Jailing Undocumented Immigrants is a Lucrative Business –By Gabriel Lerner | HuffPost

LOS ANGELES — At dawn on July 19, nearly 40 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents burst into the home home of Carmen Bonilla, 44. The agents were searching for “Robert” an alleged drug dealer, but ended up terrifying Bonilla and her son Michael, 16, daughter Josefina, 23, daughter-in-law Leticia, 28, and two of her granddaughters.

According to Jessica Dominguez, the family’s lawyer, and Jorge Mario Cabrera, spokesperson of the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), the family was subjected to “different levels of physical and verbal abuse,” including screaming, “kicking, beating and aggression.” Their treatment was documented last week by HuffPost LatinoVoices’ Jorge Luis Macías.

What happened to the Bonillas has happened to thousands of immigrant families. Immigration authorities — both local police and federal ICE agents — have embarked on a program to seek out “criminal illegal aliens” and, whether they find them or not, have often rounded up entire families for deportation.

Even though the Bonilla family members do not have criminal records, they face removal proceedings before an immigration judge. The family was able to find legal representation and general public support, enabling their release from ICE custody, but undocumented immigrants who are less lucky are routinely sent to prisons and detention centers where ICE will process their paperwork and decide whether they may be released.

“If they have a criminal record, particularly a drug or security-related conviction, or a felony or violent crime, or crime of moral turpitude, they will likely have to remain in custody until their trial before the [immigration judge],” explained Aggie R. Hoffman, an immigration attorney.

The Department of Homeland Security pays between $50 to $200 per day per person to local, county and state prisons to house apprehended aliens. A few years ago, a series I wrote for La Opinión showed how prisons in general, and California’s prisons in particular, benefit from the largesse of the federal government and vie for a piece of this lucrative business. At that time, I visited a detention center in Lancaster, Calif., run by the Sheriff of Los Angeles, where immigrants rounded up in raids were housed until their deportation or legal proceedings. The process is supposed to take just a few days, but some of the detainees rushed to tell me that they had been kept there for more than two years.

“This happens frequently because the courts are so backlogged; not enough judges to hear the cases of those being held”, explained Hoffman.

But the incarceration trend is not limited to public prisons. Thanks to a concerted lobbying push from the corrections industry, growing numbers of undocumented immigrants could end up in private detention facilities.

Over the past three years, immigration politics has seen more restrictive legislation at the state level and the unprecedented enforcement of current laws by the Obama administration. Together, the laws and the stepped up enforcement have the potential to bring tens of thousands of individuals into for-profit jails.

The recent animated video “Immigrants for Sale” by the activist group Cuéntame illustrates some facts behind the connection between the ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration and the for-profit corrections industry.

The video follows the trail of money and political power behind this piece of the national immigration debate. Its creators say it’s an attempt to uncover what lies behind the positions and ideologies in a discussion in which statements and accusations made at maximum volume have long replaced the open exchange of ideas and opinions.

Excerpt, read: Jailing Undocumented Immigrants Is Big Business –By Gabriel Lerner| HuffPost

 

Deportation of Gay Man to Uganda Deferred…For Now | HuffPost

Robert Segwanyi

A Ugandan man in Britain who says he is gay and a victim of torture has had his deportation from the UK deferred at the last minute after fears that he could face persecution on his arrival back.

A human rights organization had petitioned Kenya Airways to stop the deportation which was due to take place at 20:00 on Thursday at Heathrow airport, after the Home Office said he had no right to remain in the country.

“Robert’s removal was deferred by the Home Office in a message to his lawyer less than a hour before he was due to be flown to Kampala. An earlier request to a judge for an injunction to stop the removal was refused,” his campaigners said on Thursday.

“This is a battle victory – but we have not won the war. The Home Office can still refuse to accept the fresh evidence and his asylum claim and issue new removal instructions. However his supporters will fight this and will argue that Robert’s mental state and his post-traumatic stress means he should be released from detention, as well as that his claim must be given a proper hearing.”

Campaigners and lawyers had argued that Segwanyi would face harsh measures, including ‘mob justice’ if he is sent back to his homeland.

