| CIVIL
RIGHTS - NON-CITIZENS
June 2004
U.S.
Supreme Court Rulings on "enemy combatants" and detainees in
"war on terror" - some noteworthy comments from legal
experts
Mar 2004
Immigration
Issues in the United States - Part II: A Response to Samuel
Huntington's "The Hispanic Challenge"
Feb/Mar 2004
Immigration
Issues in the United States - Part I: Illegal Immigration
- Afterword:
the California Strawberry Industry (added 7/19/04)
Jan 2003
The
counterproductive and inappropriate INS roundup and mistreatment of non-citizens and
non-residents of Islamic origin in late 2002/early 2003
AFTERWORD:
6/13/03 <link>
U.S.
voted out of Human Rights Commission
"...In a symbolic rebuke to the Bush administration, the member
nations of the Organization of American States (OAS) have for the
first time voted to exclude the US from representation on the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, considered the most
prestigious human rights monitoring body in the Western
Hemisphere..."
Would that
be entirely surprising considering this administration's human
rights record? No.
Here's Greg Anrig in The American Prospect on the unlawful
treatment of detainees who had nothing to do with terrorism.
...Last
week Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine issued a
198-page report documenting a variety of abuses committed against
illegal immigrants who were jailed during some initial sweeps
after September 11. The report provides a rare public glimpse into
the largely secret domestic war against terrorism. Justice
Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock reacted to the report by
saying, "We make no apologies for finding every legal way
possible to protect the American public from further terrorist
attacks." And Attorney General John Ashcroft testified that
"we make no apologies" for holding suspects as long as
necessary to determine whether they have links to terrorism.
Actually, apologies are very much in order.
The abuses of detainees could have been avoided -- and at no cost
to the nation's security. They occurred because the Bush
administration has decided to carry out its war against terrorism
largely in secret and with as little intrusion as possible from
the other branches of government. That disdain for oversight and
accountability poses risks to a broad range of American values and
principles that extend far beyond the injustices experienced by
the detainees. And the report demonstrates that the
administration's "just trust us" approach actually
weakens -- rather than strengthens -- the government's ability to
effectively fight terrorism.
Of the 762 illegal aliens who were rounded up and detained in
connection with the FBI's 9-11 investigation, only Zacarias
Moussaoui (who was already in custody before the attacks) was
ultimately charged with terrorism. The inspector general's report
found that many of those detainees were physically and verbally
abused, impeded from retaining and contacting lawyers, treated as
criminals accused of capital offenses and held in custody months
after the government had established that they did not pose a
threat.
How could those transgressions have occurred? Mainly because no
one -- not reporters, not judges, not members of Congress, not
civil-liberties groups and not lawyers for the detainees -- had
any idea what was going on. Six days after 9-11, Immigration and
Naturalization Service Chief Administrative Judge Michael Creppy
issued a memorandum instructing immigration judges and
administrators to close to the public all hearings related to the
detainees and to keep information related to those cases secret.
Even the names of those incarcerated were not released -- a
decision Ashcroft claimed was intended to protect their privacy.
(In that case, why not just ask their permission?)
The unprecedented policy of blanket secrecy kept the press,
legislators and advocacy groups in the dark, which in turn made it
easier for detention-center officials to impede the incarcerated
aliens' access to lawyers. One example in the inspector general's
report described a unit counselor who, when making weekly rounds,
would ask detainees, "Are you OK?" An affirmative
response resulted in the loss of an opportunity to make a legal
phone call that week...
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