2006 Civil Liberties Hall of Shame
Writing for Slate.com, DAHLIA LITHWICK lists the 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of the concluding year.
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December 30, 2006
Border Crackdown Fuels Smugglers' Boom
"Toughened U.S. border enforcement has prompted substantially more illegal immigrants to hire smugglers to help them cross over from Mexico - and competition among sophisticated criminal networks for customers has spawned violence and sometimes death."
2006 IJJ Border Justice Fellow ELLIOT SPAGAT writing for the Associated Press.
German Muslim Denied Entry to U.S., Detained in Las Vegas
"ANAHEIM, Calif., Dec 30, 2006, PRNewswire: The Southern California chapter
of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today asked for an
explanation as to why a German Muslim was barred from entering the United
States and is now being detained in Nevada.
According to his family, 62-year-old Majed Shehadeh is being held after
arriving at Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport on Thursday. Family
members say Shehadeh was interrogated for a total of more than 12 hours by
officials with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the FBI. He was also
allegedly placed in a cold cell with some 25 other people and a single
toilet, and prevented from taking prescribed heart medication for 20 hours.
Shehadeh, whose wife and three children are U.S. citizens, had planned
to visit his daughter in Bakersfield, Calif., to celebrate her passing of
the California Bar and her wedding anniversary. The family has reportedly
been barred from seeing Shehadeh, and were only able to communicate with
him late Friday morning. ... Shehadeh's wife says she and her husband have
traveled to the United States almost once a year for the past 30 years."
December 23, 2006
Texas High School Immigration Marchers Sue for Free Speech Rights
"Four parents of Round Rock students charged with misdemeanors during an immigration demonstration last spring sued the City of Round Rock and the Round Rock school district on Thursday, saying the charges violated the teenagers' constitutional rights of assembly and free speech. The federal lawsuit is a class action suit, which means it also seeks fair treatment on behalf of other Round Rock students who were detained and issued tickets during the protests in March, said Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is representing the parents and students."
BOB BANTA in the Austin American-Statesman.
To read the lawsuit, click here.
Slavery in D.C.
"Last Tuesday morning, one mile north of the White House, I sat in the upstairs dining room of a Dupont Circle cafe having a cup of tea with a slave. Well actually she's now a runaway slave who's living in the Washington area home of a good Samaritan. But yes, she could have been considered a slave, if you define that as being bound to a specific area of land, forced to work without compensation, stripped of her passport and left at the absolute disposal of a master. She is African. However, unlike her ancestors who arrived in America on slave ships, she came here voluntarily. She was, however, deceived about her working conditions, and she began her involuntary servitude once she entered her master's suburban Maryland household."
COLBERT I. KING in the Washington Post.
December 19, 2006
The War on Terror's Domestic Casualties
You and your spouse are fired from your federal jobs. Friends and neighbors shun you. Classmates tell your children at school you and your spouse are "terrorists."
But it was all a mistake:
"The Federal Bureau of Investigations had decided the Afsharis were not a threat long before they were fired. A local FBI agent already had conducted a routine check and closed their file. A government official was forced to recant her sworn testimony about the couple. At first, she said she recommended to Howard that they be fired. Later, she said that her sworn testimony was 'not consistent' with her current 'recollection of matters.' The government officials in Atlanta who recommended their firing never interviewed their neighbors, co-workers or supervisors in Morgantown. They never talked to the local FBI agent, either."
You sue. The feds settle for $600K and give you your job back, but your life will never be the same.
"It begs the question of what other domestic casualties have been suffered during the 'war on terror.'"
SEAN D. HAMILL in the New York Times; CHRIS KROMM in Facing South.
December 18, 2006
Swift Raids: "a fiasco"
“ICE tried to get a criminal search warrant, but they didn’t have enough evidence,” says Mark Conrad, a former supervisory special agent for ICE’s predecessor agency, U.S. Customs. “… Nothing had been developed against the company.”
“This was all being directed out of ICE Headquarters in Washington,” adds Conrad, who serves as the associate general counsel for the National Association of Federal Agents. “It [the ICE investigation] was absolutely a fiasco.”
BILL CONROY in NarcoSphere.
