American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey
The Future of American Warfare? Assessing the Legality of the Obama Administration's Use of Military Drones
May 21, 2013
The Georgia Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society presents:
The Future of American Warfare?
Assessing the Legality of the Obama Administration's Use of Military Drones
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Bondurant Mixson & Elmore LLP
One Atlantic Center
1201 West Peachtree Street
Suite 3200
Atlanta, GA
Featuring:
- The Honorable Bob Barr, Former United States Representative, 7th Congressional District of Georgia; Former Presidential Candidate, Libertarian Party
- Laurie Blank, Director, International Humanitarian Law Clinic, Emory University School of Law
- Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrant Rights Project Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia
- Todd Stein, Lecturer, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology; Former General Counsel, Legislative Director, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT)
Moderated By:
- Neil Kinkopf, Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law; Former Special Assistant, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice; Member, Board of Advisors, ACS Georgia Lawyer Chapter
To what extent does the United States Constitution and current federal law authorize the use of military drones in counter-terrorism operations? Come hear a panel discussion on the constitutionality of President Obama’s policy on the use of drones, including the limits to their use, whether and when they could be used on American citizens, and the merits of constitutional concerns raised on the political left and the political right.
RSVP here
The ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project is celebrating its fifth anniversary!
March 27, 2013
The ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project is celebrating its fifth anniversary! Founded in March 2008, the project works to bring Georgia into compliance with international human rights and U.S. constitutional standards in treatment of refugees and immigrant communities, including those in detention. This project engages ACLU of Georgia staff and volunteers in litigation, legislative advocacy, human rights documentation, coalition-building, public education, attorney training, and community organizing to address a range of issues. Here you can find a few of our accomplishments over the past five years.
ACLU of Georgia's Azadeh Shahshahani is featured in this article about Asian-Americans in Southern politics.
March 14, 2013
Azadeh Shahshahani, 34
Human Rights Lawyer, Georgia
Azadeh Shahshahani has been a prominent human rights advocate in the South for eight years. Currently the director of national security and immigrant rights at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Georgia chapter, Shahshahani, 34, remains at the forefront of several campaigns to help those who often do not have a voice within the state’s and nation’s legal framework.
Shahshahani was among those who led the fight against HB 87, a Georgia law that closely mirrors the Arizona immigration law, enabling local law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone believed to have committed even a minor infraction. The law passed in 2011 but her work led to a federal court blocking other parts of the law, including a provision that makes it a crime for anyone to transport or harbor an undocumented immigrant. In the last year, Shahshahani has run over 15 forums in rural Georgia, teaching immigrants about their rights if they get stopped by police.
Much of Shahshahani’s work has also focused on prisoner’s rights. She authored a report in May 2012 detailing poor conditions in the privately run prisons used to detain undocumented immigrants. Most of the problems revolved around abysmal medical care for sick or injured prisoners. Shahshahani has written prolifically in print media and given TV interviews on the need for immigration authorities to stop using private companies to run prisons. These private firms are “committed to generating money for their investors,” she said.
ACLU of Georgia's Azadeh Shahshahani is featured in this article about Asian-Americans in Southern politics
February 27, 2013
Azadeh Shahshahani, 34
Human Rights Lawyer, Georgia
Azadeh Shahshahani has been a prominent human rights advocate in the South for eight years. Currently the director of national security and immigrant rights at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Georgia chapter, Shahshahani, 34, remains at the forefront of several campaigns to help those who often do not have a voice within the state’s and nation’s legal framework.
Shahshahani was among those who led the fight against HB 87, a Georgia law that closely mirrors the Arizona immigration law, enabling local law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone believed to have committed even a minor infraction. The law passed in 2011 but her work led to a federal court blocking other parts of the law, including a provision that makes it a crime for anyone to transport or harbor an undocumented immigrant. In the last year, Shahshahani has run over 15 forums in rural Georgia, teaching immigrants about their rights if they get stopped by police.
