Friends of Refugees

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Archive for the ‘ICE’ Category

TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition claims Bedford Cnty has vestiges of “overt racial apartheid”

Posted by Christopher Coen on September 22, 2011

A large painting of General Robert E. Lee hangs inside Bedford County criminal court - the only portrait in the courtroom.

The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) recently released a report entitled “The Forgotten Constitution – Racial Profiling and Immigration Enforcement in Bedford County, Tennessee.” The 16-page report about this rural county, about an hour south of Nashville, alleges that immigrants and refugees face hostility and discrimination from all aspects of the criminal justice system – including the Shelbyville police, the sheriff’s department and jail, and the local court system.

Bedford County is exceptional for its large and vibrant immigrant and refugee communities, who live and work in the rolling hills of this rural county about an hour south of Nashville, Tennessee. Somali and Burmese refugees, Egyptian immigrants, and Latino immigrants are the backbone of local industry, working at poultry plants and on the walking horse farms that make Shelbyville – Bedford’s county seat – famous…

…Despite immigrants’ essential economic contributions to Bedford County, they face hostility and discrimination from all aspects of the criminal justice system, which works in close coordination with federal immigration enforcement authorities. Arrests of Latinos have intensified since Tennessee law changed in January 2011 to require jailers to ask arrestees their citizenship and report this information to ICE. Pervasive anti-immigrant sentiment coupled with misinterpretation of the scope of this law has resulted in an ongoing immigration inquisition by local law enforcement that has caused a steep increase in detention and removal by ICE. Suspected immigrants are subjected to racial profiling and increased police surveillance. They are arrested and detained in county jail for minor traffic violations–often unlawfully–in order to facilitate their deportation. Immigrants and refugees are unable to meaningfully access government services and the court system, which means many of them are unable to vindicate their rights. Immigrants are mistreated by ICE officials, who have collaborated with locals engaged in explicitly racially discriminatory practices to entrap, interrogate, and arrest immigrants who clearly do not fit immigration enforcement priorities. Many immigrant victims of crime no longer trust law enforcement to protect them… To be an immigrant or refugee in Bedford County is to be treated with suspicion or outright hostility by one’s own government, whose offices still exhibit vestiges of the overt racial apartheid of years past…

…Immigrants are targeted at disproportionate rates by officers of Bedford County law enforcement agencies, particularly the Shelbyville Police Department, as a pretext for making arrests that will enable jailers to contact ICE… Local law enforcement agencies’ patrols, traffic stops, and arrests demonstrate a pattern of treating Latinos and other immigrants in a discriminatory manner…

…Immigrants face discrimination in booking and detention procedures at the Bedford County Jail, which is administered by the Bedford County Sheriff’sDepartment and Sheriff Randall Boyce… Immigrants are more likely to be held for long periods of time for minor traffic violations and to be held unlawfully without bond or after posting bond as a “courtesy” for ICE when there is no ICE detainer. Since January 2011, the unlawful practices of the Bedford County Sheriff’s Department have resulted in as much as a tenfold increase in the number of immigrants detained for ICE – all at the expense of Bedford County’s taxpayers. ICE has initiated deportation proceedings against most of those who have been unlawfully detained…

…A large painting of Confederate General Robert E. Lee hangs above the main doorway just inside the Bedford County criminal court, and is the only portrait in the courtroom. There is little justice here for immigrants who walk through these doors, in the shadow of that disciple of state racism and white supremacy…

…Immigrant criminal defendants assigned to the public defender are often not advised of the immigration consequences of a criminal conviction... Recommendations by defense counsel to plead guilty have jeopardized the ability of some long-standing community members to qualify for cancellation of removal or other immigration relief. Finally, some court-appointed attorneys have apparently charged indigent Latino clients for court appearances, despite the fact that these defendants are charged attorney fees by the probation office for the exact same representation and court appearances… Read more here

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, court, ICE, Murfreesboro/Shelbyville, police, poultry production, secondary migration, refugee, Somali, unwelcoming communities, xenophobia/nationalism/isolationism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Clues to cause of tire blow-out and rollover of 15-passenger van in Georgia

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 18, 2011

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia sent us a copy of the crash report for the single vehicle crash involving the 15-passenger Chevrolet 3500 van, and the report confirms their spokeswoman’s earlier statement that a tire blow-out was the apparent cause of the crash.