For the legalese, click here for Swift's pre-raid lawsuit, and here for the order denying relief.
December 13, 2006
Journos and Photogs On Global Migration
Check out the latest Nieman Reports. The new issue highlights "Global Migration and Immigration: Stories and Images About the Journey." Among the writers and photojournalists represented is IJJ Fellow Susan Carroll.
The Color of Law
"If only for a few minutes, Maria felt like an ''illegal alien'' in her homeland - the United States of America. She thought she was going on break from her job at the Swift & Co. meat processing plant here on Tuesday, but instead she and others were forced to stand in a line by U.S. immigration agents. Non-Latinos and people with lighter skin were plucked out of line and given blue bracelets. The rest, mostly Latinos with brown skin, waited until they were 'cleared' or arrested by 'la migra,' the popular name in Spanish for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), employees said. 'I was in the line because of the color of my skin,' she said, her voice shaking. 'They're discriminating against me. I'm from the United States, and I didn't even get a blue bracelet.'''
JENNIFER SANCHEZ, DAWN HOUSE and KRISTEN MOULTON in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Justice on Katrina time
"Hundreds, if not thousands, languish behind bars without their day in court."
December 12, 2006
Load The Wagons
December 12, 2006: In "Operation Wagon Train," ICE and FTC agents raided Swift & Co. meatpacking plants across the nation, arresting hundreds in an effort to target identity theft. ICE and the FTC will hold a press conference in Washington, DC on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006. The union seeks to enjoin the raids.
Multiple sources including the rolling coverage by staff reporters at the Greeley, Colorado TRIBUNE.
(Keep your ID handy: these gentlemen* may want to see it, especially if you don't look like me.)
* AP Photo by Ed Andrieski
While no one can complain about law enforcement targeting those who steal your identity to drain your bank account, stealing someone's ID in order to obtain a dirty, dangerous job in a meatpacking plant is a different matter.
December 11, 2006
Punishment: At Any Cost?
California's prison system is in crisis because of the public's desire to punish all criminals, above all else, instead of treating nonviolent and violent criminals differently. So writes IJJ Senior Fellow JOE DOMANICK in the Los Angeles Times.
December 09, 2006
Trafficking case ends for 48 Thai welders
"The immigrant welder thought he was coming to America, the 'fairy tale place, to work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for wages six times higher than he could earn in his native Thailand. Instead, he found himself trapped in near-slavery, working 13-hour days at a Long Beach restaurant. For three months of full-time work, he said, he was paid a total of $220."
TERESA WATANABE in the Los Angeles Times.
December 07, 2006
Identity Crisis
"Hovering above a busy Berkeley intersection is a billboard that reads No Racist Amnesty. It was placed by a group called Vietnamese for Fair Immigration, whose leaders say they feel illegal immigrants -- and particularly Latino immigrants -- are to blame for the long waits their family members face to come here from Vietnam.
But the group may not be entirely what it seems.
The Lompoc-based group, which has endorsed political candidates, written letters to the editors of newspapers and has aired its views on Web sites, was co-founded by a white, Southern California cyclemaker who is also a member of one of the state's most prominent immigration control organizations.
In fact, the group's self-proclaimed Vietnamese-American spokesman, who wrote at least one of the letters and has espoused the group's views on several Web sites, is the group's Caucasian co-founder using a Vietnamese surname, his wife said."
MICHELE R. MARUCCI in The Argus, InsideBayArea.com.
Texas Governor Splits With GOP Base Over Immigrants
"AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry sharply criticized several immigration proposals Wednesday, saying 'divisive' ideas – such as a wall along the border, cutting off public education for illegal immigrants and taking away 'birthright citizenship' – should give way to 'real solutions.'"
KAREN BROOKS in the Dallas Morning News.
Altoona, With No Immigrant Problem, Decides to Solve It
“We don’t have a problem here with immigrants,” said Joe Rieker, 40, one of five members of the Altoona City Council who voted in favor of the new ordinance. “But we want to stay ahead of the curve.”
SEAN D. HAMILL in the New York Times.
