By William Fisher
One year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans for a wide-reaching overhaul of America’s long-mismanaged immigration detention system, human rights and immigration advocacy organizations are charging that the U.S. government has yet to make significant progress toward the underlying goal of detention reform – a true shift from a penal to a civil approach to immigration detention.
One such group, Human Rights First (HRF), is taking aim at a particularly sensitive aspect of the detention debacle: the plight of refugees seeking asylum.
Annie Sovcik, Advocacy Counsel for HRF’s Refugee Protection Program, told IPS, “Of the approximately 400,000 immigrants held in U.S. immigration detention annually, a few thousand are refugees -- individuals who have fled persecution for political, religious and other reasons and are seeking protection in the United States.”
“Upon arrival, these refugees are shackled and transported to immigration detention centers where they are held in jail-like conditions and where they may remain isolated for months without adequate due process safeguards as their claims for asylum protection are adjudicated,” she charges.
Sovcik says this practice “undermines commitments the United States has made to protect refugees, violates obligations the United States has assumed under international law, and creates a barrier for refugees to access a fair asylum adjudication process.”
The Department of Homeland Security has pledged to reform the immigration detention system and move away from a jail-like system to one that is more civil in nature. HRF and other organizations welcomed this announcement in 2009 and also encouraged DHS to commit to reform its practices related to how decisions of who to detain or release are made.
But, Sovcik asserts, “Since the August 2009 announcement, while DHS has slowly worked on fulfilling its promise, 33,400 immigrants are held everyday in facilities that officials at the highest levels recognize is chronically flawed but have remained essentially unchanged.”
She added, “It is time for DHS to move toward implementing real improvements in the detention system and truly make the shift away from facilities modeled on the penal system. Everyday these reforms are delayed, more people continue to suffer.”
The DHS commitment to shift the immigration detention model from one based on correctional standards toward a civil model of detention was welcomed by most in the immigration community. They agreed that detained asylum seekers and other detained immigrants should not be held in prison-like conditions. “The purpose of immigration detention is limited to ensuring that detainees show up for their hearings and comply with removal orders. Immigration detention should not be punitive," said HRF’s Ruthie Epstein.
HRF’s Annie Sovcik said, "ICE should require changes to be implemented at existing facilities by the end of 2010."
The U.S. immigration detention system holds up to 33,400 detainees -- including asylum seekers -- every day. These detainees are currently held in a sprawling network of approximately 250 facilities (down from 341 a year ago) across the country. Some of these facilities are operated by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), the enforcement arm of DHS; others are run by private corrections companies or county jail systems.
Last year, DHS acknowledged that its detention beds were located in facilities "largely designed for penal, not civil, detention." Key among its 2009 reform plans was a commitment to shift to a non-penal, or "civil," model of immigration detention.
DHS's announcement in 2009 came on the heels of two government reports that had concluded that the U.S. immigration system was inappropriately modeled on correctional systems. One was from Dr. Dora Schriro, former Director of the Arizona and Missouri state corrections systems and currently Commissioner of Correction for New York City, and the other from the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
HRF’s recommendations for new civil standards and changes to existing facilities include:
Allow asylum seekers and other immigrant detainees to wear civilian clothing rather than prison jumpsuits; contact visits with family and friends in all facilities; true outdoor recreation space, and expanded access throughout the day; and increased freedom of movement within secure facilities.
Stop detaining asylum seekers and other immigrants in penal facilities, and create nationwide alternatives to detention.
DHS should work with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide all detained asylum seekers with access to custody hearings so that the need for their continued detention can be assessed by an immigration court.
Another serious glitch in the asylum-seeking process is the application deadline imposed by Congress. A new study has revealed that one in five refugees seeking protection in the United States is denied asylum because they do not apply within one year of their arrival and thus miss the 12-month deadline imposed by Congress, according to a study of the Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) asylum decisions.
"The one-year deadline results in the denial of asylum, a basic human rights protection, because of a technicality," said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director of the Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center.
"The BIA is making a bad law worse by arbitrarily denying exceptions to the deadline and putting the lives of men, women, and children at risk," she added.
The study's conclusions are detailed in a new report, “The One-Year Asylum Deadline and the BIA: No Protection, No Process.” The report was prepared by Heartland Alliance's National Immigration Justice Center's National Asylum Partnership on Sexual Minorities; Human Rights First; and Penn State University’s Law Center for Immigrants' Rights. The report is the first to examine how the asylum deadline is handled by the BIA, the highest level of administrative appeal available to asylum seekers.
In addition to the 20 per cent of asylum cases denied because of filing after the deadline, in 46 percent of the 662 filing deadline denials, the BIA did not provide any reason for the denial of the asylum application other than that it was submitted after the filing deadline.