There were 13 refugees injured and two killed (one man was ejected out the back door of the van and decapitated ; the other man killed was thrown to the rear cargo area and entrapped). Injuries included fractured ribs, severe internal injuries, severe head injuries, a severed right hand, and the front passenger’s left arm was severed below the elbow (emergency personnel extricated him due to entrapment). The youngest passenger, a 20-year-old male Sudanese refugee, suffered a broken jaw (the driver and 12 passengers were Nepali-Bhutanese refugees, and there were two African refugee passengers). All of the 15 people were traveling to their Perdue chicken-processing factory jobs in Perry, 106 miles south of their homes in Atlanta. The report says that an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) official claimed that World Relief supplied the refugees with the jobs. There is no mention of RRISA, as in media reports.

Several witnesses in vehicles traveling in the same direction heard a loud sound before the van went out of control — one described it as a “pow” and another described it as a “pop”. The vehicle swerved off I-75, crossed the median, and hit a guard rail support on the other side — causing it to flip over front-to-back, land upside down on the guard rail, then make a full sideways roll and landing upside down. 

The crash report also gives clues about the cause of the left rear tire blow-out. Both of the front tires were in very good condition (“like new”), with 3/4 inch tread depth on each tire. The two rear tires, however — both Uniroyal Laredo LT245/75R16 with load range E — were not in very good condition, with “some dry rot present”. The right rear tire had about 1/4 inch tread depth and the tread was partially torn. The left rear tire, the tire that failed before the crash, lost its tread during the crash leaving only the cords and steel belts exposed. There was also a tear on the left rear tire that went from outer sidewall to inner sidewall. So, perhaps the left rear tire blew-out due to severe wear and/or dry rot, and not due to tire over-inflation or under-inflation as I earlier surmised.

Another issue, according to a report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is that these 15-passenger vans, when used as directed, with up to 15 passengers, are more likely to roll over, by 9-12 percent per passenger added, due to an increase in the height of the center of gravity. In other words, the purpose of the vehicle, to transport up to 15 passengers, is also the source of these vehicles’ risk. The higher the occupancy the higher the risk. I suspect, though, that fully loaded vehicles — with  tires that are not properly maintained and replaced when necessary – are much more likely to have a tire blow-out initiating the rollover. A driver inexperienced with handling a large passenger van, especially a new driver inexperienced with driving any vehicle, would no doubt also increase the rollover risk due to inexperience with handling (although a fully loaded 15-passenger van that experiences a tire blow-out at high-speed would, no doubt, be extremely difficult if not impossible to control even for an experienced van driver).

Posted in Atlanta, economic self-sufficiency, employment/jobs for refugees, Georgia, ICE, meatpacking industry, Nepali Bhutanese, passenger van roll-over, safety, transportation, World Relief | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Those who seek Asylum

Posted by Christopher Coen on December 1, 2010

There is a good, succinct article about asylum in Immigrant Connect Chicago. Asylum-seekers (asylees) are different from refugees only in that they arrive in the U.S. and ask for asylum, as opposed to being outside of the U.S. and applying for refugee status. Both asylees and refugees are people who claim a credible fear of persecution or torture in their home country based on race, religion, membership in a political or social group and political opinion.

…In 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revised procedures to allow asylum seekers to be released from detention after passing a credible fear interview if they “establish their identities, pose neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community, have a credible fear of persecution or torture, and have no additional factors that weigh against their release.” According to UNHCR, which has published documents regarding the debate on detention, many of those who were detained among criminals were “not there by virtue of having committed a crime, but due to a breach of administrative procedures.”

“An asylum-seeker is someone who says he or she is a refugee, but whose claim has not yet been definitively evaluated,” according to UNHCR. In the credible fear interview upon arrival, an asylum officer determines whether or not the individual can claim the need for asylum based on their “credible fear of persecution or torture” in their home country, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Between October 2009 and May 2010, a credible fear was established in 3,519 of the 4,504 interviews conducted, according to USCIS. Those who are determined not to have a credible fear may request review of the decision by an immigration judge. If no request for review is submitted or if the judge reaffirms the negative decision, applicants are sent back to their home countries. If the interviewer determines that there is a credible fear, the applicant continues the process in court where they may present a claim for asylum to an immigration judge.

