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Las comunidades latinas (mal llamadas hispanas, acaso hispánicas) en los EEUU y el fenómeno migratorio mundial son vectores temáticos fundamentales en las redes de luz...

From: dorinda moreno <fuerzamundial@gmail.com>
Date: 2010/3/13
Subject: [NetworkAztlan_Action] MUST READ: The Traumas of Immigration Law, FNS report on NMSU immigration conference held last week: Undocumented children who are in state custody could face deportation
To: Local/National/Global <Community4ImmigrantRights@yahoogroups.com>, National Alliance Immigration Rights Coordinating Committee <NAIR_CC@googlegroups.com>, marcha-migrante-iv <marcha-migrante-iv@googlegroups.com>, Tommie Camarillo <cpscchicanopark@sbcglobal.net>, Aztlannet News <NetworkAztlan_News@yahoogroups.com>, Action <NetworkAztlan_Action@yahoogroups.com>, tupocc <tupocc@yahoogroups.com>, Latinos in Education <latinosineducation@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: jmurguia <jmurguia@nclr.org>, NCLR <elacayo@nclr.org>

The Gutierrez bill does not advocate blanket amnesty, but proposes a
$500
fine as part of a package of steps leading to the legalization of
undocumented residents. *Undocumented children who are in state custody could face deportation when they turn l8;
*Families of mixed status along the US-Mexico border are living under siege,”

On 3/13/10, [frontera-list] molly <mollymolloy@gmail.com> wrote:

Editor’s Note: The following story was made possible in part by a
grant
from the McCune Charitable Foundation for Frontera NorteSur’s special
coverage of key issues in the southern New Mexico borderland.

March 11, 2010

Immigration Feature

The Traumas of Immigration Law

It began as an ordinary academic presentation. Backed by a power-
point,
sociologist Alison Newby showed a crowd at New Mexico State University
(NMSU) in Las Cruces how more than 400 public and privately-contracted
immigrant detention facilities imprison more than 440,000 people,  at
a
cost surpassing $1.7 billion annually to the taxpayers.

“Not only are families potentially losing their breadwinners, it’s
costing
us to keep people in immigration detention,” Newby said, adding $95
per
day on average is spent to detain an immigrant.

Newby’s talk hit home. In February, Texas-based Corplan Corrections
went
before the Las Cruces City Council with a plan to build what company
representative Toby Michael was quoted as calling a “family
residential
center” for mainly women and child immigrants. In the view of critics,
the
envisioned facility is a buffed-up prison. Recently, Corplan made the
same
proposal to the city government in Benson, Arizona.

While ample attention has been placed on the dramatic increase in
immigrant detention since the Bush administration, Newby traced the
phenomenon to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act,
both of which passed in 1996.

According to the NMSU professor, the laws expanded the definition of
“aggravated felony” to encompass minor crimes for which no jail time
was
served, thus making greater numbers of immigrants eligible for
detention
and deportation. Legal reforms virtually eliminated judicial
discretion to
take into account individual histories, family ties and even the
nature of
the crime, Newby said.

A fundamental contradiction of the current system, she argued, is that
violations of civil immigration laws are treated as criminal offenses
without the corresponding rights to a speedy trial, rules of
disclosure, a
court-appointed attorney and other bedrock legal guarantees of the US
justice system.

“None of this matters. The judge’s hands are potentially tied as
well,”
Newby said.

Then Newby got personal. She recalled that morning a little more than
one
year ago, on February 28, 2009, when men came knocking on her door.
Representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal
agents
spirited away Newby’s Cuban immigrant husband and charged him with an
immigration law violation because of a prior drug conviction. Outside
the
couple’s home where their two children witnessed the arrest, several
SUVs
with armed men awaited, in a deployment Newby said “seemed like
overkill.”

Incarcerated in a detention center in neighboring El Paso, Texas,
Newby’s
husband was housed with hundreds of other prisoners awaiting their
fates.
Navigating a legal maze, the detainee was afforded 15-minute contact
visits with his children under the watchful eyes of  guards. As a
Cuban
national, he could not be readily deported, because the Cuban
government
would not accept him back home. Instead, the detainee was hustled off
to
citizenship interviews where he sat shackled next to children getting
vaccinations, according to Newby.

In the El Paso detention center, some work was available for inmates
at
the rate of one dollar per day. “I don’t know about the legality of
the US
government employing (immigrant detainees), and some of them may not
have
documents,” Newby quipped, sending chuckles rippling through the
audience.

