ICE to Halt Detention of Asylum Seekers

Its about time, but according to an AP article, ICE plans on halting the detention of asylum seekers in the US as of January 4, if they meet certain criteria [They must establish their identities, they cannot be dangerous or a flight risk, and they must have a credible fear of persecution or torture].

The Obama administration it will stop detaining asylum seekers who have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.

To be released into the U.S., the asylum seekers will have to establish the credible fear and their identities and show they are not dangerous or a flight risk, said John Morton, Department of Human Services assistant secretary overseeing ICE.

Foreigners who arrive at a port of entry and are found to have a credible fear will automatically be considered for release into the U.S., Morton said.

Asylum seekers still will spend time in detention while they undergo interviews and their information is checked, but the administration hopes to reduce the length of their stay with a policy change, ICE said.

Their stay in the U.S. will be considered temporary until a final decision is made on their asylum claim.

Currently, foreigners who come to the U.S. without valid documents can be immediately removed from the country, without a hearing. Also, requests for release must be made in writing, ICE said.

Who Benefits from Detaining Young People in the UK?

Who benefits from detaining young people in the UK?

From the Guardian:

Clearly not the children who, according to every study ever written on this issue, suffer acutely from being taken from their homes on the orders of the UK Border Agency and placed in a confined space for an indeterminate period.

Many argue that society benefits because it is protected from the asylum seekers and their families. Sambrook wonders how that can be when there is no evidence that asylum seekers are likely to abscond.

So who benefits? Clearly the private companies that run so much of this operation have a lot to gain. G4S, the company that operates Tinlsey House, one of three detention centres where last month 10-year-old Adeoti Ogunsola tried to strangle herself after being forcibly redetained, recently reported rising profits and growth in government business which had offset weakness in commercial sectors.

As Sambrook reports: "Last year G4S handed chief executive Nick Buckles a £1.4m pay package. That's £3,835 every day. He owns £4m in G4S shares, tipped by the Daily Telegraph recently as, 'a solid buy for these uncertain times'."

Someone else who may reasonably be said to benefit from this policy is Christopher Hyman, the chief executive of Serco, who also earns in the region of £3,000 a day. His company runs the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre where children have been detained far beyond the 28-day with charge maximum allowed for terror suspects. "Traumatised child inmates, who must carry ID cards at all times, refer to Yarl's Wood as 'prison' and 'the camp'," says Sambrook.

Among the indirect beneficiaries she also identifies John Reid, the former home secretary, who is paid £50,000 a year as a consultant to G4S for, among other things, hosting government and security industry breakfasts.

The UK needs a Gender Sensitive Asylum System

We need a Gender Sensitive Asylum System:

Last week the government launched its strategy to end violence against women and girls. This rightly refers to the progress made by the police, Crown Prosecution Service and courts in dealing with violence against women and girls. For example, if you report a rape nowadays you can ask for a female police officer to be present at your interview and you get supported by a specially trained officer throughout the police investigation and at any subsequent trial. Contrast this treatment with that in the asylum system. Rani, who escaped Sri Lanka after her husband was murdered and she was raped by soldiers, told me that at her asylum interview:

I was happy with a lady interviewer but not a male translator ... Because he was a man I felt ashamed. If it was a woman I would have said more.

A gender-sensitive system should prevent this taking place. This week we at Asylum Aid have launched Every Single Woman, a new campaign under the Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum, which highlights that the criminal justice system has at least 26 laws or policies on working with women victims of crime while the UK Border Agency has just two.

Cecilia had the misfortune to spend time in both prison and an asylum detention centre. When I asked her the difference between them, her answer shocked me:

I'd prefer, rather than going in a detention centre ... to be in prison for the rest of my life.

She talked about male staff at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, appearing unannounced, entering her room and searching through her possessions, including her underwear. Having herself experienced rape in Cameroon, this was particularly frightening. In prison, a search was always undertaken by a female prison officer and always after she had been warned that this would take place. In fact, UK prison policy is that there should be at least 60% female staff in a women's prison because "women who have been abused by men may feel safer in a predominantly female environment". No such policy exists in detention centres for women. At Tinsley House, near Gatwick Airport, there is room for 116 men and five women. With such a disproportionate number of males to females, women can feel intimidated, scared and isolated. Quite often a woman can be the only female detainee surrounded by 116 men. Women would never be placed in a men's prison in this way.