The immigration judge’s decision depends upon a reasonable fear of persecution based on race, religion, membership in a political or social group and political opinion. The burden of proof is on the applicant to justify their fears. The success often depends upon whether or not the asylum seeker is represented by an attorney, according to Hughes. Eighty percent of applicants with attorneys are granted the status they seek while only 20 percent are granted asylum when not represented.

Many of the judges are former lawyers with “the other side,” according to Edget Betru, an immigration attorney at Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta. Because of their involvement with the Department of Homeland Security and similar agencies, “they’re coming with a certain perspective or bias already,” says Betru.

In certain cases, the judge’s personal knowledge about the issue at hand may play an important part… Read more here

Posted in asylees, DHS, ICE, immigration courts, immigration services, Nigerian, Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta (RRISA), Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta (RRISA), UNHCR, USCIS | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Refugees trapped by backlogged U.S. immigration courts

Posted by Christopher Coen on November 27, 2010

According to an article in The Monitor, legitimate refugees, actually asylees, are being thrown into ICE detention facilities for long periods while they wait for their cases to come up before our backed-up immigration courts. Caseloads for immigration judges are now about three times that of federal district judges. Officials detained an Ethiopian refugee for seven months in an ICE facility in South Texas before his case began to wind its way through a patchwork of complex and confusing court asylum proceedings.

SAN BENITO — The young refugee retraced the long, twisted journey that landed him on the American side of the Hidalgo International Bridge earlier this year, pleading for asylum in the U.S., fearing deportation would amount to a death sentence.

The 24-year-old had fled his native Ethiopia months earlier, fearing near-constant government threats in retaliation for vocally supporting an opposing political party. Brutally beaten and twice thrown in prison, the young man was told authorities would kill him if arrested a third time.

His long path to the U.S. took him through Africa, Dubai, Cuba and eventually to Colombia, trekking through dense jungle to the Panama border. Over the course of months, a series of busses, trains and long hikes through Central America ended at the Hidalgo bridge, where he turned himself in and was immediately shipped to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Port Isabel, where he would stay for seven months.

“I was confused. I cried always because I didn’t know what was going to happen to me,” the man recalled. “I was scared. I know that if I go back (home) they’re going to kill me.”

The man’s account echoes the stories of hundreds of others who come to the U.S. seeking political asylum every year in U.S. immigration courts, a system that experts fear is already strained and overwhelmed with exploding caseloads. In Harlingen’s immigration court alone, data shows that pending cases have more than doubled over the past fiscal year… Read more here

Posted in asylees, Ethiopian, ICE, immigration courts, Texas | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Globe-Gazette newspaper claims Iowa needs cheap immigrant labor for the state’s economic development

Posted by Christopher Coen on May 17, 2010

A Globe-Gazette editorial attempts to link the recent shut down of two refugee resettlement agencies with the deplorable case of immigrant child abuse at the now defunct Agriprocessors slaughterhouse (here).

Child after immigrant child took the witness stand in Waterloo last week to describe abusive working conditions at the former Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville.
.

Fourteen- and 15-year-olds testified about back-breaking, low-paying work for Sholom Rubashkin, the former Agriprocessors CEO charged with 83 misdemeanor state child labor law violations. He already has been convicted of massive financial fraud.

He has yet to be tried for immigration law violations federal authorities filed after the biggest immigration raid in Iowa history May 12, 2008. Federal agents removed 390 undocumented workers from the plant, shutting it down…

This is the context for the regrettable closing of Iowa’s Bureau of Refugee Services, the state’s No. 1 manager of legal immigration. Since 1975, this bureau brought 28,000 legal immigrants to Iowa and supported another 10,000 who moved to the state after legally entering the country.

…The U.S. State Department ended its $134,000 annual appropriation for the state office and is choosing to support only national, non-profit resettlement programs.

Also, the state’s No. 2 agency for refugee resettlement is shutting down. Lutheran Social Services of Iowa is ending its resettlement partnership with Catholic Charities that welcomed 483 refugees last year.

That leaves only Catholic Charities, which generously decided Wednesday to continue this ministry alone.

Of course, the national refugee resettlement volag Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), far from condemning the abuses of young immigrants at Agriprocessors, has gone out of its way to call for “fairness” (here) in the sentencing of the diabolical former owner of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, whose second trial, this time on child labor violation, was delayed after he was apparently bitten by someone in jail (here). 

