Thursday, December 8, 2011

Forum: Human Rights, Race and Immigration

Columbus Public Library

3000 Macon Road

6:00-8:00pm

Speakers:

Adelina Nicholls, Georgia Latino Association for Human Rights

Nathaniel Sanderson, Columbus NAACP

Ruby Nell Sales, Spirit House Project

Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia

Moderator:

Florence Wakoko, Columbus State University, Associate Professor of Sociology

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Workshop: Building Black/Brown Unity

Noon-5:00pm

Black and Latino activists will gather to collaborate on ending racial profiling. Anton Flores of Lagrange and Theresa El-Amin of Columbus will co-facilitate the workshop.

Space is limited. Participants must register by December 9.

To register, send email to PSSARN@aol.com

ACLU Filed Amicus Brief that Argues University Can Hold
CounselingStudents to Professional Ethics Standards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2011

ATLANTA – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is slated to hear arguments today in the case of a graduate student seeking reinstatement in the Augusta State University (ASU) counseling program. The student, Jennifer Keeton, seeks a court order allowing her to participate in clinical training even though she insists on a right – rooted in her religious beliefs – to counsel lesbian, gay and bisexual clients that being gay is immoral. Keeton had aspirations to become a guidance counselor working with students in grades K-12.

ASU’s counseling program requires its graduate students to adhere to the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics, which prohibits counselors from discriminating based on sexual orientation, among other characteristics, and requires them to avoid imposing their values on their clients. Keeton previously asked a district court to require the university to allow her to participate in the university’s counseling program without agreeing not to tell gay clients that being gay is immoral. The district denied her request. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Georgia filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting ASU’s right to insist that its students comply with these professional standards when counseling clients.

“We’re all entitled to our own religious beliefs, but counselors cannot use their religion to discriminate against students who come to them for help,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director for the ACLU. “This is especially important for LGBT students in crisis, who may have already faced rejection and judgment from their community, and who may not have any other trusted adult to talk to.”

KATE BRUMBACK  Associated Press
November 18, 2011

A year ago, Pedro Guzman was inside a federal detention center in southwest Georgia as his wife, mother-in-law and young son joined an annual vigil at the gate. This year he was outside, participating in the rally Friday, and said it felt amazing.

Guzman, a Guatemalan native who was brought to the U.S. when he was 8, spent 18 months in the Stewart Detention Facility in southwest Georgia before his release six months ago. He’s now a legal permanent resident and was happy this year to be on the other side of the gates.

“It just feels really amazing to be here,” he said. “I’m just blessed to be out, but a lot of people are still in there.”

It was the fifth annual vigil organized by Georgia Detention Watch, a coalition of civil liberties and immigrant rights groups. The vigil focused on the impact of detention on the families of detainees, especially the children. Organizers also want to protest the remote location of many immigration detention centers, far away from advocates and lawyers, said Azadeh Shahshahani of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

“But we still go there frequently, and once a year we have this convergence to show CCA and ICE that we will still come there, no matter how far it is, and also to show our support for the immigrants,” she said. Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, is a private company that runs the detention center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

“It is time to close this for-profit detention center and end the mandatory detention of immigrants,” said Anton Flores-Maisonet, one of the event’s organizers.

About 270 people attended the vigil, said Flores-Maisonet. Following the vigil, one man decided to commit an act of civil disobedience as a symbolic gesture, crossing under the line of yellow tape that was stretched across the entrance to the detention center property, where he was arrested, Flores-Maisonet said.

“It was very emotional because we were able to all be together as a family and walk up to the detention center and show them that we’re not going to stop fighting for immigrant rights,” Emily Guzman said. “It’s been amazing to have Pedro back with us. But we’re looking back because we know there are people who were left behind in that detention center.”