Forgotten Prisoners: All That's Wrong With Our Immigrant Deportation System
"Josè Hernan's deportation back to his native Ecuador for violating his tourist visa was supposed to be quick and easy. 'Within a few days,' Hernan was told ... Two months later Josè Hernan was still there, languishing in a jail cell and cut off from the world while his deportation file gathered dust at a maze of federal agencies..."
JACOB WHEELER in Worldpress.org.
December 05, 2006
Supremes Weigh Race Issue in School Cases
A Special Report
By Victor Merina, IJJ Senior Fellow
WASHINGTON – With hundreds of marchers rallying outside in cold, blustery weather, the Supreme Court listened to two hours of arguments over a pair of school desegregation cases and voiced skeptical questions that provided little warmth to affirmative action advocates.
In Monday’s hearing, some justices questioned whether school systems can use race in making school assignments, and they appeared reluctant to uphold the position that the benefits of racially diverse public schools makes such a stance constitutional.
The justices are reviewing student-assignment plans in two urban school systems – Louisville, Ky. and Seattle – offering students a choice of schools but also denying them admission based on their race if enrolling at a specific school upsets the racial balance.With a new conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the cases have attracted widespread interest. And if the justices rule against the school districts, depending on how the decision is written, the outcome could force hundreds of districts nationwide to change or discard voluntary integration plans.
The high stakes were emphasized not only in the courtroom but on the sidewalks outside where pro-affirmative action marchers – many of them high school and college students from around the country – chanted and marched and waved signs as temperatures dipped in the 30s and a biting wind drove the chlll factor even lower. Many people braved the cold to line up in the pre-dawn hours in hopes of securing a seat in the courtroom and listening to oral arguments in the Seattle or Louisville case.
For some who sat and listened to the proceedings, there was no mistaking the hostile tone of some justices as they questioned attorneys. In the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse wrote that the attorneys for the school districts seemed to make little headway in defending their programs and “the only question was how far the court would go in ruling such plans unconstitutional.”
Greenhouse, who covers the Supreme Court for the newspaper, added that there “seemed little prospect” that either plan would survive “the hostile scrutiny of the court’s new majority.”In analyzing the court’s reaction, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick concluded that “what is rapidly clear is that these cases are less about doctrine, or even social science, than about visceral impressions.”
And that impression does not favor affirmative action proponents, she writes. Francis Mellen Jr., who represents the Jefferson County School District that includes Louisville, acknowledged the sharpness of Kennedy’s questions but refrained from interpreting what that meant. “I think Justice Kennedy asked tough questions of both sides. Justices are entitled to do that,” he said. “I don’t know what to read into that.”Mellen said his message to the justices was simple on behalf of Louisville school officials. “They now have voluntary student assignment plan that works. It has provided benefits to the children of Jefferson County, and we walk to keep it. That’s the message I wanted to get across.”
But Theodore Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told reporters following the hearing that Justice Kennedy has always been problematic when it comes to school desegregation cases. And he said this court ruling would be monumental.“If this court turns around the possibility of preserving even a sliver of voluntary school integration it will be a reversal of historic proportions,” Shaw said. “We hope upon deliberation that the court stays the course that allows these districts to do what they fought so hard to do for so long and that we don’t send this country backwards.”
Opposing lawyers, not surprisingly, had a different view. Harry Korrell, who addressed the court as the lead attorney opposing the Seattle school district, said he thought the justices understood the impact of their ruling.I think the justices asked questions that were focused more on the big picture and larger implications of this case nationally than the Seattle situation,” said Korrell who represents a nonprofit group called Parents Involved in Community Schools.
In fact, Justice Anthony Kennedy who has been viewed as a key vote in forming the court majority, was among those expressing deep skepticism about Seattle's program.Kennedy, at one point, said the district seems to be telling students that the question of whether or not they were admitted to a preferred school depended in some cases on skin color. “It’s like saying everybody can have a meal but only people with separate skin can get the dessert,” he added.Justice Antonin Scalia said that by assigning students to schools they didn't ask to attend based on their race, the district appeared to be saying "you can't make an omeley without breaking any aggs."The court is expected to issue its ruling next spring, and afterwards attorneys for both sides sought to remain optimistic about the outcome.