And of the 662 filing deadline denials, the BIA did not recognize any exceptions to the filing deadline. When an immigration judge granted an exception to the one-year deadline, the BIA affirmed that decision 75 percent of the time. By contrast, when an immigration judge denied asylum based on the one-year deadline, the BIA affirmed the decision 96 percent of the time.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The ICE-ing on Obama’s Immigration Cake
By William Fisher
Programs that “place local law enforcement agencies at the front lines of immigration enforcement” are preventing U.S. immigration agencies from reaching their objectives by turning over to them aliens with no criminal history or those who have committed minor or non-violent crimes and setting them on a course toward unnecessary and unlawful deportation.
This is one of main findings in a new study by the Immigration Policy Center, the policy arm of the American Immigration Council, presented in a new report, “ICE’s Enforcement Priorities and ther Factors that Undermine Them,” by Dr. Michele Waslin, IPC Senior Policy Analyst.
She told IPS, “As long as ICE continues to outsource the identification and arrest of immigrants to LEAs and communities intent on ridding their jurisdiction of undocumented immigrants, ICE will find it extremely difficult to truly focus on serious criminals.”
“By partnering with state and local police agencies, ICE has put non-ICE personnel at the front lines of immigration enforcement,” the report says.
It adds that ICE will always be limited in terms of the authority it can express over its state and local partners. “Because, under this model, LEAs are responsible for channeling immigrants from the criminal justice system into the federal immigration enforcement system, and because LEAs have their own local interests and priorities, it is very likely that non-priority immigrants will continue to be subject to immigration enforcement actions.”
Other organizations are equally critical of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which ICE is a major unit. Human Rights First (HRF), a major legal advocacy group, says that “one year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans for a wide-reaching overhaul of the long-mismanaged immigration detention system”, HRF is concerned that the U.S. government “has yet to make significant progress toward the underlying goal of detention reform – a true shift from a penal to a civil approach to immigration detention.”
The IPC report notes that, “In recent years, ICE has grown more and more dependent on the 287(g) program and the expanding Secure Communities program, which are partnerships with state and local police agencies to identify immigrants for deportation. ICE has, in effect, outsourced the identification of immigrants for enforcement actions to local police agencies and jails.
However, the report says that “programs such as Secure Communities and 287(g) undermine ICE’s priorities because they are designed in such a way that leads to the deportation of immigrants with minor criminal offenses or no criminal history at all.”
It warns that “these new partnerships take the initial identification and arrest outside of ICE’s control, (and) exacerbate the potential for profiling and pretextual arrests, which in turn take the focus off of serious criminals and lead to the arrest of large numbers of people for minor offenses.”
“Other factors at the state and local level also remove ICE from the decision-making process at the critical early stages. Laws such as Arizona’s SB1070 attempt to impose enforcement priorities on ICE and determine where and how ICE should use its limited resources, regardless of ICE’s own stated objectives,” the report observes.
At an October 6, 2010, press conference, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had removed more than 392,000 individuals in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, and presented other “record-breaking immigration enforcement statistics achieved under the Obama administration.”
In addition to record-breaking overall numbers, Napolitano also announced the “unprecedented numbers of convicted criminal alien removals” in FY 2010. Of the 392,000 removals in FY 2010, more than 195,000 were classified as “convicted criminal aliens,” which was 81,000 more criminal removals than in FY 2008.
But the issue raised in this report goes to the question of whether deportees are the people originally envisaged – people whose violent behaviour poses a danger to their fellow deportees as well as society in general – or others guilty of minor offenses such as driving and parking violations.
ICE says budget realities make it impossible to remove everyone who is in the country illegally or who is otherwise deportable, and has released a series of memos designed to prioritize the “worst of the worst.” Overall, this prioritization represents an effort to bring order to the increasingly complex world of immigration enforcement.
Partnerships between ICE and state and local law-enforcement agencies are not necessarily helping ICE to reach its strategic objectives and these LEAs are generating the most concern over enforcement priorities. Over the past several years, these partnerships have been greatly expanded, and ever greater numbers of LEAs are serving as “force multipliers” for DHS.
The two programs most closely associated with immigration enforcement are the 287(g) program and the Secure Communities program. The stated objective of both of these programs is to target dangerous criminals and persons who pose a threat to the community. ICE credits these programs with the increase in deportations of “criminal aliens” over the past year.
Programs such as 287(g) and Secure Communities merge the federal immigration enforcement system with state criminal justice systems. But in many cases, local police arrest noncitizens who pose no threat to public safety for relatively minor crimes, such as driving without a license or shoplifting. In other cases, immigrants are merely charged with crimes for which they are never convicted.
Through the partnerships between ICE and local police, immigrants are channeled into the immigration enforcement system, regardless of their guilt or innocence or the severity of the crime with which they are charged. These immigrants then face lengthy detention, few due-process protections, and deportation.
The data from ICE does in fact show an increase in the percentage of deportations of “criminal aliens” or “convicted criminal aliens.” However, a closer look at the numbers reveals that many of those “criminals” have committed low-level offenses or misdemeanors, and many noncriminals continue to be deported.