As one of eight people arrested during last year’s vigil, Flores-Maisonet walked up to the line with the man and gave him a hug in solidarity but did not cross the line himself, he said. After the vigil was over and nearly everyone had left, a sheriff’s deputy walked up to Flores-Maisonet, who had stayed behind to give interviews, and said that he had crossed the line and was under arrest, Flores-Maisonet said by phone from the sheriff’s office.

Flores-Maisonet was released a short time later after video of the incident revealed that he had not crossed the line, Stewart County Sheriff Larry Jones said.

A spokesman for ICE said the agency didn’t have a specific comment on Friday’s vigil. Stewart is the largest immigration detention facility in the country.

“ICE fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference,” the agency said in a statement. “The agency continues to prioritize the health and safety of detainees in our custody while increasing federal oversight and improving the conditions of confinement within the detention system.”

Guzman said the six months since his release from Stewart have passed quickly.

“It’s unbelievable how fast time moves when you’re not behind bars,” he said.

He’s returned to Durham, N.C., where he lives with his U.S. citizen wife, Emily, and their 5-year-old son, Logan. He’s been working as a contractor and he and Emily are expecting a daughter in March, he said.

At last year’s vigil, Emily Guzman had planned to cross the police line at the entrance to get arrested, but decided not to because she figured it would be too hard on her son so her mother got arrested instead. This year the family attended the vigil together.

“It was very emotional because we were able to all be together as a family and walk up to the detention center and show them that we’re not going to stop fighting for immigrant rights,” Emily Guzman said. “It’s been amazing to have Pedro back with us. But we’re looking back because we know there are people who were left behind in that detention center.”

Published November 20, 2011

November 18 at 10 am in Lumpkin, Georgia

Advocates call for the for-profit detention center to be shut down

Atlanta, GA – On Friday, November 18 at 10 am, Georgia Detention Watch will hold its fifth annual vigil at Corrections Corporation of America’s Stewart Detention Center.  “This year’s vigil will highlight the traumatic impact of detention on the families, especially children of those detained, while  CCA continues to secure record-breaking profits off of human misery,” said Georgia Detention Watch Steering Committee member, Priscilla Padrón of Atlanta.

Families that have been directly impacted by detention at Stewart will play a major role in this year’s vigil.  In 2010, Emily Guzman spoke on behalf of her husband, Pedro, who was detained inside Stewart for 19 months.  Emily’s mother, Pamela Alberda and seven others were also arrested for a nonviolent act of civil disobedience at last year’s vigil as they demanded the release of her son-in-law.  Earlier this year, victory was declared by advocates as Pedro was granted relief and reunited with his family.  He will now address those in attendance at the vigil himself as a legal permanent resident of the United States.

“There’s so much money they make from us, but they’re not investing any money in detainees,” Pedro Guzman said in an interview upon his release from the for-profit detention center in the remote town of Lumpkin, population 1300. “The treatment you get is like you’re an animal. I have two dogs, and I treat my dogs much better than the detainees are treated in there.”

Others directly affected by the for-profit detention of immigrants at Stewart will also attend this year’s vigil, including Lilian Quiroz.    

Quiroz’s husband, Paul, entered the United States in 1984 when he was only 11 years old and now has two children and a wife in a familial crisis as his detention at Stewart goes on for five months with no end in sight.

 “It is time to close this for-profit detention center and end the mandatory detention of immigrants,” said Anton Flores-Maisonet of Georgia Detention Watch.

Additional individuals slated to speak at the vigil include Theresa El-Amin, a veteran of the civil rights movement and representative of the Southern Anti-Racist Network; Flores-Maisonet; Bryan Holcomb, a former employee-turned-whistleblower of Corrections Corporation of America’s Stewart Detention Center; and Azadeh Shahshahani of the ACLU of Georgia.

§ About the Stewart Detention Center
Located in rural Southwest Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center detains approximately 2,000 immigrant men for deportation proceedings. Stewart, the largest immigrant detention center in the U.S., is operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a Nashville-based corporation with revenue of $1.7 billion in 2010; CEO Damon Hinninger received a compensation package of $3,266,387 the same year. The average cost to the tax payer to house each detainee is $122 per day per bed.