- See more >>***Georgia Detention Watch to Hold Vigil Calling for Shutting Down of Stewart ***
November 14, 2012
***PRESS CONFERENCE/VIGIL:***
***Georgia Detention Watch to Hold Vigil Calling for Shutting Down of Stewart ***
***Friday, 10 am, Lumpkin Town Square***
Community Leaders Hold Vigil and Launch New Campaign to “Expose and Close” Widespread Abuse at Stewart and Irwin Detention Centers
New Report Calls Stewart and Irwin two of the 10 Worst Detention Centers in the Country and Demands President Obama Restore Basic Dignity
Atlanta, Georgia–The immigration detention system in the United States has grown drastically over the last 15 years and the appalling conditions in the detention centers that house immigrants have reached a tipping point.
President Obama made promises to reform this inhumane system in 2009, but the reality on the ground has not changed. Now, conditions at the jails and prisons that house immigrants have gotten so bad, the only option is to begin shutting them down.
On Friday, November 16th, as part of a nationwide campaign launch, community leaders and advocates will hold their sixth vigil at the Stewart Detention Center and release a report designating it and the Irwin County Detention Center as two of the ten worst in the country. Leaders will call on President Obama to close the prison-like facilities in Stewart and Irwin counties, and issue a list of reforms to ensure the safety, dignity, and well-being of immigrants held in detention.
The report will follow the May 2012 ACLU of Georgia report “Prisoners of Profit: Immigrants and Detention in Georgia” which detailed abuses at the two facilities and called for their closure.
This action is part of a series of reports and coordinated effort to highlight ten detention centers across the nation that exemplify the appalling conditions of immigrant detention, including Etowah County Detention Center (AL), Pinal County Jail (AZ), Houston Processing Center (TX), Polk County Detention Facility (TX), Stewart Detention Center (GA), Irwin County Jail (GA), Hudson County Jail (NJ), Theo Lacy Detention Center (CA), Tri-County Detention Center (IL), and Baker County Jail (FL).
WHAT:Vigil and march to “Expose and Close” Stewart and Irwin Detention Centers
WHEN:Friday, November 16, 2012 at 10 a.m.
WHO:Anton Flores-Maisonet,Alterna
Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia
Chad Hyatt, musician and pastor at Mercy Community Church (Atlanta)
Fr. Ishmael Morenofrom Honduras
Jason Chin, musician
Sister JoAnn Persch, Sisters of Mercy (Chicago)
Laria Marie Vides, wife of detainee
Mary Strauss, wife of detainee
Pedro Guzman, formerly detained at Stewart Detention Center
The States,musical group
Terence Courtney,Black Alliance for Just Immigration
This vigil will be organized by Georgia Detention Watch in collaboration with SOA Watch, ACLU of Georgia, Alterna, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Footprints for Peace, Grassroots Leadership, International Action Center of Atlanta, National Lawyer Guild Georgia Chapter, Nipponzan Myohoji Atlanta Dojo and the Southern Anti-Racist Network,.
WHERE:The vigil begins at the Lumpkin, GA town square located at the intersection of Main Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive. The march will end two miles away at the Stewart Detention Center on CCA Road, also in Lumpkin.
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Feds Pay Thousands For Wrongful Deportation
October 23, 2012
GPB News
Mon, October 22, 2012
by Ellen Reinhardt
This month Mark Lyttle, an American citizen from North Carolina who has mental disabilities, received a 175 thousand dollar settlement from the federal government. A federal district court in Georgia found the government wrongfully deported him Mexico.
In 2008 Lyttle was inexplicably referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. That’s despite the fact the bi-polar man had never been to Mexico, shares no Mexican heritage and spoke no Spanish.But he was detained and deported to Mexico with just three dollars in his pocket.
Azadeh Shahshahani with the Georgia ACLU , which represented him, says Lyttle spent 125 days wandering central America.
She says he was" living off the streets and homeless shelters, and begging. And he had no way to prove his identity either, so he was imprisoned at times.“
Ultimately, someone with the American Embassy in Guatemala helped him get back to the U.S.
ICE has refused comment on Lyttle’s case. A spokesman says they now offer a 24-hour hotline to help detainees. ICE personnel will collect information from the individual and refer it to the relevant Field office for immediate action. Shahshahani says that is a good first step. But she says people with mental disabilities need a court-appointed lawyer to ensure their rights are protected during the deportation process.
She says “The ACLU has done a study on documented cases where individuals who could not even remember their own names were left to languish in detention centers with nobody really caring what happens to them until an attorney or advocate discovers their fate.”
