Immigration Law
'Mrs. Goundo's Daughter' Explores FGM Asylum Case
Published July 30, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Last night I went to a screening of the film Mrs. Goundo's Daughter, which follows the story of a mother from Mali as she fights for asylum so that her U.S. citizen daughter, Djenebou, will not be circumcised upon return to Mali.
Filmmakers Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater follow Mrs. Goundo's immigration case in Philadelphia but also track a circumcision ceremony in Mali where 62 young girls are circumcised. The filmmakers interview several people, including expatriate Malian women who underwent FGM, Malian activists working to stop the practice, imams in Mali and the U.S. who have differing views on the practice's relation to Islam, female supporters of FGM in Mali, and the woman who was paid to circumcise the girls.
Several people interviewed, whether pro or anti-FGM, said the principle justification of the practice is to control women's supposedly insatiable sexual desire. Paraphrasing one young Malian imam in the film, "They are jumping over the walls to get sex as it is, imagine if they weren't circumcised."
Those who support the practice attribute it to divine will. In Mali, the great majority of women undergo FGM. The health effects of FGM can be severe, including infection or death from blood loss at the time of the cutting, and later ulcers, scar tissue, cysts, complications in pregnancy, incontinence, repeated urinary infections, obstruction in menstrual flow, infertility, chronic pelvic pain. The practice may also facilitate the transmission of HIV.
FGM is so prevalent in Mali, and cultural pressure to do it are so strong, that mothers cannot trust their own families not to send their daughters to be circumcised at the first opportunity. Uncircumcised women in Mali are undesirable and ostracized, so the family views FGM as in the best interest of the child.
Immigration judges in Philly are familiar with FGM asylum law because of the sizable West African community here. From the film's website:
To stay in the U.S., Mrs. Goundo must persuade an immigration judge that her two-year old daughter Djenebou, born in the U.S., will almost certainly suffer clitoral excision if Goundo is deported. In Mali, where up to 85% of women and girls are excised, Mrs. Goundo and her husband are convinced they would be powerless to protect their daughter from her well-intentioned grandparents, who believe all girls should be excised.
The filmmakers got the court tapes (presumably through a FOIA request made by Mrs. Goundo) and at one point in the film the government attorney argues that Djenebou is not being deported, that as a U.S. citizen she could simply stay in the U.S. to avoid her fate. At the age of two! This is a specious argument. Clearly if the mother is deported, a two-year-old child will go with the mother.
This is a film I recommend to anyone interested in learning about asylum law or the practice of FGM (or female genital cutting). At the end of the film, the filmmakers were asked what the audience could do to get involved with this issue, and they recommended supporting the work of Tostan, an NGO based in Senegal that works with local organizations throughout Africa to halt the practice of FGM. I would also say you could support local or national immigrant rights organizations who represent asylum-seekers on a daily basis (ACLU, NILC, AILF, and any number of local organizations).
10-Year Bars Split Up Families
Published July 28, 2009 @ 08:01PM PT
From the inbox today comes a story that is all-too-familiar to some of our regular readers:
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
"They scream out in the night for their father," says Aurora G., a U.S. citizen and military veteran, whose husband of ten years was suddenly arrested and deported. Aurora was living an everyday American life when one day without warning her life and the lives of her two U.S. citizen children were turned upside down. Although eligible for an immigrant visa based on marriage even though he was undocumented, Aurora's husband could not obtain one in the U.S. but had to return to Mexico to do so. Not a big deal, right? Not for him. Because he was undocumented, if he left the U.S. he would be barred from re-entering for ten years. He was stuck in a Catch-22 -- eligible for a visa but unable to obtain one.
Please click here to read Aurora's story and others like her.
This is the unfortunate story for many families ripped apart by an unforgiving immigration system because of what's called the three- and ten-year bars. Since 1996, anyone who has accumulated more than one year of unlawful presence in the U.S. is barred from re-entering the U.S. for ten years; 180 days of unlawful presence in the U.S. (but less than one year) results in the three-year bar.
Immigrants' List is working to amend the immigration law for deserving, eligible immigrants like Mr. G. Fixes also would eliminate the incentive for foreign nationals already subject to the bars to remain in the United States indefinitely and underground.
Aurora's entire family ultimately moved to Mexico in order to remain together as a family. "I don't think it is fair for my children to have to have to move to Mexico and completely change our lifestyles in order for our family not to be broken up! It is not right that after I served my country, my country will not accept my husband."
Please click here to join the movement to fix our immigration system.
President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders have promised to tackle meaningful immigration reform. We need to keep them to their word. The time to act is now.
Thank you for your support.
Amy R. Novick
Executive Director
Immigrants' List
Five Questions with R Jay Pearson
Published July 28, 2009 @ 08:00AM PT
Ed.: I got in touch with blogger and activist Robb "R Jay" Pearson a while back after he spoke to 9500 Liberty about how his views on immigration had radically changed and Chris blogged about it at Citizen Orange. Recently, I asked R Jay four questions and left the fifth for him to ask and answer (an idea I borrowed from Nezua).