Case-by-case data also show that the highest proportion of deportation orders in the country (98.8 percent) were issued by the judges in the Lumpkin, Georgia Immigration Court.

§ Conditions at Stewart: Substandard and Inhumane
An April 2009 report by Georgia Detention Watch on conditions at Stewart documented violations of ICE’s own detention standards at the facility. The report charged that food and medicine are withheld as punishment and that solitary confinement is routinely imposed without a disciplinary hearing. In March 2009, Roberto Martinez Medina, a 39-year-old immigrant held at Stewart died of a treatable heart infection.  To this day, many unanswered questions surround his death. Additionally, Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen formerly detained at Stewart, has a lawsuit pending against the U.S. government for his wrongful detention and deportation.

§About Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)
2010 revenue: $1.7 billion
Prisoner capacity: 90,037
Year founded: 1983
Headquarters: Nashville, Tenn.
Head: Damon Hininger (president and CEO)
Executive compensation: $3,266,387 compensation package for Hininger in 2010 (according to Morningstar)

Sources: CCA: 2010 Annual Letter to Shareholders; A Quarter Century of Service to America; About CCA; Morningstar, Corrections Corporation of America, Key Executive Compensation.

Lead Sponsor: Georgia Detention Watch

Collaborators and Endorsers: 

School of the Americas Watch

American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia 

Alterna

Asian American Legal Advocacy Center

Atlanta Friends Meeting Social Concerns Committee

Coalicion de Lideres Latinos of Dalton

Cobb Immigrant Alliance

Cuentame

Detention Watch Network

DreamActivist.org

Enlace

Georgia Immigrants and Refugees Rights Coalition

Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights

Georgia Peace and Just Coalition

Georgia Rural Urban Summit

International Action Center

International Center of Atlanta

Southern Anti-Racism Network

Southerners on New Ground  

Georgia Detention Watch is a coalition of organizations and individuals that advocates alongside immigrants to end the inhumane and unjust detention and law enforcement policies and practices directed against immigrant communities in our state. Our coalition includes activists, community organizers, persons of faith, lawyers, and many more.

Member organizations of Georgia Detention Watch include: the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, American Immigration Lawyers Association Atlanta Chapter, Amnesty International-Southern Region, Amnesty International -Atlanta local group 75, Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE), Coalición De Líderes Latinos (CLILA), Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Immigrant Justice Project- Southern Poverty Law Center, International Action Center, Open Door Community, Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta (RRISA), and others.

Standing up to the Regents’ Ban

Atlanta, Georgia— Today, Georgia Undocumented Youth Alliance (GUYA), along with the Georgia Students for Public Higher Education (GSPHE), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and other area organizations, will urge the University System of Georgia Board of Regents to rescind Policy 4.1.6. The policy effectively bans undocumented students from applying to and enrolling in the state’s five most competitive public institutions. “I was always told that I had potential, and that with an education I could do whatever I wanted when I grew up,” said Emir Palacios, a senior at Lithia Springs High School. “Now, I have to fight for the right to receive a higher education.”

WHO:             Coalition of organizations and students from around the state of Georgia

WHAT:          Press conference and rally against the ban on undocumented students

WHEN:          Tuesday, November 8th, at 1:00pm

WHERE:       In front of the the University System of Georgia building, 270 Washington Street SW
, Atlanta, Georgia 30334

In addition, two students, Juan Carlos Cardoza-Oquendo and Keish Kim, will speak before the Committee on Organization and Law, urging the Board to rescind its ban because it unfairly creates two classes of students and contravenes this state’s cherished principles of equality and justice for all.

“Policy 4.1.6 is a step in the wrong direction. I don’t want to live in a state where the people I’ve grown up with do not have the same chances I’ve had to learn and succeed,” said Cardoza-Oquendo. At the meeting, opponents of the ban will deliver thousands of signatures to express their disapproval of the policy.