If a young woman is homeless and pregnant in the UK she is eligible for housing benefit, income support and one-off maternity grants worth £690. But not if she is a refused asylum seeker. Rahel is from Ethiopia and found herself without any support after her asylum claim was refused. For the first three months of her pregnancy she slept at Victoria Station in a sleeping bag given to her by the Red Cross. Only when she became so ill that she had to be hospitalised was she offered basic accommodation and vouchers to pay for food.

Detaining 'Unadjusted Refugees'

Great Analysis of the DHS's policy on detaining "unadjusted refugees" via Immigration Impact:

Despite [President Obama's] commitment to helping refugees resettle in the U.S. permanently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have adopted a policy of incarcerating refugees who have not adjusted to permanent resident status after one year of residency in the U.S. (“unadjusted refugees”). Often ICE comes in contact with unadjusted refugees who have had some contact with local law enforcement; however ICE also has detained refugees who have no criminal charges pending against them. In recent months, advocates have alerted DHS and ICE about such detained refugees in regions including Minneapolis, MN; Florence, AZ; Eloy, AZ; York, PA; Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles, CA.

ICE defends this detention policy by citing section 209(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) which states that refugees who have not acquired permanent resident status after one year “shall return or be returned to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security for inspection and examination for admission.” ICE says “return to custody” means that refugees who have not applied for permanent resident status after one year may be detained and held while they complete their adjustment application and while ICE’s sister organization, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), adjudicates it. This interpretation is particularly unfair since the law prohibits refugees from applying for permanent residence until one year after they have been admitted to the U.S. as refugees. In essence, ICE detains refugees for not doing what the law bars them from doing.

ICE’s interpretation of the law has particularly harsh consequences for refugees. First, the refugee is not in removal proceedings, so he or she cannot request bond before an Immigration Judge. Without an opportunity to be released, the refugee must complete the adjustment application process in detention—for example, he or she must appear for the required USCIS interview and obtain vaccinations while detained. In some cases, the process can take over a year.

Second, even if USCIS denies the refugee’s application for adjustment and he or she is placed in removal proceedings, ICE has charged the refugee as an “arriving alien.” Under the relevant law, “arriving aliens” may not ask an Immigration Judge for a bond hearing and are entirely dependant on ICE—the prosecutor in the case—for release from detention. The interpretation of refugees as “arriving aliens” is incorrect because refugees have already been admitted to the U.S. as a refugee. Despite this, when the agency charges them as “arriving aliens,” refugees are unable to seek release from detention from a neutral decision-maker—neither during the pendency of the adjustment application, nor during removal proceedings.

US Immigration Policy Harms Women, Families

In case people have missed this point earlier- US Immigration Policy harms women and families (and men too). Human Rights Watch briefed Congress on this issue. Will Congress do something?

Immigration detention is the fastest growing form of incarceration in the United States. On any given day, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds 33,000 immigrants in detention, about 10 percent of them women. Detainees include asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, pregnant women, and mothers of children who are US citizens.

"The vast majority of women I interviewed posed no security threat or flight risk," said Nina Rabin, director of border research at the Southwest Institute for Research on Women and director of the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program at Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. "One of the most effective ways to deal with immigration enforcement is simply not to detain so many people and instead use a wide range of alternatives."

Kathleen Baldoni, who worked as a nurse at Willacy Detention Center, the largest immigration detention center in the country, said that women there often are subjected to extreme temperatures, inadequate nutrition, medical staffing shortages and long delays for critically needed health care.

"I was prevented from providing the level of care ethically required of me as a health care provider," said Baldoni. "Nursing and medical staff are genuinely caring people who want to do the best for their patients, but we are often hampered by the system. Not only are the detainees in danger, but also the medical staff, who face liability issues, are as well."

A March 2009 report by Human Rights Watch found that while current standards allow for emergency medical care and treatment for detained immigrants, they are insufficient to cover women's unique physical, social, emotional, and health care needs. These include gynecological exams, pre- and post-natal care, and treatment for those who have been victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

"It is appalling that ICE does not provide women in its custody with enough sanitary pads to keep from bleeding through their clothes, to say nothing of sufficient Pap smears, mammograms, and the other most basic elements of women's health care," said Meghan Rhoad, researcher in the Women's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. "It is bad enough that these women are locked up. The least the government can do is to give them decent care."