One of the report’s main recommendation is for legalization, which it says would be an enormous step” toward true prioritization. “A pool of more than 11 million persons subject to deportation is not a good starting place. Legalizing undocumented immigrants who do not pose a threat to public safety or national security, would allow DHS to focus its limited enforcement resources on unauthorized and legal immigrants with serious criminal convictions.”
Programs that “place local law enforcement agencies at the front lines of immigration enforcement” are preventing U.S. immigration agencies from reaching their objectives by turning over to them aliens with no criminal history or those who have committed minor or non-violent crimes and setting them on a course toward unnecessary and unlawful deportation.
This is one of main findings in a new study by the Immigration Policy Center, the policy arm of the American Immigration Council, presented in a new report, “ICE’s Enforcement Priorities and ther Factors that Undermine Them,” by Dr. Michele Waslin, IPC Senior Policy Analyst.
She told IPS, “As long as ICE continues to outsource the identification and arrest of immigrants to LEAs and communities intent on ridding their jurisdiction of undocumented immigrants, ICE will find it extremely difficult to truly focus on serious criminals.”
“By partnering with state and local police agencies, ICE has put non-ICE personnel at the front lines of immigration enforcement,” the report says.
It adds that ICE will always be limited in terms of the authority it can express over its state and local partners. “Because, under this model, LEAs are responsible for channeling immigrants from the criminal justice system into the federal immigration enforcement system, and because LEAs have their own local interests and priorities, it is very likely that non-priority immigrants will continue to be subject to immigration enforcement actions.”
Other organizations are equally critical of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which ICE is a major unit. Human Rights First (HRF), a major legal advocacy group, says that “one year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced plans for a wide-reaching overhaul of the long-mismanaged immigration detention system”, HRF is concerned that the U.S. government “has yet to make significant progress toward the underlying goal of detention reform – a true shift from a penal to a civil approach to immigration detention.”
The IPC report notes that, “In recent years, ICE has grown more and more dependent on the 287(g) program and the expanding Secure Communities program, which are partnerships with state and local police agencies to identify immigrants for deportation. ICE has, in effect, outsourced the identification of immigrants for enforcement actions to local police agencies and jails.
However, the report says that “programs such as Secure Communities and 287(g) undermine ICE’s priorities because they are designed in such a way that leads to the deportation of immigrants with minor criminal offenses or no criminal history at all.”
It warns that “these new partnerships take the initial identification and arrest outside of ICE’s control, (and) exacerbate the potential for profiling and pretextual arrests, which in turn take the focus off of serious criminals and lead to the arrest of large numbers of people for minor offenses.”
“Other factors at the state and local level also remove ICE from the decision-making process at the critical early stages. Laws such as Arizona’s SB1070 attempt to impose enforcement priorities on ICE and determine where and how ICE should use its limited resources, regardless of ICE’s own stated objectives,” the report observes.
At an October 6, 2010, press conference, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had removed more than 392,000 individuals in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, and presented other “record-breaking immigration enforcement statistics achieved under the Obama administration.”
In addition to record-breaking overall numbers, Napolitano also announced the “unprecedented numbers of convicted criminal alien removals” in FY 2010. Of the 392,000 removals in FY 2010, more than 195,000 were classified as “convicted criminal aliens,” which was 81,000 more criminal removals than in FY 2008.
But the issue raised in this report goes to the question of whether deportees are the people originally envisaged – people whose violent behaviour poses a danger to their fellow deportees as well as society in general – or others guilty of minor offenses such as driving and parking violations.
ICE says budget realities make it impossible to remove everyone who is in the country illegally or who is otherwise deportable, and has released a series of memos designed to prioritize the “worst of the worst.” Overall, this prioritization represents an effort to bring order to the increasingly complex world of immigration enforcement.
Partnerships between ICE and state and local law-enforcement agencies are not necessarily helping ICE to reach its strategic objectives and these LEAs are generating the most concern over enforcement priorities. Over the past several years, these partnerships have been greatly expanded, and ever greater numbers of LEAs are serving as “force multipliers” for DHS.
The two programs most closely associated with immigration enforcement are the 287(g) program and the Secure Communities program. The stated objective of both of these programs is to target dangerous criminals and persons who pose a threat to the community. ICE credits these programs with the increase in deportations of “criminal aliens” over the past year.
Programs such as 287(g) and Secure Communities merge the federal immigration enforcement system with state criminal justice systems. But in many cases, local police arrest noncitizens who pose no threat to public safety for relatively minor crimes, such as driving without a license or shoplifting. In other cases, immigrants are merely charged with crimes for which they are never convicted.
Through the partnerships between ICE and local police, immigrants are channeled into the immigration enforcement system, regardless of their guilt or innocence or the severity of the crime with which they are charged. These immigrants then face lengthy detention, few due-process protections, and deportation.
