Illness Hinders Plans to Close Immigration Jail

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stated that they would close the Varick Federal Detention Facility and transfer its estimated 300 detainees to New Jersey. The detention facility’s planned closing is occurring in order to improve health care and cost-effectiveness in the nation’s detention system. Although closing the facility in New York may improve cost-effectiveness, how is sending 300 detainees to an already crowded facility in New Jersey going to improve the health care of the detainees? If anything, it is only going to worsen the health care situation in the facility. Udi Ofer, advocacy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union states “Moving detainees from New York to New Jersey is not going to fix the problem of inadequate care for immigration detainees…The absence of legally enforceable standards leads to situations where detainees are being mistreated.”
Although the detention facility was supposed to be closed by now, it is still open as some of the detainees that require extensive medical care are being rejected by other jails and facilities. Because of these rejections, these detainees continue to stay at Varick Federal Detention Facility. However, such obstacles will only lead the detainees to become a further burden to the ICE, causing them to attempt to deport the detainees at a faster rate.

Withdrawal of Benefits from Sri Lanka for Human Rights Abuses

The EU recently withdrew preferential trade benefits from Sri Lanka after an investigation into the allegation of Human Rights abuses. The benefits, worth about $135 million will certainly put a dent in the economy of Sri Lanka. The garment industry will be hit the hardest after previously enjoying tax breaks to sell merchandise to retailers in Europe. The action proposed by the EU will take effect in 6 months time in order to give the country a chance to address the "shortcomings." The year long investigation by the European Commission recently came to a conclusion following allegations of war crimes in the war between security forces of the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels. The well publicized war between the two sides has been ongoing for years and groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, U.S. State Department, and the EU have all expressed concern about the state of violations in the past.

Church Group Arrested for Human Trafficking in Haiti

On Friday night, Haitian authorities arrested ten Americans, self-professed members of what they call New Life Children’s Refuge, for attempting to smuggle 33 Haitian children across the border into the Dominican Republic. Haitian authorities allege the Americans carried no paperwork identifying any of the children, ranging in age from two months to 12 years, as orphans or clearing them for adoption.

Laura Sillsby, a member of the arrested group, commented, "We have a Baptist minister here (in Port-au-Prince) whose orphanage totally collapsed and he asked us to take the children to the orphanage in the Dominican Republic.” Sillsby also claimed, “We had permission from the Dominican Republic government to bring the children to an orphanage we have there.”

However, this attempt to convey the children across the border without any documentation raises serious concerns about the current state of children with missing parents in Haiti. In the aftermath of the earthquake on January 12, Haitian authorities have expressed concerns that the country’s children are vulnerable to child trafficking schemes, as well as attempts by legitimate groups who may inadvertently transport children out of Haiti for adoption without an adequate attempt to locate the child’s family. It would seem that this problem will persist for some time, as a sufficient period of time must be spent searching for a presumed orphan’s parents before adoptions can take place. For this reason, the Haitian government has recently cut down on many types of adoption.

It may be impossible to tell, however, whether the group confirmed the children to be orphans, and thus genuinely meant to provide refuge, or whether they were only compounding an already grave and problematic situation, fraught with shades of gray with respect to the human rights of these children.

So much for Helping Haitians

Here we go again. We'll let the thousands of Haitians who are already here in the U.S. stay under the TPS (Temporary Protected Status), but if any come by boat, or otherwise, we'll send them back, or maybe even detain them in immigration prisons. Is this humane? What should the U.S. do? Obviously, it cannot let all Haitians move to the U.S, but is this the most humane/just policy?

US Citizenship and Immigration Services Outlines TPS for Haitians

The U.S. Government is offering Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians ALREADY in the U.S. This status will expire in 18 months, unless the government renews it. What would be interesting is to see, 1) what the government does after 18months, 2) what the government does with Haitians trying to escape Haiti by boat. Will it relax its position re. Haitian Boat People, or will those people be sent to places like Guantanamo Bay?

Google may leave China: Breaking free of the "Green Handcuffs"

The United States has consistently tiptoed around Chinese human rights issues. An American politician may occasional issue a condemnation of China and use strong language to urge the Chinese government to give its people more rights. The demand is almost always met with little reaction. 

I use the word tiptoe because America is financially bound to China. China with its large market is a place that American companies look to get rich. Even if getting rich means sacrificing values. Google entered the Chinese market looking forward to financial success even though it would require them to censor material on its Chinese search engine google.cn. The people at google struggled with allowing their search engine to be censored as it went against their company slogan of "Don't be evil." However, get rich prevailed of over "Don't be evil." Google created the search engine and censored topics such as "“Tiananmen Square massacre” and the "Dalai Lama." 