Privacy of Students Targeted for Military Recruitment
September 11, 2012
With the start of the school year, the ACLU Foundation of Georgia has sent a letter to Georgia’s State School Superintendent, Dr. Barge, asking for protection of privacy rights of Georgia’s high school students who take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (“ASVAB”) test. The ASVAB test is the military's entrance exam, given to recruits to determine their aptitude for military occupations. Even without a student’s or parent’s consent, the ASVAB test may be used to send highly sensitive information about a student to the military for purposes of recruitment. After the administration of the ASVAB test, military representatives may directly communicate with youth to suggest military career paths, based on the individualized profiles ascertained from their test data.
According to records obtained by the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy, Georgia schools have one of the worst records nationally in protecting the privacy of students taking the ASVAB test. In its letter, the ACLU of Georgia asks that a state-wide policy that requires schools to protect such information be adopted in Georgia
Show Me Your Papers - Or Else Blog by Staff Member Azadeh Shahshahani
August 30, 2012
AJC Blog
8/30/2012
Azadeh Shahshahani
By blocking Georgia’s attempts to criminalize acts of hospitality, faith, and conscience, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a decision that affects the daily lives of many people in Georgia.
One of these is Everitt Howe, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, a caseworker for his church’s community service program. Howe regularly accompanies and drives families and individuals, including those who are undocumented, to hospital visits or other appointments. He fears that could be found criminally liable. Because of people like Howe, we are pleased the court blocked this fundamentally un-American provision.
The ruling was issued pursuant to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and other organizations charging that the extreme law endangers public safety, invites racial profiling of people of color and others who look or sound “foreign,” and interferes with federal law. The court’s ruling made it clear that the state cannot put into effect policies that could interfere with the federal government’s regulation of immigration. The court struck down the provision criminalizing daily interactions with undocumented individuals, which would have made people vulnerable to arrest and detention for acts of kindness.
Another part of the law before the court was the “show-me-your-papers” provision. The court reiterated there are limits on such laws under the Supreme Court’s decision in the Arizona case. It left the door open to future challenges.
HB 87 promotes racial profiling by giving police officers discretion to determine what information is “sufficient” to prove a person’s identity and choose who to subject to an investigation. This will lead to the profiling of anyone who looks or sounds “foreign.” The statute undermines fundamental American values of fairness and equal protection.
Law enforcement leaders and police chiefs around the country have cautioned against putting local police in the position of enforcing federal immigration laws for fear it will alienate the communities endanger the public. Many immigrants will not come forward with crime information for fear they will be detained and investigated. As ACLU of Georgia investigations show, immigrant communities in Cobb and Gwinnett already fear the police. They are reluctant to report crime because of these counties’ involvement in immigration enforcement. This has led to an atmosphere of terror and isolation for immigrants and less-safe communities.
Take the 2009 case of a woman who called 911 to stop her partner from assaulting her. Cobb County officers relied on the abuser’s account of what happened, as she spoke little English. Her abuser’s side of the story was far from honest. She was separated from her infant daughter, spent five days in jail and was placed in deportation.
The ACLU and our partner organizations will forge ahead until unconstitutional provisions of HB 87 are struck down – or until this racial profiling law is repealed in its entirety.
ACLU has created “Know Your Rights” video clips in English and Spanish:
August 21, 2012
Audio/Video Gallery In response to the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decisions on the Arizona and Georgia anti-immigrant laws, the ACLU has put out “Know Your Rights” video clips in English and Spanish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6zKYeY725s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E5uJx-Vfns
Please share with other community members. The ACLU of Georgia will also continue to monitor and document cases of racial profiling around the state. If you have faced racial profiling, please contact us at info@acluga.org
ACLU of Georgia’s Azadeh Shahshahani writes about the unchecked powers granted to the Immigration Enforcement Review Board and their latest investigation targeting the City of Vidalia.
August 13, 2012
Jurist, Friday, August 10, 2012
Unchecked Power Granted by House Bill 87
JURIST Guest Columnist Azadeh Shahshahani National Security/Immigrant Rights' Project Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia says that the unchecked power of the Immigration Enforcement Review Board set up by House Bill 87 is cause for great concern ...
