of these longstanding genocidal practices.
Mass deportation of persons of Mexican origin in the 1930s and 1950s reproduced these destructive mechanisms of family separation through practices of detention and deportation, which have reappeared with the recent mass deportations of Haitians carried out by the Biden administration in the last few months. Similar practices which resulted in involuntary separation of families were engaged in during the period of internment of persons of Japanese origin between 1942 and 1945. The Trump administration’s family separation policies embodied all of the most regressive, convergent characteristics of these oppressive practices.
These legacies are articulated in the large numbers of migrants of African descent and of Indigenous origin who were among the victims of the Trump administration’s family separation policies, as reflected in the lead plaintiff in the paradigmatic Ms. L case (an asylum seeker originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and in two of three named plaintiff families in the Wilbur P.G. case (asylum seekers of Maya Mam Indigenous origin from Guatemala), among others.
The Biden administration has recently announced its decision to withdraw from global settlement negotiations regarding pending family separation cases and to litigate each of these individually. More than 5,500 children and families who were victims of Trump-era policies may be affected by this decision. This includes many who were seeking to exercise their internationally recognized rights to seek asylum and were in effect punished for this by being subjected to both the forcible separation of their families and to detention under inhumane conditions, pursuant to Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, and more recently through mechanisms such as Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico policy.
The administration has “denounced the prior practice of separating children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border” and “condemn[ed] the human tragedy” that ensued. But it has also argued, unconscionably, that the decision to separate and detain these families and others fell within the federal government’s “reasonable” range of discretion as to its choices in immigration policy.
The Biden administration cannot have it both ways. The practical effect of its position would prevent further proceedings and trials in these pending cases, and the denial of the full compensation to which these victims are entitled. This compounds the original injustices that led to the case filings, and further exacerbates the suffering and victimization of these families and children.
The Biden administration has also argued that Trump’s family separation and detention policies were lawfully executed, and thus, justify immunity for those who implemented these deliberate acts of cruelty. This in practice would likely result in impunity for Trump officials who were responsible for the massive suffering inflicted on thousands of migrants between June 2017 and June 2018. This also leaves the door open for future administrations to opt again to enact these kinds of criminal policies.
As plaintiffs have alleged in the complaint filed in Wilbur P.G., et al v. U.S. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, families subjected to the Trump administration’s family separation policies were often held in separate, distant facilities that were unknown to them, and were denied the right to communicate with their fellow family members. This reproduces the kinds of paradigmatic conditions which have been defined as constitutive of “enforced disappearances,” pursuant to international human rights law and international criminal law:
When the government separated these families, the Plaintiff children were 6, 11, and 13 years old. The children did not know why they had been separated from their parents. The parents did not know why they had been separated from their children. None of the Plaintiffs knew whether they would ever be reunited with their families, and at various times, Plaintiffs believed that they might be deported from the United States alone, without their accompanying family member. All suffered from extreme emotional distress at the point in time when the government forcibly separated them, went on to endure additional weeks of sustained emotional distress during their forced separation, and then continued to experience lasting emotional distress even after they were reunified. This suffering was the intentional purpose of the Policy.” (para. 4, p. 3 of the complaint)
Gerald Gray, a psychotherapist and clinical social worker who specializes in treating victims of torture and co-founder of the renowned Center for Justice and Accountability, noted the following in the first text published in the U.S. (shortly followed by others published internationally), which argued that Trump’s policy of family separation must be understood as involving acts of forced disappearance and torture:
What is happening with the … separation of children from parents or other caretakers is one form of forced disappearance — in this case, the kidnapping of two parties instead of one. Even if the parent or caretaker knows enough of the prison staffs’ language (presumably usually English), they don’t really know most of the time where the children are, who is responsible for them and whether they care, how the childrens’ health is, and if and when they will ever see the children again.
For the children, the separation is even worse — are the parents or caretakers alive? What are the guards in the prisons saying in a new language? What does “Chicago” mean? How can they survive bullying or sexual predation? And of course, if and when will they ever again see their families or caretakers? An adult may sometimes temporarily have a rough idea of the location of a childrens’ prison, but without language, constant contact, and all the education required to understand geography, children have an impossible task. For the reader here, look at the clinical literature on the outcome of kidnapping or holding children as hostages.”
These arguments are developed in further detail in the amicus brief in the D.J.C.V, et al v. U.S. case submitted on behalf of Stanford University’s Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health program, whose co-founders include Gray and Beth Van Schaack.
All of this suffering was compounded for families of Indigenous origin who spoke neither English nor Spanish proficiently and were systematically denied necessary attention and services in their native Indigenous languages. This included children from involuntarily separated families detained under inhumane conditions in abusive settings, such as the Tornillo, Texas, and Homestead, Florida, migrant youth detention camps.
As of November 2018, a Guatemalan consular official estimated that approximately 40 percent of the thousands of children unjustly held at Tornillo were of Guatemalan, mostly Indigenous origin. Many of these children had their origins in Guatemala’s poorest and most marginalized Indigenous communities, which bore the brunt of the U.S.-backed genocide targeting these regions during Guatemala’s civil war between 1960 and 1996. Forced migration from these communities today is in effect the continuation of the same kinds of structural injustices, which led to genocide and resulted in massive, forced displacement and exile during that period.
A member of Witness at the Border’s leadership team was able to confirm at this time that the Guatemalan children he interviewed were of Indigenous origin, in need of appropriate services in their own languages, and suffering deeply because of their mistreatment by U.S. officials and the precarious conditions which characterized their confinement. Within less than a month, two Indigenous Guatemalan migrant children, aged seven and eight, died in the custody of the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, due to the deliberate neglect of their urgent medical needs in confinement.
The position that the Biden administration has taken in its recent filings in the family separation cases is the predictable result of its failure to settle the claims of thousands of victims of the criminal policies during the Trump era.
We must stand with the children and families who were victims of these crimes to demand full measures of accountability, reparations and restorative justice for all human rights violations related to the forced separation and detention of migrant families, regardless of the administration which is responsible. The Biden administration’s current approach amounts to active complicity with the continuing effects of these extraordinarily serious violations.
The Biden administration has the moral, ethical, and legal obligation to fully redress all of the injuries and suffering inflicted by these criminal policies. This must be undertaken through a comprehensive program of restorative, transitional justice, consistent with the international standards that are referenced above.
This goes way beyond the limited mandate of the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families. What is needed, in addition, is a full-fledged transitional justice process including a truth commission empowered to investigate and document serious human rights crimes on both sides of the border, and to make recommendations for needed reparations and measures of restorative justice, consistent with international standards.
This commission’s mandate must include not only family separation, but also the continued deployment of Title 42 and the Remain in Mexico policy, and the mass deportations of Haitians, among other specific instances, as well as their historical origins and contemporary implications. It must also include human rights crimes attributable to U.S. policy that have unfolded on Mexican territory and beyond, as part of the extraterritorial impact of policies, such as “prevention through deterrence.”
This is the Biden administration’s duty, pursuant to both U.S and international law.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