Excerpt, read: Britain Defers Deportation of ‘Gay Man’ To Uganda After Petition | HuffPost UK

 

In Father’s Memory, Antonio Bravo Fights to Stay in Britain –By Nina Bernstein | NYT

Antonio Bravo, in Armley, England, at the grave of his father, Manuel, who killed himself in 2005 in an effort to avert Antonio’s deportation (Photo: Andrew Testa for the International Herald Tribune)

CLAPHAM, England — The boy was 13 when a dawn immigration raid abruptly ended his father’s four-year quest for political asylum in Britain. By nightfall of that day in 2005, father and son were hundreds of miles from home, locked in the privately run Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Center here, scheduled for deportation to their native Angola in the morning.

Instead, shortly after midnight, the despondent father, Manuel Bravo, 35, walked to a stairwell with a bed sheet and hanged himself. The note he left said why: so that his orphaned boy could stay in Britain.

Indeed, the law did not allow immigration authorities to deport an orphan who had no one waiting for him. A British family the Bravos knew through church took the boy, Antonio, home to Armley, the working-class suburb of Leeds where they had settled in 2001.

Antonio, now 19, is an apprentice electrician who aspires to be an engineer. Not far from his father’s hilltop grave, he shares a century-old house with five British roommates and regularly visits the family who raised him. “I want to make my dad proud and not feel like he gave his life away for no reason,” he said.

But next month, Antonio faces the threat of deportation all over again. Under changing laws, instead of qualifying for citizenship this year, as he expected, he is not eligible to apply. His temporary residence permit, granted on humanitarian grounds, is expiring with no clear path to renewal.

Excerpt, read: In Father’s Memory, Fighting to Stay in Britain –By Nina Bernstein | NYT

 

Somalis Waste Away as Insurgents Block Escape From Famine –By Jeffrey Gettleman | NYT

A malnourished child at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. More than 500,000 Somali children are verging on starvation. (Photo: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times).

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The Shabab Islamist insurgent group, which controls much of southern Somalia, is blocking starving people from fleeing the country and setting up a cantonment camp where it is imprisoning displaced people who were trying to escape Shabab territory.

The group is widely blamed for causing a famine in Somalia by forcing out many Western aid organizations, depriving drought victims of desperately needed food. The situation is growing bleaker by the day, with tens of thousands of Somalis already dead and more than 500,000 children on the brink of starvation.

Every morning, emaciated parents with emaciated children stagger into Banadir Hospital, a shell of a building with floors that stink of diesel fuel because that is all the nurses have to fight off the flies. Babies are dying because of the lack of equipment and medicine. Some get hooked up to adult-size intravenous drips — pediatric versions are hard to find — and their compromised bodies cannot handle the volume of fluid.

Most parents do not have money for medicine, so entire families sit on old-fashioned cholera beds, with basketball-size holes cut out of the middle, taking turns going to the bathroom as diarrhea streams out of them.

“This is worse than 1992,” said Dr. Lul Mohamed, Banadir’s head of pediatrics, referring to Somalia’s last famine. “Back then, at least we had some help.”

Excerpt, read: Somalis Waste Away as Insurgents Block Escape From Famine –By Jeffrey Gettleman | NYT

Related: Amid Famine, Danger Hinders Aid to Somalia -By Tyler Hicks| NYT (Gallery)

• Rona Peligal on New HRW Report on War Crimes in Somalia | Democracy Now! (Video)
• Inside Story: Somalia Food Aid Theft | Al Jazeera (Video)
• UN Declares Parts of Somalia in Famine Amid Drought| PBS Newshour (Video)
• Five Somali Regions Declared Famine Zones | Al Jazeera (Video)
• Famine in Somalia: How to Help | Huffington Post List
• Famine in Somalia: How to Help | MSNBC List

 

Human Rights Defender Mao Hengfeng Released But Dangers Persist | AI Blog

Mao Hengfeng, a human rights defender in China, a wife, and a mother of three, has just been released from her most recent bout of detention and torture — an experience so brutal that her life is at urgent risk.

Her crime? Advocating on behalf of women’s reproductive rights, the victims of forced evictions in Shanghai, and other Chinese human rights defenders.

Mao’s most recent arrest was a result of her protest in front of the Beijing municipal intermediate court expressing support for human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo. On March 4, 2010, Mao was sentenced to 18 months in Re-education Through Labor.