Emily Butera, program officer at the Women's Refugee Commission, said that ICE's focus on emergency care and keeping detainees medically ready for deportation is misplaced. "ICE needs to take into account the pressing humanitarian needs of individuals not held on criminal charges," she said. "In addition to poor conditions in detention facilities, our immigration and enforcement policies are needlessly endangering the well-being of vulnerable people and tearing apart families."

In fact, the advocates point out, women are being separated from their children, permanently in many cases, at great cost to society. In some cases, mothers are detained and taken to detention facilities hundreds of miles away without being given the opportunity to make the most basic arrangements for the care of their children. While in detention they are denied access to telephones and the legal materials necessary to locate their children and communicate with family courts to preserve their parental rights.

"ICE took me from my home while my children watched in fear," said Marlene Jaggernauth, a single parent who was separated from her four children, all of them US citizens, and who will speak at today's event. "Had I not experienced a year in immigration detention, I would never have believed that such inhumanity existed."

Palau Agrees to Take U.S. Detainees

The remote Pacific island nation of Palau said Wednesday it has agreed to a U.S. request to temporarily resettle up to 17 Chinese Muslims now held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center on Cuba. Palau President Johnson Toribiong said the administration of President Barack Obama made the request last week and that his country was "honored and proud" to resettle the detainees from China's Uighur minority as a humanitarian gesture. His archipelago, with a population of about 20,000, will accept up to 17 of the detainees subject to periodic review, Toribiong said in a statement released to The Associated Press.

Resources on Dentention Policies

The Global Detention Project is a new web site launched by the Graduate Institute of Geneva's Programme for the Study of Global Migration. It aims to "investigate the role detention plays in states’ responses to global migration, with a special focus on the policies and physical infrastructures of detention." The site provides access to country profiles, the domestic and international legal framework for migration-related detention, and a detention news feed in English, French and Spanish. Other resources will be added in the future.

The International Detention Coalition also monitors detention policies and practices around the world. It offers a newsletter (most recent edition), a resource library, and a global survey (scroll down for findings).

Other resources:

• Migration-Related Detention: A research guide on human rights standards relevant to the detention of migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees (Amnesty International, Nov. 2007) [text]
• Refworld's Detention Page [access]
• Selected Documents Relating to Detention (UNHCR, Feb. 2009) [text]

(HT: Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog)

Detention is a Moneymaker- at the Cost of Dignity

At a time when local law enforcement agencies are being forced to cut budgets and freeze hiring, cities across Southern California have found a growing source of income -- immigration detention. The LA Times reports:

Roughly two-thirds of the nation's immigrant detainees are held in local jails, and the payments to cities and counties for housing them have increased as the federal government has cracked down on illegal immigrants with criminal records and outstanding deportation orders.

Washington paid nearly $55.2 million to house detainees at 13 local jails in California in fiscal year 2008, up from $52.6 million the previous year. The U.S. is on track to spend $57 million this year.

The largest federal contract in the state is with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, whose 1,400-bed detention center in Lancaster is dedicated to housing immigrants either awaiting deportation or fighting their cases in court. The department received $34.7 million in 2008, up from $32.3 million the previous year.

For some cash-strapped cities, the federal money has become a critical source of revenue, covering budget shortfalls and saving positions.

Immigrant detainees stay in the local jails anywhere from a few hours to many months. At most jails, they are not separated from the rest of the population.

More Death in Detention

Another death in detention that was covered up by ICE despite attempts to improve transparency within the department. The New York Times reports:

The difficulty of confirming the very existence of the dead man, Ahmad Tanveer, 43, a Pakistani New Yorker, shows how death can fall between the cracks in immigration detention, the rapidly growing patchwork of more than 500 county jails, profit-making prisons and federal detention centers where half a million noncitizens were held during the last year while the government tried to deport them.

The case underscores the secrecy and lack of legal accountability that continue to shield the system from independent oversight, despite years of escalating Congressional inquiries and new efforts by Obama administration appointees to promote transparency.

Not until March 20, in response to a new request by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, did the agency release an internal e-mail message acknowledging that the death had been overlooked. It issued a corrected list that now includes him — his first and last names transposed — among 90 people who died in immigration custody between Oct. 7, 2003, and Feb. 7, 2009.