The data from ICE does in fact show an increase in the percentage of deportations of “criminal aliens” or “convicted criminal aliens.” However, a closer look at the numbers reveals that many of those “criminals” have committed low-level offenses or misdemeanors, and many noncriminals continue to be deported.
One of the report’s main recommendation is for legalization, which it says would be an enormous step” toward true prioritization. “A pool of more than 11 million persons subject to deportation is not a good starting place. Legalizing undocumented immigrants who do not pose a threat to public safety or national security, would allow DHS to focus its limited enforcement resources on unauthorized and legal immigrants with serious criminal convictions.”
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Where'd the Rule of Law Go?
By William Fisher
Lawyers for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama told a federal judge yesterday that the government has authority to kill American citizens whom the executive branch has unilaterally determined pose a threat to national security.
That claim came in federal court in Washington, D.C., in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The two human rights legal advocacy organizations contend that the administration's so-called “targeted killing authority” violates the Constitution and international law.
CCR attorney Pardiss Kebriae told IPS, "The full contours of the government's position would allow the executive unreviewable authority to target and kill any US citizen it deems a suspect of terrorism anywhere. As the government would have it, while non-citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay can challenge the deprivation of their liberty by the United States, a US citizen could not challenge an impending deprivation of his life by his own government."
"The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the government's claim to an unchecked system of global detention, and the district court should similarly reject the administration's claim here to an unchecked system of global targeted killing," she said.
The ACLU and the CCR were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, Anwar Al-Aulaqi. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that, “outside the context of armed conflict, the government can carry out the targeted killing of an American citizen only as a last resort to address an imminent threat to life or physical safety.”
Anwar Al-Aulaqi, who was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and has dual U.S. and Yemeni citizenship, is a firebrand extremist Imam, who has been accused by government officials and in the press of using his sermons and the Internet to recruit jihadists. He is thought to be in hiding in Yemen.
The lawsuit also asks the court to “order the government to disclose the legal standard it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.”
"If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case. "It's the government's responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the Constitution."
The government filed a brief in the case in September, claiming that the executive's targeted killing authority is a "political question" that should not be subject to judicial review. The government also asserted the "state secrets" privilege, contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information.
On August 30, 2010, the CCR and the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Dr. Nasser Al-Aulaqi against President Obama, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, challenging their decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, in violation of the Constitution and international law.
Plaintiff’s lawyers argue that, while the government “can legitimately use lethal force against civilians in certain circumstances outside of a judicial process, the authority contemplated by senior Obama administration officials is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow.”
Under international human rights law, they explain, “lethal force may be used in peacetime only when there is an imminent threat of deadly attack and when lethal force is a last resort. A program in which names are added to a list though a secret bureaucratic process and remain there for months at a time plainly goes beyond the use of lethal force as a last resort to address imminent threats, and accordingly goes beyond what the Constitution and international law permit.”
They add: “Moreover, targeting individuals for killing who are suspected of crimes but have not been convicted – without oversight, due process or disclosed standards for being placed on the kill list – also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. Since 9/11, the U.S. government has detained thousands men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable and release them.”
The DOJ declined to comment on the case.
This case is one of two related lawsuits brought by the ACLU and the CCR.
The second is against the U.S. Treasury Department (DOT) and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) challenging the legality and constitutionality of the scheme that requires them to obtain a license in order to file a lawsuit concerning the government’s asserted authority to carry out targeted killings of individuals, including U.S. citizens, far from any battlefield.
On July 16, 2010, however, the Secretary of the Treasury labeled Anwar al-Aulaqi a “specially designated global terrorist,” which makes it a crime for lawyers to provide representation for his benefit without first seeking a license from OFAC.
The CCR and the ACLU sought a license, but after the government’s failure to grant one despite the urgency created by an outstanding authorization for Al-Aulaqi’s death, the two groups brought suit challenging the legality and constitutionality of the licensing scheme as applied to the representation they seek to provide. CCR and the ACLU have not had contact with Anwar Al-Aulaqi.
The OFAC requirements generally make it illegal to provide any service, including legal representation, to or for the benefit of an individual designated as a terrorist. A lawyer who provides legal representation for the benefit of such a person without getting special permission is subject to criminal and civil penalties.
In their lawsuit, CCR and the ACLU charge that OFAC has exceeded its authority by subjecting uncompensated legal services to a licensing requirement, and that OFAC’s regulations violate the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the principle of separation of powers. The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the regulations and to make clear that lawyers can provide representation for the benefit of designated individuals without first seeking the government’s consent.
The OFAC case is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Lawyers for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama told a federal judge yesterday that the government has authority to kill American citizens whom the executive branch has unilaterally determined pose a threat to national security.