While in detention, Mao suffered torture and abuse at the hands of the guards, the police, and even other inmates who were instructed to beat her. Her health deteriorated so dramatically that she was released on medical parole on February 22, 2011, but detained again a mere two days later.

While Mao Hengfeng was in transit to Shanghai City Prison Hospital on February 24, she was continuously beaten in the police car until she lost consciousness. During her time in the prison hospital, she was not allowed to communicate with her family, shower or bathe. If she moved without permission, she was beaten.

On July 28, 2011, the prison hospital released Mao Hengfeng while she was unconscious in a wheelchair. Her family had not received any advance notice about her release. In previous cases, Shanghai detainees have been returned to their homes shortly before dying so that the police and authorities can “wash their hands” of culpability for the deaths of the detainees.

Bearing this in mind, Mao’s husband Wu Xuewei requested that the Shanghai authorities send her to a nearby motel. When her family then attempted to transfer her to a public hospital, ten police officers guarding the motel prohibited her from leaving.

By July 31, Mao’s condition had ameliorated slightly, and she asked her husband to take her to church. When the police officers discovered her absence, they followed her to the church and aggressively attempted to beat her. Although members of the congregation intervened, the police warned Mao she could be detained again and that next time, she could die in detention.

In the past seven years, Mao has been tortured so often and with such severity that at one point she partially lost feeling on the left half of her body, and while at another time she lost sight and hearing for 24 hours. Shortly before the two-day medical parole in  February, a doctor found signs of bleeding in her brain from a CT scan. On the day before authorities decided to end Mao Hengfeng’s detention, she kept slipping in and out of consciousness, unable to eat or drink water.

As a result of the physical and mental abuse, Mao Hengfeng has contemplated suicide. She persevered, however, thanks to the international support that she has received over the years, including Amnesty International members.

Stand up for Mao Hengfeng, for her bravery in the face of the atrocities committed by the Chinese authorities and for her commitment to legitimate and peaceful human rights activities.

Reprint: Mao Hengfeng’s Bittersweet Homecoming | AI Blog
Update – November 6, 2012: Women’s Rights Activist Mao Hengfeng is Sent to Labor Camp Again -By Sui-Lee Wee | Reuters

 

 

Philippine Military Accused of Human Rights Abuses | Al Jazeera (Video)

The Philippines government has been accused of failing to prevent killings and human rights abuses by its military, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Authorities say they have launched a new campaign to educate the troops but new allegations of torture have emerged.

Al Jazeera’s Jamela Alindogan has more from Zamboanga, in the southern Philippines.

 

Ethnic Killings Continue in Cote d’Ivoire Despite Regime Change | Amnesty International (Video)

Côte d’Ivoire security forces and a state-backed militia are creating a climate of fear that is preventing hundreds of thousands of people displaced by post-election violence from returning to their homes.

A new Amnesty International report We Want to go Home, but We Can’t: Côte d’Ivoire’s Continuing Crisis of Displacement and Insecurity describes how ethnically targeted killings and attacks by the government security forces (FCRI) and a militia composed of Dozos (traditional hunters) have left the population unable to leave the relative safety of temporary camps.

 

Iran Public Execution Displays Brutal Culture of Violence | Amnesty International (Video)

Graphic new video footage of a public hanging in Iran this week highlights the brutalization of both the condemned and those who watch executions, according to Amnesty International.

The video provided to Amnesty International was shot on 19 July, and shows the execution by hanging of three men in Azadi Square in the city of Kermanshah. The men had been convicted of rape.

The three men are shown standing on top of buses as guards drape ropes fixed to a bridge overhead around their necks, before a crowd of onlookers including children.  The crimes for which the men were condemned and the execution is announced over a loudspeaker, then the buses are driven away.

Video courtesy of Fazel Hawramy of kurdishblogger.com

 

UN Confirms Massive Oil Pollution in Niger Delta | Amnesty International (Video)

The oil company Shell has had a disastrous impact on the human rights of the people living in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, said Amnesty International, responding to a UN report on the effects of oil pollution in Ogoniland in the Delta region.

The report from the United Nations Environment Programme is the first of its kind in Nigeria and based on two years of in-depth scientific research. It found that oil contamination is widespread and severe, and that people in the Niger Delta have been exposed for decades.