Keith Olbermann on Detention

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann calls immigration detention centers “Gitmo Jr.-gate”, and that’s right on point. Olbermann’s comments during his “Still Bushed!” segment was prompted by a report just released by Amnesty International, “Jailed without Justice.” Watch the video of him here.

(HT: ImmigrationProf Blog)

Review Cases of Guantanamo Detainees Imprisoned as Juveniles

Human Rights Watch says:

The US Department of Justice should expedite the review and provide education and other rehabilitation assistance for five detainees at Guantanamo who have been held there since they were children, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. The detainees were brought to Guantanamo between the ages of 15 and 17, and have now been in detention there for more than six years.

The five detainees are:

• Mohammed el Gharani - a Chadian who was brought to Guantanamo at the age of 15. Although a federal court ruled in January 2009 that the government's evidence is too weak to justify el Gharani's continued confinement, he remains in Guantanamo.
• Mohammad Jawad - an Afghan brought to Guantanamo at the age of 16 or 17, who has been charged with attempted murder by a military commission. He was reportedly subjected to torture and other abuse while in US custody, and has attempted suicide at least once.
• Omar Khadr - a Canadian brought to Guantanamo at the age of 15, who has been charged with murder by a military commission. Previously held in prolonged solitary confinement, he also reports having been subjected to torture and abuse.
• Mohammad Khan Tumani - a Syrian brought to Guantanamo at the age of 17, who has as reportedly subjected to physical and psychological abuse . He has not been charged with an offense.
• Fahd Abdullah Ahmed Ghazni - a Yemeni brought to Guantanamo at the age of 17. Although he was cleared by the US government to leave Guantanamo more than a year ago, he remains in detention.

DHS Signals Policy Changes Ahead for Immigration Raids

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces in recent weeks, asking agents in her department to apply more scrutiny to the selection and investigation of targets as well as the timing of raids. The Washington Post reports:

A senior department official said the delays signal a pending change in whom agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement choose to prosecute -- increasing the focus on businesses and executives instead of ordinary workers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus made similar calls as the caucus met formally with Obama for the first time.

"Raids that break up families in that way, just kick in the door in the middle of the night, taking [a] father, a parent away, that's just not the American way. It must stop," Pelosi added at a Capitol Hill conference on border issues sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Gender Disparities in Medical Care for Immigrant Detainees

The medical care system in US immigration detention is dangerously inadequate, with unique consequences for women, and improving health care for immigration detainees should be a top priority for the new administration. Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center said in documented numerous instances in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) botched, delayed or denied medical care, causing suffering and even death.

The 78-page Human Rights Watch report, "Detained and Dismissed: Women's Struggles to Obtain Health Care in United States Immigration Detention," documents dozens of cases in which the immigration agency's medical staff either failed to respond at all to health problems of women in detention or responded only after considerable delays.

"Women in detention described violations such as shackling pregnant detainees or failing to follow up on signs of breast and cervical cancer, as well as basic affronts to their dignity," said Meghan Rhoad, researcher in the women's rights division at Human Rights Watch.

Women described struggling to obtain potentially life-saving services such as Pap smears to detect cervical cancer, mammograms to check for breast cancer, pre-natal care, counseling for survivors of violence, and even basic supplies such as sanitary pads or breast pumps for nursing mothers. The obstacles to health services included inadequate communication about available services, unexplained delays in treatment, unwarranted denial of services, breaches of confidentiality, and failure to transfer medical records. When women were denied services, complaint mechanisms were ineffective.

The Human Rights Watch report is based on visits to nine detention centers in Florida, Texas, and Arizona, and interviews with 48 women detained or recently released from immigration detention, detention facility staff and health care providers, immigration officials, immigration attorneys and advocates. Additional research was conducted in the New York and Washington, DC, metropolitan areas.

Swedish Court Grants Asylum to Former Gitmo Detainee

Sweden's Migration Court has granted asylum to former Guantanamo Bay detainee Adil Hakimjan, also known as Adel Abdu Al-Hakim. The decision overruled a previous ruling by the Swedish Migration Board denying Hakimjan asylum. Hakimjan, who was held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly five years, was one of five Uighurs released in 2006 who were granted asylum in Albania. Hakimjan had applied for asylum in Sweden because he has a sister living there. The court cited the family relationship, the humanitarian nature of the request, and Hakimjan's detention at Guantanamo Bay as reasons for granting him residence as a refugee, it notes.