That claim came in federal court in Washington, D.C., in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). The two human rights legal advocacy organizations contend that the administration's so-called “targeted killing authority” violates the Constitution and international law.
CCR attorney Pardiss Kebriae told IPS, "The full contours of the government's position would allow the executive unreviewable authority to target and kill any US citizen it deems a suspect of terrorism anywhere. As the government would have it, while non-citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay can challenge the deprivation of their liberty by the United States, a US citizen could not challenge an impending deprivation of his life by his own government."
"The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the government's claim to an unchecked system of global detention, and the district court should similarly reject the administration's claim here to an unchecked system of global targeted killing," she said.
The ACLU and the CCR were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, Anwar Al-Aulaqi. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that, “outside the context of armed conflict, the government can carry out the targeted killing of an American citizen only as a last resort to address an imminent threat to life or physical safety.”
Anwar Al-Aulaqi, who was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and has dual U.S. and Yemeni citizenship, is a firebrand extremist Imam, who has been accused by government officials and in the press of using his sermons and the Internet to recruit jihadists. He is thought to be in hiding in Yemen.
The lawsuit also asks the court to “order the government to disclose the legal standard it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.”
"If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case. "It's the government's responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the Constitution."
The government filed a brief in the case in September, claiming that the executive's targeted killing authority is a "political question" that should not be subject to judicial review. The government also asserted the "state secrets" privilege, contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid the disclosure of sensitive information.
On August 30, 2010, the CCR and the ACLU filed suit on behalf of Dr. Nasser Al-Aulaqi against President Obama, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Leon Panetta, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, challenging their decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, in violation of the Constitution and international law.
Plaintiff’s lawyers argue that, while the government “can legitimately use lethal force against civilians in certain circumstances outside of a judicial process, the authority contemplated by senior Obama administration officials is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow.”
Under international human rights law, they explain, “lethal force may be used in peacetime only when there is an imminent threat of deadly attack and when lethal force is a last resort. A program in which names are added to a list though a secret bureaucratic process and remain there for months at a time plainly goes beyond the use of lethal force as a last resort to address imminent threats, and accordingly goes beyond what the Constitution and international law permit.”
They add: “Moreover, targeting individuals for killing who are suspected of crimes but have not been convicted – without oversight, due process or disclosed standards for being placed on the kill list – also poses the risk that the government will erroneously target the wrong people. Since 9/11, the U.S. government has detained thousands men as terrorists, only for courts or the government itself to discover later that the evidence was wrong or unreliable and release them.”
The DOJ declined to comment on the case.
This case is one of two related lawsuits brought by the ACLU and the CCR.
The second is against the U.S. Treasury Department (DOT) and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) challenging the legality and constitutionality of the scheme that requires them to obtain a license in order to file a lawsuit concerning the government’s asserted authority to carry out targeted killings of individuals, including U.S. citizens, far from any battlefield.
On July 16, 2010, however, the Secretary of the Treasury labeled Anwar al-Aulaqi a “specially designated global terrorist,” which makes it a crime for lawyers to provide representation for his benefit without first seeking a license from OFAC.
The CCR and the ACLU sought a license, but after the government’s failure to grant one despite the urgency created by an outstanding authorization for Al-Aulaqi’s death, the two groups brought suit challenging the legality and constitutionality of the licensing scheme as applied to the representation they seek to provide. CCR and the ACLU have not had contact with Anwar Al-Aulaqi.
The OFAC requirements generally make it illegal to provide any service, including legal representation, to or for the benefit of an individual designated as a terrorist. A lawyer who provides legal representation for the benefit of such a person without getting special permission is subject to criminal and civil penalties.
In their lawsuit, CCR and the ACLU charge that OFAC has exceeded its authority by subjecting uncompensated legal services to a licensing requirement, and that OFAC’s regulations violate the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the principle of separation of powers. The lawsuit asks the court to invalidate the regulations and to make clear that lawyers can provide representation for the benefit of designated individuals without first seeking the government’s consent.
The OFAC case is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Terror Challenges and Muslim-Americans
By William Fisher
A new report on the challenges posed in the U.S. by violent extremists has found that terrorism plots by non-Muslims greatly outnumber those attempted by Muslims and that Muslim-American communities helped foil close to a third of al Qaeda-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11/01.
The report comes from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a not-for-profit organization advocating for the civil rights of American Muslims. The report consists largely of MPAC’s "Post-9/11 Terrorism Incident Database." Reportedly the first of its kind by a Muslim-American organization, the Database tracks plots by Muslim and non-Muslim violent extremists against the United States.
The author of the report, Alejandro J. Beutel, MPAC researcher and government liaison, told IPS, “This report demonstrates the validity of two of our guiding principles.”
“The first of these is that the choice between our rights and liberties and national security is a false choice; we can have both. The second is that law enforcement will be much more successful if it treats the American Muslim community as partners, not as adversaries.”