Tuesday’s presence at the Board’s meeting is in the spirit of supporting youth like Palacios, whose dreams and hard work are being shattered by the ban.

###

This collective action is supported and organized by a multitude of student and civic organizations who refer to themselves as the November Coalition, united under the common goal of lifting the ban on undocumented students.

FREE SCREENING

BETTER THIS WORLD

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

6:00 pm

Auburn Avenue research Library
101 Auburn Avenue, NE
Atlanta, GA  30303

2 FRIENDS, 8 BOMBS, 1 FBI INFORMANT

This event is a collaboration with the award-winning documentary series POV

Daily Report
Friday, October 28, 2011
Immigration laws harm students
Alabama law seeking children’s status rejected by 11th Circuit, but danger to school access persists
By Daniel Altschuler and Azadeh Shahshahani, Special to the Daily Report

True or false: No child in this country can be denied a public education.

The answer is true, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision, which held that schools could not exclude children based on their immigration status. This is settled law, but not for Alabama legislators, who passed an anti-immigrant law (HB 56) with a provision requiring elementary and secondary schools to determine students’ and parents’ citizenship status.

With a federal district court refusing to enjoin this provision, families with an undocumented family member are already keeping their children, including U.S. citizens, out of school. Though an appellate court this month temporarily blocked the K-12 reporting requirement, the right to primary education access for all in our country remains in jeopardy.

This summer, civil and immigrant rights groups, religious institutions, and the Department of Justice challenged HB 56 in federal court. Alabama’s law contains many troubling provisions found in anti-immigrant laws in other states, such as Arizona and Georgia, which were blocked by federal courts. But it goes much further, including the requirement in Section 28 that K-12 school officials track immigration status. The court allowed this section of the law to stand.

As with Georgia’s HB 87, proponents of HB 56 claim they are removing the drain on state resources. But, in truth, officials like Gov. Robert Bentley are scapegoating immigrants for political gain at a time of economic insecurity. They have confessed their desire to expel undocumented immigrants from the state. HB 56 sponsor Mickey Hammon asserted, “This [bill] attacks every aspect of an illegal immigrant’s life. … [T]his bill is designed to make it difficult for them to live here so they will deport themselves.”

The law is so extreme that Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, concluded that Alabama’s “draconian initiative is so oppressive that Bull Connor himself would be impressed.” Birmingham’s former sheriff, you may recall, once used attack dogs and fire hoses on African-American children.

Even those skeptical of immigration’s well-documented economic benefits should be appalled by Alabama officials’ willingness to target children. In addition to violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Section 28 is morally repugnant. It uses state power to keep immigrant children, who bear no responsibility for their status, out of school. Moreover, while so many Alabama public schools are failing, the law unconscionably redirects scarce education resources toward immigration policing.

Finally, as the court held in Plyler, “It is difficult to understand precisely what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime.”

Sadly, HB 56 may reflect a larger national trend. In May, the Department of Justice issued a memo re-affirming the illegality of asking students about their immigration status. This followed illegal reporting requirements and efforts in other states to pass education provisions similar to HB 56. Recent reports by the American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, found that roughly 20 percent of New York and New Jersey public school districts requested information from students that would indicate their immigration status. Similar practices abound in Arizona, where fully half of school districts surveyed by the ACLU sought such information.

The Department of Justice was right to issue its memo, but, in the wake of HB 56’s passage, it must be even more vigilant about illegal school reporting policies, which may rise as restrictionist officials seek to copy HB 56.

It is encouraging that the appellate court temporarily blocked the education provision of HB 56. But beating Section 28 in court, while essential, will not by itself ensure that all American children can go to school without fear. Legislators and education officials around the country must take heed: our classrooms are no place for the refrain, “Papers,  please.”