For comprehensive coverage of Gitmo detainees, check out Andy Worthington)

Sexually Assaulted Female Immigrants Denied Reproductive Rights

Current U.S. immigration detention policy includes locking up women who have been raped and then denying them access to abortion services. Kevin Sieff writes in the Texas Observer:

In 2008, 10,653 women were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to agency spokeswoman Cori Bassett, 965 of those women — nearly 10 percent — were pregnant. Many of them, were raped on their way to the United States—a journey known to be dangerous for any willing to take it, but especially so for women. For pregnant women in immigration detention facilities, it is virtually impossible to obtain an abortion. “Preliminary records indicated that during fiscal year ’08 and ’09 to date, no detainee has had a pregnancy terminated while in ICE custody.” Not a single one.

With the prevalence of rape among immigrants and the government’s increasingly stringent immigration enforcement policies, ICE’s treatment of pregnant detainees has become particularly relevant in recent years.

Medical services within ICE detention facilities, including requests for abortions, are handled by the Division of Immigration Health Services, a subagency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The division has sometimes scrambled to fulfill its growing responsibilities, since ICE was created out of the now-defunct Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services.

The joint policy of the division and ICE is to not fund elective procedures, including abortions. On its “Detainee Covered Service Package,” the division lists abortion as an example of commonly requested procedures that are “not covered but can be requested in the event of an emergency situation.” “ICE must pay for the termination of a pregnancy if a physician determines that the continuation of a pregnancy is life-threatening for the mother.”

ICE’s policy on abortion is markedly different than that of its sister organization, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which requires that each pregnant inmate receive counseling to help her decide “whether to carry the pregnancy to full term or to have an elective abortion,” according to federal regulations. If a detainee asks for an abortion, the prison’s clinical director “shall arrange for an abortion to take place.”

"The Least of Three"

A new film "The Least of Three" explores one of the U.S. government's newest approaches to immigration policy: family detention. As part of its new policy to end the 'catch and release' of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. government opens the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in May 2006 as a prototype family detention facility. The facility is a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by CCA, the largest private prison operator in the country. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. The facility is initially activated with little media attention or public knowledge. Soon, however, immigration attorney Barbara Hines is contacted by detainees seeking representation, and she becomes increasingly concerned about the troubling conditions there. She joins forces with Vanita Gupta of the ACLU and Michelle Brané of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children to investigate conditions and seek changes. Their efforts are initially hampered by a lack of openness and oversight within the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) organization. Undeterred, the three attorneys attempt to bring about changes in both policy and conditions, by making their findings public, encouraging involvement by activists and the media, and ultimately by filing a historic lawsuit. As these events unfold, the film explores the government rationale for family detention, conditions at the facility, collateral damage, and the role (and limits) of community activism in bringing change. The film leads viewers to consider whether core American rights and values - due process, presumption of innocence, upholding the family structure as the basic unit of civil society, and America as a refuge of last resort - should apply to immigrants, particularly children.

IDPs in Sri Lanka as POWs?

From the United Nations:

A troubling new report from Human Rights Watch suggests that civilians fleeing fighting between Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan army are being warehoused in government run "welfare centers" that are "just badly disguised prisons."

They face severe shortages of food and other essentials because of government restrictions on humanitarian assistance. Individuals and families who have managed to flee areas controlled by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been detained in poor conditions in army-controlled camps.

"Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in a war zone with limited aid because the government ordered the UN and other aid workers out," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "To add insult to injury, people who manage to flee the fighting end up being held indefinitely in army-run prison camps." International humanitarian law is very clear on how to treat civilians in internal armed conflict. In a letter to the Sri Lankan government Walter Kalin, the Secretary-General's Representative for the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) voiced his concerns.

"IDPs, who are civilians and who retain their right to freedom of movement, must not be detained in camps...Only the most limited and narrow exception would be allowed for a temporary relocation or restriction of civilians, and only then for imperative military reasons or when safety of the civilians so requires."

The point is, this wreaks of arbitrary detention. IDPs should not be treated as POWs.