He added, “Because of the baseless spying by the FBI on our mosques, we are very cautious about our engagement with the Bureau.”
Key findings in the report: There were 72 total plots by domestic non-Muslim perpetrators against the United States since 9/11/01. In comparison, there have been 37 total plots by domestic and international Muslim perpetrators since 9/11/01; there are at least five incidents of non-Muslim domestic extremists possessing or attempting to possess biological, chemical or radiological weapons. One of those occurred since Obama's election. No such cases involving Muslim violent extremists have been reported since 9/11/01; evidence clearly indicates a general rise in violent extremism across ideologies.
The report says that, using Obama's election as a base measurement, since November 4, 2008 there have been 39 terror plots by non-Muslim domestic extremists. By comparison, there have been 16 plots by Muslim domestic and international extremists. Each of these cases constitutes close to 50% of all violent extremism cases since 9/11/01.
The report also found “little evidence of a rise in ideological extremism. It concluded that those involved in 13 out of the 15 post-election plots (86.7%) were engaged in ideological extremism before the vote. Of the 15, 10 (66%) were engaged in ideological extremism since 2007.
It declares that Al-Qaeda does not appear to be making new ideological gains into the American Muslim community. Instead, the data is pointing toward greater numbers of longstanding ideological extremists turning to violence.
The report asserts that Muslim communities have helped foil almost one out of every three Al Qaeda-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11/01. It says this highlights the importance of law enforcement partnering with citizens through community-oriented policing.
The report recommended that the government: Expand community-oriented policing initiatives; increase support for research on combating biased policing; expand investments in better human capital acquisitions; highlight citizen contributions to national security; and reform the fusion center process to increase coordination among law enforcement communities.
The report examined the challenges posed by violent extremists in two ways. The first was by examining the quantitative and qualitative nature of terrorism trials. Second, it looked at the number of actual and attempted attacks within the United States, including a comparative analysis of incidents involving Muslim and non-Muslim perpetrators.
The report appears amidst a resurgence of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. Some of this has been triggered by the proposed building of an Islamic community center two blocks from “Ground Zero”, the site where the World Trade Centers once stood.
A number of individual and community groups, including some families of 9/11 victims, have blasted the Center idea as “a celebration of Islam.” Supporters see it as a vehicle for bringing diverse faiths closer together.
In communities throughout the U.S., there have been “copycat” campaigns to thwart mosque planning or construction.
The recent American midterm elections have also provided some candidates with platforms from which to verbally attack Muslims, including Muslim-Americans. These candidates have largely been Republicans and members of the Tea Party, on the extreme right wing of the political spectrum. While a few Democrats attempted to debunk the “all Muslims are terrorists” mantra, most remained silent.
Several recent unsuccessful terrorist plots have also contributed to heightened public anxiety – and the search for scapegoats. The so-called Times Square bomber was a home-grown terrorist who admitted attending training school in Pakistan; the “underwear bomber” who attempted to bring a passenger plane down over Detriot last Christmas day was a Nigerian believed to have been trained in Yemen. Both men are Muslims.
And the successful interception of two parcel bombs shipped as cargo from Yemen further raised the public’s level of apprehension that another terrorist attack was in the making.
The backlash takes a number of forms. For example, ordinary Muslims are experiencing renewed discrimination in the workplace. The New York Times reports that Muslim workers filed a record 803 such claims in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009. That was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to federal data.
The Times says the number of complaints filed since then will not be announced until January,” but Islamic groups say they have received a surge in complaints recently, suggesting that 2010’s figure will set another record.”
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed several lawsuits connected with anti-Muslim discrimination. It sued JBS Swift, a meatpacking company, on behalf of 160 Somali immigrants; it filed a case against Abercrombie & Fitch, the
clothing retailer, for refusing to hire a Muslim who wore a head scarf; and it sued a Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Phoenix, charging that an Iraqi immigrant was called a “camel jockey.”
Finally, MPAC and similar groups are angry and disappointed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which has acknowledged placing “agent provocateurs” inside mosques in attempts to root out terrorists, terrorist plots, and terrorist cells.
“We feel betrayed,” says Alejandro Beutel.
A new report on the challenges posed in the U.S. by violent extremists has found that terrorism plots by non-Muslims greatly outnumber those attempted by Muslims and that Muslim-American communities helped foil close to a third of al Qaeda-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11/01.
The report comes from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a not-for-profit organization advocating for the civil rights of American Muslims. The report consists largely of MPAC’s "Post-9/11 Terrorism Incident Database." Reportedly the first of its kind by a Muslim-American organization, the Database tracks plots by Muslim and non-Muslim violent extremists against the United States.
The author of the report, Alejandro J. Beutel, MPAC researcher and government liaison, told IPS, “This report demonstrates the validity of two of our guiding principles.”
“The first of these is that the choice between our rights and liberties and national security is a false choice; we can have both. The second is that law enforcement will be much more successful if it treats the American Muslim community as partners, not as adversaries.”