“If you let students choose the schools they want to go to rather than inisisting that they go to a neighborhood school or insisting that they go to a school because of racial composition the schools will wind up being diverse and the parents will have the kind of chose they say want to have.”Michael Madden, the attorney representing the Seattle school district, was asked by reporters if officials had a contingency plan should the Supreme Court rule against it.
‘The district’s always had backup plans,” he said, “which it’s using now which is trying to disperse choices to encourage integration.”As for the large crowd of demonstrators who showed up the hearing, many were from nearby Howard University but a number came from as far away as London and from states including Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, Washington, North Carolina and California.
A contingent of college students, teachers and union members also arrived from Michigan where an anti-affirmative action proposal won overwhelming voter approval last month.Divoshia Mason, a freshman at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, said she made the six-hour bus trip with about 50 other students. The 18-year-old student said she arrived at 4 a.m. in the nation’s capitol and was eager to be there because of fears that the setback in Michigan and a loss at the Supreme Court could undermine such fundamental decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education.“
My main concern is that this is not going to just affect us but also future generations,” she said.Mason and other demonstrators joined in chanting such slogans as “They say Jim Crow, we say hell, no!” as they marched outside the Supreme Court building. Many held signs aloft carrying such admonitions to “integrate, not segregate” and to “defend affirmative action.”
They were later led by a high school marching band as they made their way on a walk from the courthouse to the Lincoln Memorial where various speakers addressed the largely young audience.“We are building a new affirmative action movement,” said Shanta Driver, executive director of BAMN or By Any Means Necessary, an activist group that helped sponsor the rally. Among those standing on the steps in view of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument were two-dozen students from Los Angeles who held candy sales to help raise money for their trip.
Some students were assisted by the Los Angeles City Librarians union, which paid transportation costs for eight students to make the trek to Washington.“I’m so glad I came,” said Marilyn Bran, a 15 year-old high school student at Los Angeles’ King Drew Magnet High School, as she gazed out at the crowd and the Washington setting. “It was so important to be here.”
December 04, 2006
Supreme Court Takes on Desegregation Cases
By Victor Merina
IJJ Senior Fellow
More than 50 years after the Supreme Court ruled that separate schools are inherently unequal in Brown v. Board of Education, the court will hear arguments today considering whether race can still be a factor when school systems design programs to promote integration.
In key cases that have already drawn widespread interest, the justices will review school-choice plans in Louisville and Seattle that use race as one factor in assigning students to public schools.
As the Washington Post reports, it is the first time in more than a decade that the Supreme Court will consider what is proper for school systems to do to promote desegregation and will mark the first test on the issue for two new justices – Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. – and court’s conservative majority.
More than 50 groups and organizations have filed friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of the Louisville and Seattle school systems and a pro-affirmative action march and rally are planned for today outside the Supreme Court.
As author Susan Eaton writes in the New York Times, the court will decide the fate of voluntary policies intended to achieve racial diversity in public classrooms in those two cities but the impact will go beyond those school districts.
Eaton, the research director at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, writes that if the court bans such policies, schools across the country will face new difficulties in achieving racial diversity in public classrooms.
December 03, 2006
It Depends On Who's Asking
What's the longest river in the United States? If you answered, "the Missouri," you'd be right. If you answered, "the Mississippi," you'd be wrong...unless you were taking the new citizenship exam floated last week by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in which the wrong answer is the right answer (Question #125.)
Good enough for government work?
DAN REED in the San Jose Mercury News.
December 02, 2006
Few aiding children facing deportation
CARA ANNA for AP: "The blank looks in the children's eyes finally did it. After facing hundreds of kids in his courtroom, many without a lawyer, Joseph Vail quit his job as an immigration judge. He was tired of trying to explain the legal process to 12-year-olds who would just watch him, confused. He was tired of ordering them deported without knowing why they'd come to America, or what they'd tried to leave behind."
"Citizenship For Sale"
A South Florida NBC 6 investigation "'Citizenship For Sale' uncovered how immigrants from around the country are flocking here to buy membership in an Indian tribe. It's a way, they're told, to live and work in the United States. But it didn't work out that way for one South Florida man."
By JEFF BURNSIDE & SCOTT A. ZAMOST; three links, here, here and here.