Good Books About Immigration

• Religion and Social Justice for Immigrants by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo: The essays in this book analyze the different ways in which organized religion provides immigrants with an arena for mobilization, civic participation, and solidarity. Contributors explore topics including how non-Western religious groups such as the Vietnamese Caodai are striving for community recognition and addressing problems such as racism, economic issues, and the politics of diaspora; how interfaith groups organize religious people into immigrant civil rights activists at the U.S.-Mexican border; and how Catholic groups advocate governmental legislation and policies on behalf of refugees.
• Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants by David Bacon: Through interviews and on-the-spot reporting from both impoverished communities abroad and American immigrant workplaces and neighborhoods, Bacon shows how the United States' trade and economic policy abroad, in seeking to create a favorable investment climate for large corporations, creates conditions to displace communities and set migration into motion. Trade policy and immigration are intimately linked, Bacon argues, and are, in fact, elements of a single economic system. Bacon powerfully traces the development of illegal status back to slavery and shows the human cost of treating the indispensable labor of millions of migrants—and the migrants themselves—as illegal. Illegal People argues for a sea change in the way we think, debate, and legislate around issues of migration and globalization, making a compelling case for why we need to consider immigration and migration from a globalized human rights perspective.
• Enemy Aliens: Double Standards And Constitutional Freedoms In The War On Terrorism by David Cole: About 5,000 foreign nationals have been detained by the United States since September 11 and denied basic constitutional rights in the name of "wartime" expediency. Cole, who has litigated civil liberties cases on behalf of resident aliens and writes for the Nation, argues that denying foreigners rights within our legal system usually ends with citizens being stripped of those same rights. Cole documents how this process has already started and discusses provisions of the Patriot Act that he believes will allow for even further government encroachment on our freedom. He also provides detailed historical examples of the government's record of persecuting opposition voices in the name of security against a foreign menace. He argues for the moral and pragmatic importance of avoiding a double standard and according foreigners the same rights as citizens.
• Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat: Edwidge Danticat's father and uncle chose very different paths: the former struggled to make a new life for himself in America, while the latter remained in the homeland he paradoxically loved. In following their lives and their impact on future generations, Danticat's powerful family memoir explores how the private and the political, the past and the present, intersect. The most poignant section focuses on Joseph's tragic trip to the United States at age 81, but Danticat also tells a wider story about family and exile, the Haitian diaspora, the Duvalier regime, and post-9/11 immigration policy. Emotionally resonant and exceptionally clear-eyed, Brother, I'm Dying offers insight into a talented writer, her family history, and the injustices of the modern world.
• Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today by David C. Brotherton, ed: David C. Brotherton and Philip Kretsedemas provide a history and analysis of recent immigration enforcement in the United States, demonstrating that our current anti-immigration tendencies are not a knee-jerk reaction to the events of September 11. Rather, they have been gathering steam for decades. With contributions from social scientists, policy analysts, legal experts, community organizers, and journalists, the volume critically examines the discourse that has framed the question of immigration enforcement for the general public. It also explores the politics and practice of deportation, new forms of immigrant profiling, relevant case law, and antiterrorist operations. Some contributors couch their critiques in an appeal to constitutional law and the defense of civil liberties. Others draw on the theories of structural inequality and institutional discrimination. These diverse perspectives stimulate new ways of thinking about the issue of immigration enforcement, proving that "security" has more to do with improving legal rights, social mobility, and the well-being of all U.S. residents than keeping out the "other."
• The Abandoned Ones: The Imprisonment and Uprising of the Mariel Boat People by Mark S. Hamm: A veteran of Arizona's prison system, Hamm trained and led a team of students who served in the late '80s as release-hearing legal representatives for Cuban detainees moved from Atlanta and Oakdale to the Terre Haute, Indiana, penitentiary. Hamm argues here that Ronald Reagan's rhetoric, Ed Meese's venality, and the politicized incompetence of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service created the powder keg that exploded in late 1987 with the announcement that Cuba would take back 2,543 Marielitos and prolonged the Oakdale and Atlanta standoffs. Official lies about repression inside Cuba were matched by lies about detainees' "criminality" ; Hamm found they were "nonviolent criminals (in Cuba), the disadvantaged, petty criminals (in the U.S.), and the doubly punished." U.S. Bureau of Prisons officials win Hamm's praise for restraint; virtually all other agencies involved either participated in or failed to short-circuit what Hamm calls the "politics of cruelty" that controlled the Cuban detainees' lives both before and after the riots. A devastating narrative of homegrown human rights violations.
• Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, ed: Resurgent immigration is one of the most powerful forces disrupting and realigning everyday life in the United States and elsewhere, and gender is one of the fundamental social categories anchoring and shaping immigration patterns. Yet the intersection of gender and immigration has received little attention in contemporary social science literature and immigration research. This book brings together some of the best work in this area, including essays by pioneers who have logged nearly two decades in the field of gender and immigration, and new empirical work by both young scholars and well-established social scientists bringing their substantial talents to this topic for the first time.
• Deporting Our Souls: Values, Morality, and Immigration Policy by Bill Ong Hing: In the past three decades, images of undocumented immigrants pouring across the southern border have driven the immigration debate and policies have been implemented in response to those images. The Oklahoma City bombings and the tragic events of September 11, both of questionable relevance to immigration policy have provided further impetus to implement strategies that are anti-immigration in design and effect. This book discusses the major immigration policy areas - undocumented workers, the immigration selection system, deportation of aggravated felons, national security and immigration policy, and the integration of new Americans - and the author suggests his own proposals on how to address the policy challenges from a perspective that encourages us to consider the moral consequences of our decisions. The author also reviews some of the policies that have been put forth and ignored and suggests new policies that would be good for the country economically and socially.
• Securing Borders: Detention And Deportation In Canada by Anna Pratt: Detention and deportation are the two most extreme sanctions of an "immigration penality" that enforces borders, polices non-citizens, identifies those who are dangerous, diseased, deceitful, or destitute, and refuses them entry or casts them out. As such, they are constitutive practices that work to "make-up" and regulate national borders, citizens, and populations. In addition, they play a key role in the reconfiguration of citizenship and sovereignties in the global context. Despite popular and political exclamations, it is not a brand new world. The denigration of refugee claimants, heightened and intersecting anxieties about crime, security, and fraud, and efforts to fortify the border against risky outsiders have been prominent features of Canadian immigration penality since well before September 11th, 2001.
• Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History by Daniel Kanstroom: Deportation Nation is a chilling history of communal self-idealization and self-protection. The post-Revolutionary Alien and Sedition Laws, the Fugitive Slave laws, the Indian "removals," the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Palmer Raids, the internment of the Japanese Americans--all sought to remove those whose origins suggested they could never become "true" Americans. And for more than a century, millions of Mexicans have conveniently served as cheap labor, crossing a border that was not official until the early twentieth century and being sent back across it when they became a burden. By illuminating the shadowy corners of American history, Daniel Kanstroom shows that deportation has long been a legal tool to control immigrants' lives and is used with increasing crudeness in a globalized but xenophobic world.