He added, “Because of the baseless spying by the FBI on our mosques, we are very cautious about our engagement with the Bureau.”
Key findings in the report: There were 72 total plots by domestic non-Muslim perpetrators against the United States since 9/11/01. In comparison, there have been 37 total plots by domestic and international Muslim perpetrators since 9/11/01; there are at least five incidents of non-Muslim domestic extremists possessing or attempting to possess biological, chemical or radiological weapons. One of those occurred since Obama's election. No such cases involving Muslim violent extremists have been reported since 9/11/01; evidence clearly indicates a general rise in violent extremism across ideologies.
The report says that, using Obama's election as a base measurement, since November 4, 2008 there have been 39 terror plots by non-Muslim domestic extremists. By comparison, there have been 16 plots by Muslim domestic and international extremists. Each of these cases constitutes close to 50% of all violent extremism cases since 9/11/01.
The report also found “little evidence of a rise in ideological extremism. It concluded that those involved in 13 out of the 15 post-election plots (86.7%) were engaged in ideological extremism before the vote. Of the 15, 10 (66%) were engaged in ideological extremism since 2007.
It declares that Al-Qaeda does not appear to be making new ideological gains into the American Muslim community. Instead, the data is pointing toward greater numbers of longstanding ideological extremists turning to violence.
The report asserts that Muslim communities have helped foil almost one out of every three Al Qaeda-related terror plots threatening America since 9/11/01. It says this highlights the importance of law enforcement partnering with citizens through community-oriented policing.
The report recommended that the government: Expand community-oriented policing initiatives; increase support for research on combating biased policing; expand investments in better human capital acquisitions; highlight citizen contributions to national security; and reform the fusion center process to increase coordination among law enforcement communities.
The report examined the challenges posed by violent extremists in two ways. The first was by examining the quantitative and qualitative nature of terrorism trials. Second, it looked at the number of actual and attempted attacks within the United States, including a comparative analysis of incidents involving Muslim and non-Muslim perpetrators.
The report appears amidst a resurgence of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. Some of this has been triggered by the proposed building of an Islamic community center two blocks from “Ground Zero”, the site where the World Trade Centers once stood.
A number of individual and community groups, including some families of 9/11 victims, have blasted the Center idea as “a celebration of Islam.” Supporters see it as a vehicle for bringing diverse faiths closer together.
In communities throughout the U.S., there have been “copycat” campaigns to thwart mosque planning or construction.
The recent American midterm elections have also provided some candidates with platforms from which to verbally attack Muslims, including Muslim-Americans. These candidates have largely been Republicans and members of the Tea Party, on the extreme right wing of the political spectrum. While a few Democrats attempted to debunk the “all Muslims are terrorists” mantra, most remained silent.
Several recent unsuccessful terrorist plots have also contributed to heightened public anxiety – and the search for scapegoats. The so-called Times Square bomber was a home-grown terrorist who admitted attending training school in Pakistan; the “underwear bomber” who attempted to bring a passenger plane down over Detriot last Christmas day was a Nigerian believed to have been trained in Yemen. Both men are Muslims.
And the successful interception of two parcel bombs shipped as cargo from Yemen further raised the public’s level of apprehension that another terrorist attack was in the making.
The backlash takes a number of forms. For example, ordinary Muslims are experiencing renewed discrimination in the workplace. The New York Times reports that Muslim workers filed a record 803 such claims in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009. That was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to federal data.
The Times says the number of complaints filed since then will not be announced until January,” but Islamic groups say they have received a surge in complaints recently, suggesting that 2010’s figure will set another record.”
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed several lawsuits connected with anti-Muslim discrimination. It sued JBS Swift, a meatpacking company, on behalf of 160 Somali immigrants; it filed a case against Abercrombie & Fitch, the
clothing retailer, for refusing to hire a Muslim who wore a head scarf; and it sued a Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Phoenix, charging that an Iraqi immigrant was called a “camel jockey.”
Finally, MPAC and similar groups are angry and disappointed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which has acknowledged placing “agent provocateurs” inside mosques in attempts to root out terrorists, terrorist plots, and terrorist cells.
“We feel betrayed,” says Alejandro Beutel.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
In Egypt, Does Anything Ever Change?
By William Fisher
In the face of police brutality, crackdowns on political parties, closing of media, arrests of citizen journalists, and a host of other violations ahead of Egypt’s Nov 28th parliamentary election, human rights advocates are calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to use American leverage to persuade Egypt to reform its electoral process, allow international monitors to assess the election, and conduct transparent and accountable balloting.
The Egyptian parliamentary election – and the presidential election to follow in September 2011 – will play out against a background of years of police brutality and political corruption, buttressed by a so-called Emergency Law. That law, which has been in effect for three decades, gives police and security services sweeping powers to arrest and detain with little or no due process.
