|
1
With the Border Patrol’s recent opening of an office in
Sandusky, Ohio, FLOC and CMWJ are concerned that Border Patrol
agents will focus on patrolling rural areas instead of focusing
on the Canadian border. “Farm workers are here doing a work no
domestic workers want to do anymore,” says FLOC President
Baldemar Velásquez.
“We are concerned that focusing on workers who put food on our
tables may be distracting the Border Patrol from more pressing
activities, such as catching undocumented Canadians or potential
terrorist activities along the Canadian border, or illegal drug
trafficking from Canada.”
The CMWJ is launching an Immigration Services Program to provide
expert and affordable legal immigration services to individuals
residing in NW Ohio and SE Michigan. This program will primarily
focus on providing naturalization and citizenship services,
family based petitions, applications for permanent residency,
and adjustment of status services and consular processing.
The program seeks to increase community awareness and education
on immigration issues, and to effectively advocate for immigrant
rights. The program is funded by the Toledo Community
Foundation.
FLOC has partnered with the CMWJ to specifically orient families
on what to do in case of raids or when they are detained by
Border Patrol agents. “There have been an unprecedented number
of apprehensions this summer.
Many of these workers have “mixed” families and when they are
being deported they may leave children who are [U.S.-]American
citizens behind,” says Wendy Avina, Immigration
Specialist in charge of the new program.
NE Ohio leaders and families decry heavy-handed actions by ICE
At a press conference last week at People’s
Missionary Baptist Church in
Ashtabula, Ohio, African-American
faith leaders and other residents joined members of the Latino
community in decrying “heavy-handed immigration enforcement
tactics that are terrorizing and dividing local families.”
They described the toll that civil
immigration law enforcement by state and local police has
had on hard-working families, including legal residents and U.S.
citizens. Speakers described the damage such enforcement has
done to the community’s relationship with local law enforcement
and public safety, and called on the U.S. Congress and President
Barack Obama to pass comprehensive
immigration reform as soon as possible.
According to organizers, for the past year, untold numbers of
men, women and even children in Ashtabula and Lake Counties have
been turned over to the Border Patrol
by police and highway patrol officers,
leaving scores of families—including U.S. citizen children—in
distress. The actions have not just affected
undocumented workers, but legal
residents and U.S. citizens of Latino origin have been profiled,
detained, and forced to prove their legal status.
Joanne Dautartas,
a resident of Geauga County
whose future son-in-law is facing deportation, described the
heartbreak her family is facing today. “Our daughter’s fiancé,
Rubén, was arrested three weeks ago and is being held for
deportation. His only ‘crime’ was that his visa had expired.
“Our government won’t let my daughter marry her fiancé, and they
won’t let him be by her side during her high risk pregnancy and
delivery, despite the strong recommendation of her doctor. I
can’t understand how our government can be so unfeeling. Rubén
is a hard-working man who only wants to keep his job, pay his
taxes, and be there for his family, and our government is
closing the door on him and our family.”
Peter Dautartas,
Joanne’s husband, continued: “Our country spends billions of
dollars advancing human rights in other countries, but we turn
our heads when it comes to families right here in Ohio. We need
to restore some humanity to our
immigration laws.”
Other families gave testimony about their experiences being
targeted by police for minor traffic
violations—or even no violation at all—and then
interrogated about their immigration status. Over the past
several months, the increase in deportations has created a
crisis in the community and left scores of families without
their primary breadwinners.
According to Veronica Dahlberg, Executive Director of
HOLA (Organization of Hispanic Women in Lake and Ashtabula)
and the organizer of the press conference: “It hurts me to
stand here today and share these stories with you because these
people are not criminals. They just want to live here in peace
and raise their families.”
ICE should end, not expand, agreements with local and state law
enforcement, says ACLU
WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 29, 2009: Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) announced new Section 287 (g)
Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs)
with 67 state and local law enforcement
agencies. These agreements expand the existing 287 (g)
program, which delegates some federal immigration enforcement
authority to certain state and local agencies.
The American Civil Liberties Union
has long called for an end to the 287 (g) program and continues
to strongly oppose ICE’s use of the agreements, which have led
to increased racial profiling and due process violations across
the country.
In recent years, the 287 (g) program has come under intense
scrutiny. Over 500 organizations have called on the government
to end the program. Several agencies that participate in the
program have been accused of profiling and other
civil rights abuses, including
the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office
headed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio,
which is currently being investigated by the
federal Justice Department and
has been sued by the ACLU for profiling. ICE’s announcement also
acknowledged that six agencies that previously participated in
287 (g) have decided to drop the program.
The Obama administration first announced that it would press
forward with the 287(g) program, which was strongly supported by
the Bush administration, in
July. At that time, ICE claimed that it had developed a new
“standardized” MOA that would guard against program abuses, but
examination of the actual standardized agreement revealed that
it did not contain significant safeguards or oversight
provisions and, in fact, introduced new areas of concern,
particularly relating to transparency.
The ACLU urges ICE to release the newly signed agreements for
public review immediately so that they can be compared to the
MOA announced in July and so that everyone can understand the
rules under which 287 (g) agencies operate.
The following can be attributed to Joanne Lin, ACLU
Legislative Counsel:
“ICE’s announcement on 287 (g) makes no mention of any
oversight, monitoring, or accountability mechanisms to address
racial profiling and other civil rights
violations – and no commitment to address these very real
problems.
“Instead, ICE has actually re-authorized agencies that have
abused their authority, including the
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. Disregarding
civil rights, breaking bonds
between immigrant communities and the police and failing to
intelligently prioritize enforcement will only make all of us
worse off. ICE should terminate the program immediately.”
Last month, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination (CERD)
called on the U.S. government to “reconsider its policy under
287 (g) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act” and “strengthen training and awareness
raising in order to avoid racial profiling in the migration
context.”
The letter from CERD to the U.S. government can be found online
at:
www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/racialjustice/41258res20090928.html
|