In the meantime the Globe-Gazette editorial attempts to sell us on the concept that meatpacking plants in Iowa would not be able to run were it not for immigrant labor.

…[the immigration raid on Agriprocessors proved] once again that Iowa’s agriculture economy cannot function without immigrant labor.The work force at every meatpacking plant in the state affirms it. So do the past three Iowa governors, who agree legal immigration is essential for the state’s economic growth, not simply “important” or “a key factor.” While in office, Govs. Terry Branstad, Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver all said Iowa simply cannot grow without legal immigration.

…If history is an indicator, thousands of illegal immigrants will continue to be drawn into the traps set by those like Rubashkin, who federal and state authorities say built a business around exploited illegal immigrants.

Refugee resettlement is an honorable part of Iowa government and faith mission history. It also is a vital part of the state’s economic development.

Isn’t that dangerous when state elites decide that refugee resettlement is not a matter of human rights, rather, is an opportunity to exploit labor for the “economic development” of the state? Are these the same people who look the other way when refugee resettlement agencies, landlords, and employers neglect and abuse refugees?

I guess the editorial board also never considered that the ruthless consolidation in the meatpacking business, and the resulting plunge in wages paid, not to mention the speeding up of the slaughtering process and resultant extreme abuse of livestock, was never a real necessity but was the result of our government’s decision to let private industry do whatever it wanted to do (witness how that same philosophy and process has worked in our financial industry, oil industry, etc.).

By the way, we also just came across photographs of housing conditions for immigrants of the former Agriprocessors (here). As you can see conditions somewhat approximate some of the horrendous and deplorable housing that refugee resettlement agencies have placed refugees in around the country.

Pictures of Agriprocessors’ “campus-style” housing are posted immediately below. Each worker paid $100 per week for a mattress on the floor. Some of these homes had 10 to 12 workers sleeping in them. Many were unfurnished:

Sewer Pipe Over Door Leak-3

Bad Wall, Cabinet-1

Hole In The Ceiling-1

Bed In Laundry Room-2

This last picture is a mattress and box spring (no bed frame) in a laundry closet. The open pipe on the right is a dryer vent. On the left are the hookups for the washer and dryer.

Workers complained of being assigned a mattress on the floor of moldy basements and of having 3 and sometimes 4 workers per room, 10 to 12 per house.

Each worker paid $100 per week, usually deducted from their paychecks.

Posted in HIAS, housing, substandard, ICE, Iowa, Jewish, Lutheran Services in Iowa, meatpacking industry, State Department | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

HIAS’ President and CEO Gideon Aronoff and the Postville, IA Agriprocessors Meatpacking Scandal

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 20, 2010

In regard to the Postville, Iowa Agriprocessors scandal, involving a series of the most egregious violations of child labor laws, abuse of underage immigrants, and repeated accusations of brutalization of cattle, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) President and CEO Gideon Aronoff’s new focus on the case is that the former CEO of Agriprocessors, Sholom Rubashkin, be treated fairly (here). Never mind about the crimes. Said Mr. Aronoff:

“It is crucially important that the trial be conducted fairly, not benefiting him or treating him worse because of his Jewish faith. The same goes for the kosher meat industry.”

Gideon Aronoff

Rubashkin faces a possible life sentence on April 28 following his conviction last November on 86 counts of money laundering and mail, wire and bank fraud charges. Rubashkin, a Lubavitch Hasidic Jew, and several former Agriprocessors managers still face state charges involving 9,311 counts (yes, you read that right) of violating Iowa’s child labor laws.

Sholom Rubashkin

Aronoff’s previous focus was that any unfairness in this case came, not frfom the horrendous crimes on teenage workers, but from the government ICE raid on this despicable slaughterhouse business. Mr. Aronoff said the raid was unfair to the company, the workers, and the local community, and that Jews remembered similar raids on their community in WW2-era Europe. Again, never mind that the raid uncovered the extent of the crimes, and ended them.

Mr. Aronoff also tried to claim that companies have to hire immigrants because immigrants are the only ones who will accept low wages here (Agriprocessors’ starting wage was $6.15 for 12-16 hour shifts six days a week!).

We cannot condone the hiring of undocumented workers. But at the same time, we cannot ignore that American workers are unwilling to meet businesses’ labor needs at prevailing wages and there is no legal avenue for businesses to petition for the unskilled migrant workers they so desperately need.