After the Chinese government recently hacked into a number of prominent Chinese human rights activists gmail accounts Google is threatening to withdraw from China. Google should no longer be complicit in denying human rights by censoring the internet in China. Google should only stay in China if the internet becomes uncensored. Google should break free of the "Green Handcuffs" that China has placed on American companies and the U.S. government because human rights is more important than dollars and cents. 

Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in U.S.

With 200,000 feared killed in the recent Haitian earthquake, the U.S. Government has established Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians currently residing in the U.S. The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that there are an estimated 100,000 - 200,000 Haitian immigrants currently in the U.S -- temporarily or without authorization, and 535,000 Haitian immigrants in the United States. The designation of TPS status means that the Haitians here temporarily or without authorization will not be removed from the U.S. This relief from removal is temporary, and a humanitarian form of relief that does not include the granting of permanent residence in the U.S., nor the granting of "amnesty" to unauthorized immigrants.
The regulations governing TPS:
"TPS is a form of humanitarian relief "that may be granted under the following conditions:

• There is ongoing armed conflict posing serious threats to personal safety
• a foreign state requests TPS because it temporarily cannot handle the return of nationals due to environmental disaster
• there are extraordinary and temporary conditions in a foreign state that prevent aliens from returning provided that granting TPS is consistent with US. national interests.
  

Some other nationals from countries that were granted TPS:
Sudan
Somalia
El Salvador
Honduras
Nicaragua
Burundi
Liberia
Sierra Leone
Angola
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Kosovo Province of Serbia
Rwanda
Lebanon
Kuwait

A 21st Century Witch Hunt: Gays in Uganda

Photo credit: CNN Old miners used to send canaries into the coalmine to make sure that the mines were safe for the miners. If the canaries died -- the miners knew not to go into the mines. Homosexuals in Uganda are modern-day canaries in the coalmine -- and the government of Uganda is proposing to sentence them to life in prison for their homosexuality.

There is no such thing as "gay rights" in Uganda. For whatever reason, the Ugandan government has decided to one-up even the most homophobic leader in Africa: Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Uganda now shares the same limelight as other human rights abusive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt in its treatment of homosexuals.

Ugandans, like many other Africans, refuse to believe that homosexuality could possibly be indigenous to the country. Not only is it a sin against nature, but it is a colonial import.
The reality is, that homosexuals are human beings -- just like heterosexuals. Until Ugandans and others realize that, human rights will be mere rhetoric.

Human Wrongs For the Sake of Human Rights?

A new report was released recently about the usage of waterboarding on suspected Al Qaeda suspects. CIA is reported to have waterboarded these two suspects a total of 266 times. Previously, ABC news reported that these suspects were waterboarded only once. These inconsistencies put to question the nature of the President Bush’s policies. President Obama has discouraged and condemned these acts.

Some are very angry at President Obama’s reaction and some say inaction about the subject. Meanwhile, some still argue that the wrong thing done for the right reason is still justified. Torture has clearly shown not to deliver accurate results. Does torture derive from the indignant feelings felt by the torturers? Is torture ever justified? We have been evaluating torture in third world countries for our asylum cases. When we evaluate torture by our own country, is it ever justified? Is it justified anywhere? Does the use of torture change based on countries’ economic standing? Is torture ever tolerable?

Blame it on the Genes!?

In Nigeria, it is legal for authorities to lock up people just because they are mentally ill even if they have no committed any crime or had committed such a trivial crime that they should not receive a prison sentence for it. However, in Nigeria they are being held in prisons in unsanitary and unacceptable condition only because they are mentally ill. This is no fault of theirs but one can blame it on their genes. They need to be put in mental hospitals and not in jails. That will not help the mental condition of any of the people if they are put in such conditions where there is no chance of them recovering or getting better. Treating them as prisoners and as people who have committed crimes is a human rights abuse. We often overlook human rights abuses like this and we don't think much of them. Can you imagine what a big issue it would have become if in America they imprisoned mentally ill people just because they were mentally ill and not because they had committed any crime or done anything wrong. That would just not be acceptable to anyone and human rights activists would be on the roads protesting. Why then in a third world country like Nigeria does this go unnoticed and unaddressed. How long will this go on for? When will such abuse stop? When will the third world countries citizen's be given the same type of rights that other citizens in the world have? I think it is very important to have each country accountable to a higher human rights authority that can deal with these issues of human rights abuses by authorities in all countries. At least that would make them accountable to someone.