Newby said her husband was finally released after spending nearly one
year
in detention; he still awaits final disposition of his case. "This is
an
extremely horrific Kafkaesque system,” charged the sociologist. “It is
ripping families apart…I don’t know if we are any safer.”

Sponsored by NMSU’s Center for Latin American and Border Studies and
International Relations Institute,  Newby’s talk resonated in other
presentations at a conference on immigration and human rights held at
the
university’s main Las Cruces campus earlier this month. Many speakers
examined the impact of toughened immigration law enforcement on
children,
families and communities in the New Mexico borderlands and beyond.

Nicholas Dagones, regional manager of protective services for the New
Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, touched on thorny
situations in which his agency’s staff come into custody of minors
whose
immigrant parents are detained.

Since many families have citizen and undocumented parents, the mixed
status of many immigrant households creates complications, Dagones
said.
Undocumented children who are in state custody could face deportation
when
they turn 18, according to the child advocate. To address individual
cases, the state government of New Mexico works with the Mexican
Consulate, he said.

Dr. Pat Sandau-Beckler of NMSU’s School of Social Work told the New
Mexico
conference researchers have detected Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome in
many children whose immigrant parents have been arrested. According to
Sandau-Beckler, three of every four such children experience eating
and
sleeping problems. Adolescents, she said, have been observed more
withdrawn than even younger children.

“Families of mixed status along the US-Mexico border are living under
siege,” contended Vicky Gaubeca,  director of the American Civil
Liberties
Union’s Regional Center for Border Rights in Las Cruces. “The only
part of
the economy that seems to be growing is the law enforcement economy.

Calling for family protection, Gaubeca and other presenters urged
sweeping
reforms to the immigration law system.

Together with other New Mexico immigrant rights activists, the ACLU
participates in the Task Force for Immigration Advocacy and Services
(TIAS), a two-year-old initiative of different service providers and
advocates. The task force supports measures that will ensure family
unity,
increase possibilities for citizenship and residence, uphold equal
rights
for all workers, end local enforcement of federal immigration laws,
reform
detention standards, eliminate privatized immigrant prisons, and
restore
due process and constitutional rights to all regardless of immigration
status.

Johnny Young, executive director of migration and refugee services for
the
US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. D.C., joined other
speakers in Las Cruces in calling for reform. The ordeal of Newby’s
family, Young said, is a “vivid example” of a “broken” immigration
system.

A former US ambassador to Sierra Leone, Togo, Bahrain and Slovenia,
Young
said the Roman Catholic leadership organization has an 80-year history
of
involvement in immigration issues, and has helped settle about one
million
new immigrants to the US since 1975.

“This is part of our religion, the Judeo-Christian tradition,
welcoming
the stranger,” Young said.

Currently, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops is mounting a
campaign to
send three million postcards to Congress in support of immigration law
reforms that include a pathway to legalization for undocumented
residents,
a new guest worker program and the elimination of detention centers.
The
bishops also support a March 21 pro-immigrant rally in Washington that
will include calls to pass an immigration reform bill sponsored by
Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois.

Although Young voiced confidence that momentum was building on the
side of
reform advocates, opponents of legalizing undocumented residents are
also
gearing up for action. For instance, members of the Tea Party movement
and
their allies plan numerous rallies across the United States on April
15.

“Despite the fake polls, bought and paid for by the Open Borders Lobby
groups, the truth remains that 80 percent of Americans oppose Amnesty
for
illegal aliens and turning millions of illegals into voters would have
a
catastrophic effect on America,” said William Green of Americans for
Legal
Immigration PAC in a statement this week.

“We will be sending tens of thousands of people out to support Tea
Party
events on April 15 to properly present public opposition to illegal
immigration and Amnesty for illegals,” Green said. To help organize
opposition to the Gutierrez bill and related proposals, the Tea Party
Against Amnesty has set up a website at www.AgainstAmnesty.com

Broadening their reach, anti-amnesty groups are also utilizing Twitter
and
Facebook to mobilize.

The Gutierrez bill does not advocate blanket amnesty, but proposes a
$500
fine as part of a package of steps leading to the legalization of
undocumented residents.

Immigration law reform was at the center of a flurry of activity in
Washington on Thursday, March 11, when President Obama met with two
key
senators, Republican Lindsay Graham and Democrat Charles Schumer, to
discuss prospects for passing legislation. According to a dispatch
from
the Associated Press, Obama earlier met with the National Council of
La
Raza and other immigrant advocates, assuring the activists he was
still
committed to immigration reforms.

-Kent Paterson

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

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