Oh really? Is that the problem? Or is paying workers next-to-nothing associated with abusive and oppressive conditions?

Rarely during this scandal, and then only as a side-note, has Mr. Aronoff mentioned the real issues in Postville — the nightmarish working conditions for teenage immigrants and the extreme exploitation and inhumane (therefore nonkosher) slaughter of animals (confirmed in videotapes by undercover Orthodox Jewish members of PETA). These issues apparently are of little interest to the HIAS. Bear in mind that refugees all over the country are toiling away in meat-packing plants under similar or related conditions.

The May 2008 ICE raid found 57 under-age workers at Agriprocessors, some as young as 13. Investigators found multiple child labor law violations for each under-age worker at the plant, including employing minors in prohibited occupations, exposing them to hazardous chemicals, and making them work with prohibited tools like knives and saws to cut meat and poultry with little or no safety training. The young immigrants told investigators that they worked shifts of 12-17 hours, sometimes six nights a week (here and here).

One, a Guatemalan named Elmer L. who said he was 16 when he started working on the plant’s killing floors, said he worked 17-hour shifts, six days a week. In an affidavit, he said he was constantly tired and did not have time to do anything but work and sleep. “I was very sad,” he said, “and I felt like I was a slave.” 

The immigrant saw “a rabbi who was calling employees derogatory names and throwing meat at employees.” …In another episode, the informant said a floor supervisor had blindfolded an immigrant with duct tape. “The floor supervisor then took one of the meat hooks and hit the Guatemalan with it,”

Elmer L. said he had told floor supervisors that he was under 18.  

…“They asked me how old I was,” Elmer L. said. “They could see that sometimes I could not keep up with the work.” …Elmer L. said that he …was paid $7.25 an hour. He said he was not paid overtime consistently. “My work was very hard, because they didn’t give me my breaks, and I wasn’t getting very much sleep,” he said. “They told us they were going to call immigration if we complained.” 

Elmer L. said that he was clearing cow innards from the slaughter floor last Aug. 26 when a supervisor he described as a rabbi began yelling at him, then kicked him from behind. The blow caused a freshly-sharpened knife to fly up and cut his elbow.  

He was sent to a hospital where doctors closed the laceration with eight stitches. But he said that when he returned, his elbow still stinging, to ask for some time off, his supervisor ordered him back to work. 

The next day, as he was lifting a cow’s tongue, the stitches ruptured, Elmer L. said, and the wound bled again. He said he was given a bandage at the plant and sent back to work. The incident is confirmed in a worker’s injury report filed on Aug. 31, 2007, by Agriprocessors with the Iowa labor department.   

The company also distributed fake green cards to workers. Their PR hacks  impersonated a leading critic, Rabbi Morris Allen, on a blog. A son-in-law verbally threatened members of a socially conscious Ultra-Orthodox group during a meeting about conditions at the slaughterhouse, and another son-in-law entered into a plea bargain in a case in which he reportedly embezzled funds from an Orthodox Jewish Girl’s Day School (here).

Aside from HIAS’ obvious ethical blindness of the most important issues brought to light by this case of mass abuse of underage immigrants is the current outrageous focus of many in the fervently religious Jewish community (ultra-orthodox) on what type of prison accommodations Sholom Rubashkin, the former CEO of Agriprocessors, will get (here), while ignoring the crimes that brought about the possible long prison sentence.

Now that the 51-year-old father of 10 faces a possible life sentence…such a harsh penalty would make Rubashkin ineligible for a correctional facility that can accommodate Hasidic Jews. 

Out of about 250,000 federal inmates….only a few dozen are ultra-Orthodox adherents,…Most go …where the facilities can handle their special diets, group prayers and other religious needs. Those facilities, however, do not accept prisoners with long sentences. 

….Federal prisons tend to be more accommodating of religiously observant inmates than state and county facilities, and should be able to at least provide kosher food and allow him to maintain his traditional appearance, he said. 

This case shows the ethical myopia that results when people focus on their own pet immigration and refugee issues while ignoring the most basic mistreatment of those people by others in their own organization, group or extended communities.

Corruption and ethical abuses close to home are often the hardest type to face.

Posted in government, Guatemalan, HIAS, ICE, Iowa, Jewish, meatpacking industry, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

 
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