Q: What initially led you to get involved in immigration activism?
A: In late 2006 the Daily Record, a major daily newspaper serving northern New Jersey, brought me on as a blogger to blog about national political and social issues. The name of my blog was "Life & Liberty" and I mostly took a moderately conservative position on most issues. Among those issues was illegal immigration, and my position was typically conservative, i.e., "rule of law" must be inflexibly upheld and people who come here illegally (and who I always referred to as "illegal aliens" with intentional contempt) should be identified and deported, without regard to their life circumstances (which I often described as "not our problem").
As the immigration issue reached yet another boiling point in May of 2007, my readers (who had the ability to comment on my blog) were becoming noticeably more fervent in their positions against illegal immigration. Then, in June of 2007, after I wrote a rather anger-filled blog post (which was colorfully titled "Round 'em up, send 'em home") denouncing a newspaper quote of a local undocumented day laborer who felt the United States had no right to deny him residence, my readers went ballistic. And with essentially all my readers up in arms about "illegals" always coming together to demonstrate, they were all asking one consistent question: where are the groups of CITIZEN protestors? It was at this point that I began to organize and plan a rally in Morristown, New Jersey, using my blog's popularity to help spread the word. And six weeks later, on July 28, 2007, the "ProAmerica Rally on Morristown Protesting Illegal Immigration" took place, gathering over five hundred people, including about one hundred counter-protestors, and with a presence of nearly one hundred regular, undercover, and riot police to maintain order.
Q: What caused you to part ways with the "anti-illegal" movement in New Jersey?
Ironically, my rally is what actually sparked my reversal of position on the issue and which inspired me to cease my activism against "illegal immigration" and disassociate from the movement altogether.
I had carefully and painstakingly planned the rally as a peaceful and respectful protest against an issue -- as well as to advocate for the 287(g) program which the mayor of Morristown had applied for -- but instead it became a disgustingly hateful and disrespectful display of irrational and contemptuous intolerance toward a certain group of people (i.e., immigrants who are slightly more tan than the average white American and who don't speak English), whom several of my speakers derided and degraded. Additionally I discovered a number of my speakers cared little about the issue at all but were merely using it to promote their election campaigns, business objectives, or increase their own activist visibility. With perhaps one or two exceptions, it was clear my speakers' intentions were illegitimate to the purpose of my rally, and their rhetoric useful only for fanning the flames of intolerance among the hundreds assembled. I was ultimately ashamed for being a central part of all that, and felt compelled by my own conscience to change.
What eventually completed my reversal on the issue of immigration, though, was a series of severe personal crises, both economic and medical, which I suffered in late 2007 and early 2008 and which resulted in the loss of my job of many years, the loss of my savings, the loss of my home, and the need to take refuge at my parents' home in Pennsylvania.
It was the type of situation that causes one to seriously reevaluate life, and that's what I did. Where my former position on illegal immigration was concerned, I realized I had blindly objectified an entire group of people whom I had never encountered, whose situations I never conscientiously considered, and not one of whom I had actually ever personally met or spoken to. Furthermore, in realizing my own circumstances at this point, I had to confess that I had now in a very similar way become that which I had once spoken against without qualification: a man in suffering circumstances whose only recourse was to migrate away from his home and seek refuge in order to rebuild his life.
I found my former position to be grossly unfair and hypocritical, and endeavored to make appropriate changes in my approach. By mid-2008 I had made massive changes to my life and my viewpoints, and began embracing the powerfully motivating notion of our "common humanity" and utterly rejecting divisive nationalism and the irrational deification of "rule of law" which I had once heralded.
Q: The U.S. Government Accountability Office and Justice Strategies recently released reports questioning the efficacy of 287(g) programs that give local law enforcement officers the authority to enforce federal immigration law. How do you believe these programs impact local communities?
Firstly, let's not kid ourselves. Removing criminal elements from our communities is extremely important. No reasonable individual will argue that. But when considering the acknowledged lack of federal oversight upon local law enforcement agencies who participate in 287(g), and the misapplication (if not outright abuse) of specified authority by some of those same agencies, the potential for racial profiling per 287(g) is immense and as a result invites tremendous negative impact upon local communities (and in fact has already negatively impacted certain communities, such as Prince William County, Virginia for example). This is completely counterproductive to any effort aimed at addressing the serious crime for which 287(g) was supposedly intended.
Basso Delivers Fact-free Version of History, Immigration Policy
Published July 27, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Bob Basso knows how to make a facially convincing case for additional immigration restrictions on YouTube. But he doesn't know much at all about (a) modern immigration policy or (b) the political thought of Thomas Paine. Which makes him, I suppose, ideally suited to dress up as Tom Paine and hold forth on the failings of the immigration system.
Did Basso realize Paine was himself an immigrant and a radical proponent of individual liberty? Jerome Grzeca thinks maybe not:
By all accounts, [Paine] was a radical; a man whose ideals were deeply entrenched in the belief that each person, regardless of origin or religious faction should be free. He once said, "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." Does this echo that of Basso’s xenophobic rant?