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia (ACLUGA) was joined by more than a dozen organizations in issuing a letter [PDF] to Immigration Enforcement Review Board (the Board) Chairman Benjamin J. Vinson, laying out concerns with how the Board may apply the powers granted to it in the case of Michael Dale Smith v. City of Vidalia.
The Board was set up by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act, commonly known as House Bill 87(HB 87), to investigate complaints against public agencies or employees pertaining to violations of or failure to "properly enforce" provisions of HB 87 among other Georgia laws and to impose penalties, including $1,000-$5,000 fines and loss of state funding.
There are serious concerns about the extent of the powers granted to the Board. For one thing, there is no clear and objective standard for the issuance of subpoenas within the Board's rules, or any clear processes for appealing the issuance of a subpoena or obtaining a remedy for an inappropriately issued subpoena. The ability of the Board — a non-judicial, non-elected body — to compel attendance and testimony based solely on the request of a private citizen under the unclear standard of "good cause shown" allows for personal agendas to result in subpoenas.
The Board's rules [PDF] also set it apart from the time-tested system of governmental checks and balances. There is no mechanism for reviewing the Board's final determinations to strip funding from public entities or levy fines against individuals and employers. This potential application of the Board's unchecked power is particularly concerning in the instant case.
On June 29, 2012, the Board conducted a meeting in part to discuss a complaint Smith reportedly filed with the Board on March 5, 2012, alleging that Vidalia was a "sanctuary city." Smith requested that the Board review and enforce the anti-sanctuary law enacted in 2009 against Vidalia's alleged "catch-and-release" immigration policies. Smith has alleged that businesses in Vidalia are acting in conjunction with the city to provide sanctuary to the undocumented immigrant workforce. He has alleged that catch-and-release incidents have occurred from 2006 until the present and he specifically mentioned the private company Lark Industries as an alleged offender. Counsel for the city of Vidalia has reportedly responded to a letter from the Board denying it is a sanctuary city and stating that it has never adopted or enforced any sanctuary policies.
Despite concerns expressed by members of the Board, it unanimously voted to create the Vidalia review panel to complete a preliminary investigation.
As the ACLUGA emphasized in our letter, despite Smith's allegations concerning Lark Industries and other businesses within the city of Vidalia, any investigation this review panel conducts must be restricted to public entities. The ACLUGA also requested an explanation as to what authority the review panel possesses to investigate alleged violations of Georgia immigration laws that are said to have occurred before the creation of the Board. Additionally, we have also sought clarification regarding what authority the Board possesses to potentially issue sanctions for violations that are found to have occurred prior to the Board's creation.
The ACLUGA also questioned why a review panel was created to investigate Smith's accusations against Vidalia in the first place when Board members have described his complaint as "vague" and lacking in important specific details such as names, dates and locations. We asked for clarification as to how Smith's complaint actually met the prima facie standard that the Board's rules require before a complaint may be considered by the Board.
Following Vidalia's denial as to the existence of city sanctuary policies, Vinson again contacted Smith and asked him to produce any other documentation of a sanctuary policy. Smith's reply, in Vinson's words, was to "essentially [ask] us to investigate and find it." Smith is in effect requesting that the Board procure the evidence that would prove his accusations correct.
If Smith's nameless, dateless and location-free complaint is considered by the Board to have constituted the "sufficient facts" necessary to establish a prima facie threshold, then the said standard of consideration leaves the Board's complaint process ripe for abuse and misuse by any persons who desire to accuse public agencies and employees as they please without fulfilling any burden of proof. To attain the attention and public-funded resources of a body such as the Board, a complainant must do more than merely accuse without greater specificity.
It is of great concern that, following the Smith decision, the Board has authorized its complaint process to amount to what is essentially a fishing expedition. It must immediately stop spending public resources on this unnecessary and wasteful venture. The governor and the legislature must also establish checks and balances for this body — otherwise we are likely to see abuses of power committed at public's expense.
Azadeh Shahshahani focuses her work on Georgia's compliance with international human rights and constitutional standards. Recently, she was elected President of the National Lawyers Guild and is one of the Founders of Human Rights Atlanta.
http://jurist.org/hotline/2012/08/azadeh-shahshahani-hb87-immigration.php