H.R. 7255: Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act

House representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) introduced legislation to adopt enforceable humane standards in immigration detention facilities. The bill is called H.R. 7255: To reform immigration detention procedures, and for other purposes, also known as the ‘Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act’

New Video Game Based on Detention Story

The release of a new video game entitled “Homeland Guantanamos - The untold story of immigrant detention in the United States,” puts the player in the position of a journalist, and walks them through many of the factual aspects of immigrant detention. 

The game is an homage to Boubacar Bah, an immigrant who died in detention after being denied medical care in 2007. The game — created by Breakthrough, an international human rights organization in New York that is trying to get the public behind efforts to strengthen oversight, due process and medical help in immigration detention — uses Mr. Bah’s story to walk players through a simulated detention center, and into the documented ordeals of other detainees. They include a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor and an Army veteran held for three years while he fought deportation.  In the end, the game leads you to a memorial wall, with the names of the more than 87 detainees who have died since 2003.

Mixing fact and fantasy is familiar territory for Breakthrough, which seeks to galvanize young people by using the new tools of popular culture to put them in the shoes of legal and illegal immigrants. In February, it introduced “ICED — I Can End Deportation,” a game in which players assume the role of one of five characters with uncertain immigration status, trying to avoid deportation and to secure citizenship.

The game has been downloaded 110,000 times. Some supporters of stricter enforcement called the game propaganda for illegal immigration. But many educational, religious and immigrant advocacy groups embraced it as an antidote to “Border Patrol,” an Internet game in which the player shoots at caricatured Latinos running across the United States-Mexico border.

Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that the video game was “a work of fiction that dehumanizes the individuals depicted and grossly distorts conditions in detention facilities.” She added, “I believe that most informed people know that they leave reality at the door when they enter the world of video games.”