Restrictionism is more about theater than reality, less fact than fantasy. Which makes Basso a very good spokesman for the anti-immigrant movement.
Report: ICE Broke the Law and Agency Rules!
Published July 22, 2009 @ 10:20AM PT
The New York Times reports:
Armed federal immigration agents have illegally pushed and shoved their way into homes in New York and New Jersey in hundreds of predawn raids that violated their own agency rules as well as the Constitution, according to a study to be released on Wednesday by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
The study by the school’s Immigration Justice Law Clinic, backed by several law enforcement experts including Nassau County’s police commissioner, found a widespread pattern of misconduct by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement after analyzing 700 arrest reports obtained from the agency through Freedom of Information lawsuits.
The raids were supposed to focus on dangerous criminals, but overwhelmingly netted Latinos with civil immigration violations who happened to be present, the study said. Raiders mistakenly held legal residents and citizens by force in their own homes while agents rummaged through drawers seeking incriminating documents, the report said.
Acting without judicial search warrants, the agents were required to obtain informed consent from a resident before they entered a private residence. But the study found that in 86 percent of the Nassau and Suffolk County arrest reports that it analyzed, and a quarter of the New Jersey cases, no consent was recorded.
The full report is here. The pattern of misconduct cited involves:
• ICE agents illegally entering homes without legal authority – for example, physically pushing or breaking their way into private residences.
• ICE agents illegally seizing non-target individuals during home raid operations – for example, seizing innocent people in their bedrooms without any basis.
• ICE agents illegally searching homes without legal authority – for example, breaking down locked doors inside homes.
• ICE agents illegally seizing individuals based solely on racial or ethnic appearance or on limited English proficiency.
And we thought this was all about 'upholding the law of the land.'
DHS Provides Helpful Guidance in Domestic Violence Asylum Cases
Published July 15, 2009 @ 08:56PM PT
Julia Preston reports some hopeful news today about a potential shift in DHS's position on the circumstances under which victims of domestic violence may be eligible for asylum in the U.S. On a cursory reading, this looks like a good sign for DV applicants, though I don't want to be counting chickens.
What kind of abuse are we talking about here? According to court filings reported in the NY Times:
The man who became her tormentor first assaulted her when she was a teenager and he was a physical education coach, 14 years her senior, at a high school in the Mexican state of Guanajuato. He and his family were regarded as wealthy and influential because they owned a restaurant in town, L.R. said.
Over the years, he made her live with him, and forced her to have sex with him by putting a gun or a machete to her head, by breaking her nose and by threatening to kill the small children of her sister. Once when she became pregnant, she said, she barely escaped alive after he had poured kerosene on the bed where she was sleeping and ignited it. He stole the salary she earned as a teacher and later sold her teacher’s license.
Local police dismissed her reports of violence as “a private matter,” the court documents said, and a judge she turned to for help tried to seduce her.
“In Mexico, men believe they have a right to abuse their women because they are like a possession,” she said. With three children born from her involuntary sex with the man, who never married her, she fled to California in 2004.
Would you believe it if I told you this isn't the worst I've heard? Well, it's not.
Feinstein, Boxer, Sotomayor Establish Mainstream Cred at Immigrants' Expense
Published July 15, 2009 @ 08:38PM PT
Today's links:
- The Mexican Drug Cartel mania hasn't yet penetrated ICE's certainty that Mexicans can't possibly qualify for asylum. Sam Baldwin at Mother Jones deconstructs a denial of parole for asylum-seeker Emilio Gutiérrez Soto (pictured at right), a journalist targeted by the Mexican army for publicizing military abuses.
- Maybe you thought Senators Boxer and Feinstein were champions of progressive values? Mmm, not so much.
- In the frenzy to pick sides in the Sotomayor nomination, some of us forgot to look at her jurisprudence. It's all out there in the public record, as James Ridgeway reminds us (MoJo is on a roll!):
It was Schumer’s office that last month released its own study of Sotomayor’s 848 decisions in federal asylum cases, including those based on alleged violations of the Convention on Torture. Sotomayor ruled in favor of plaintiffs in these cases just 17 percent o the time. “These findings should put to rest any doubts about Judge Sotomayor’s fidelity to the rule of law,” Schumer said in a statement. “Even in immigration cases, which would most test the so-called ‘empathy factor,’ Judge Sotomayor’s record is well within the judicial mainstream.” In other words, being a Latina won’t make Sotomayor any more compassionate toward immigrants who face torture and death when we ship them back home.
This is why I posted this. It also shows how empty the GOP's anti-Sotomayor rhetoric is.
Bonus rule of law nugget: Read about how Sotomayor denied the appeal of an innocent man wrongly accused of rape and murder at 17 who spent 16 years locked up before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Watch 99 of 100 Senators' heads explode when asked to opine on this fact!
[Image: Latino USA]