Government Linking Various Criminal Behaviors to Certain Racial and Ethnic Groups in Georgia, Documents Obtained by ACLU Reveal

Press Release

ATLANTA – The FBI has been targeting American communities for investigation in Georgia and across the country based on race, ethnicity, national origin and religion according to documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia that were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents show that FBI analysts in Georgia and across the country are associating criminal behaviors with certain racial and ethnic groups and then using U.S. census data and other demographic information to map where those communities are located to investigate them.

Examples of profiling in Georgia revealed in FBI memos and intelligence notes include:

• Noting an increase in the “black/African American populations in Georgia” and non-violent protests by the African-American community in the state after police shootings to identify potential threats from “Black Separatist” groups.
• Using the threat posed by the criminal gang MS-13, which was originally started by Salvadoran immigrants, to justify broad investigations targeting a wide variety of Latino communities in Georgia as well as in Alabama and New Jersey.

“The FBI’s own documents confirm our worst fears about how it is using its overly expansive surveillance and racial profiling authority,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director. “The FBI has targeted communities of color in Georgia for investigation based not on suspicion of actual wrongdoing, but on the crudest stereotypes about which groups commit different types of crimes.”

The documents are being released as part of a new ACLU initiative called “Mapping the FBI,” which aims to expose misconduct and abuse of authority by the bureau.

“The use of profiling as a tool to address crime and national security threats is not only unconstitutional, it is ineffective and counterproductive,” said Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent. “Targeting entire communities for investigation based on erroneous stereotypes produces flawed intelligence. Law enforcement programs based on evidence and facts are effective, and a system of bias and mass suspicion is not.”

Other instances of profiling around the country revealed in the FBI memos and intelligence notes include:

• Using the fact that San Francisco is “home to one of the oldest Chinatowns in North America and one of the largest ethnic Chinese populations outside mainland China” to justify opening an investigation involving racial and ethnic mapping because “[w]ithin this community there has been organized crime for generations.”
• Seeking to collect information about Muslim and Arab communities in Michigan, arguing that “because Michigan has a large Middle Eastern and Muslim population, it is prime territory for attempted radicalization and recruitment by… terrorist groups.”  

“It is entirely within Attorney General Holder’s power to put an immediate end to these unconstitutional practices by changing the internal Justice Department and FBI rules that permit them to occur,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project.

In 2003, the Justice Department issued its “Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies,” which prohibited racial and ethnic profiling in all contexts except in national security and border integrity investigations.  Exploiting this loophole, the FBI claimed the authority to analyze the geographic concentrations of racial and ethnic communities in an internal manual called the “Domestic Investigation and Operations Guide,” which was issued in December 2008. This program, called “Domain Management,” is not limited to national security investigations, and the ACLU believes that it violates the Constitution. The organization recently sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to address the problem.

The documents also reveal FBI counterterrorism training materials portraying Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. as primitive, violent and supporters of terrorism. The documents show that these materials have been in use since at least 2003 through this year.

A 2008 textbook, produced by the FBI and West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, contains essays claiming that Islam is inherently violent, that Muslims and Arabs are intrinsically “different” from other Americans and should be treated with suspicion, and that religious practices and political activism by Muslims and Arabs are signs of increasing danger. The FBI has committed to reviewing its training materials, and the ACLU has written to request that faulty intelligence products be included within this review.

A detailed description of the FBI’s use of racial profiling, including links to the FOIA documents, is available at:

www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-eye-fbi-fbi-engaged-unconstitutional-racial-profiling-and-racial-mapping

A detailed description of the FBI’s use of training materials biased against Muslims and Arabs, including links to the FOIA documents, is available at:

www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-eye-fbi-fbis-use-anti-arab-and-anti-muslim-counterterrorism-training

The ACLU’s letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder about racial profiling and the FBI’s investigation guidelines is available at:

www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-letter-attorney-general-holder

More information about the ACLU’s new initiative, “Mapping the FBI,” including a searchable database of FOIA documents, is available at:

www.aclu.org/mapping-fbi