But Administration critics say President Obama and his advisors have become too dependent on Egypt for its help to Israel regarding illegal smuggling from the Egyptian desert into Gaza, and helping maintain Arab neutrality vis a vis the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. While they acknowledge the value of this help, they contend that Egypt is acting in its own self-interest and would provide such help regardless of what the U.S. says about its electoral process.
One of the most vocal critics of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime is Human Rights First, a New York City-based legal advocacy organization. It is urging U.S. President Barack Obama to publicly call on Egyptian authorities stop harassing ruling opposition party figures and open the nation's upcoming parliamentary elections to international monitors.
Neil Hicks, HRF’s International Policy Advisor, says “The Egyptian government is using a 30-year ‘state of emergency’ to make arbitrary arrests and violently repress political activists. In preparation for upcoming elections this November, the government has silenced independent journalists, cracked down on activists and opposition candidates, and refused international election monitors. You need a license in Egypt to send a political text message!”
Hicks added, “The last round of elections in Egypt found policemen beating voters and officials grabbing ballot boxes. We cannot let that happen again.”
The Egyptian Government appears to be doing what it can to disrupt opposition plans to contest the Parliamentary election. For example, the Associated Press reports that Egyptian security detained 65 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood while they were hanging election posters. Authorities said the posters violated a new ban on religious expressions. The government has arrested some 250 members of the Brotherhood and 30 remain in jails.
Media suppression has also ratcheted up in the pre-election period. For example, Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), imposed new restrictions on text-message news services and mobile phone companies, in an apparent attempt to pre-empt possible anti-government activism during the polls. And the Egyptian Ministry of Information now compels satellite channels to obtain licenses before broadcasting an event live or distributing news reports to other television channels.
The anti-media campaign has also included the firing of one of the country’s better-known veteran journalists, who was editor of the main opposition newspaper. He had recently also been fired from his television talk show.
In another media move, authorities closed the religious conservative satellite television network, Al-Badr, for inciting sectarian hatred, and shut down the studios that produced the political talk show “Al-Qahira il-Youm” (”Cairo Today”).
These actions have triggered widespread calls from many for international monitors to supervise the election, and from others a campaign to boycott the balloting altogether.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the retired head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has given up his brief flirt with the idea of opposing Mubarak in the presidential election. Instead he has called for a wholesale boycott. He says this is the “easiest, fastest, the most direct way to delegitimize the regime.”
Political dissident and head of Al-Ghad Party, Ayman Nour, called on the European Union (EU) to oversee parliamentary and presidential elections, requesting that the European Commission “play a greater role” in supporting human rights in Egypt.
Washington has had little to say of current developments. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had taken an increasing interest in the need for political reform and human rights improvements inside Egypt, a position associated with his neoconservative vision of America spreading democracy around the world.
But the Bush position caused considerable friction between the two governments, and Obama returned to seeing Egypt as a peace process partner.
The Mubarak regime, however, has made the U.S. position difficult to maintain. For example, President Mubarak had promised to lift the state of emergency, which has been in effect since 1981 and significantly curbs civil liberties inside Egypt. But it chose to renew it instead. That drew a stiff protest from the Obama administration.
President Obama has also dramatically cut funds to promote democracy in Egypt. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that these cuts over the past year - amounting to around 50 percent - have drawn accusations that the Obama administration is easing off reform pressure to ensure Egypt’s support on Mideast policy, including the peace process with Israel.
Egypt has been one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid ever since it
became the first Arab country to sign a peace accord with Israel, in 1979. Since the Bush administration, Washington has been reducing the nonmilitary part of the package. This year's aid is $1.55 billion, including $250 million in nonmilitary aid. In 2008, the Bush administration dedicated around $45 million of that to programs for Governing Justly and Democratically.
The Obama Administration’s slash in these pro-democracy programs has drawn a mixed response. Some contend they are ineffective and merely plant seeds of discord between the U.S. and Cairo. Others think they have a place.
Michele Dunne, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and editor of the online journal, the Arab Reform Bulletin, told IPS, “I think that the United States should advocate democratization and greater respect for human rights for Egyptians. This does not mean that the U.S. can make these things happen in Egypt, but we should be clear that we are in favor and willing to use the influence we have to promote them.”
She added, “Public comments can make clear to Egyptian citizens where the United States stands on these issues—which has a value in and of itself—but clearly are not enough to have an effect on the calculations of the Egyptian government. That would require a more comprehensive strategy that considers public comment, private diplomacy, assistance programs, and other forms of engagement with the Egyptian government and Egyptian citizens—which is exactly was has been missing from U.S. policy so far.”
As to pro-democracy programs, Dunne told IPS, these “are helpful partly for the resources they offer and even more so from the implied U.S. support for pro-democracy groups in Egypt. But they can only assist and support a pro-democracy movement from Egyptian society itself, not create one from outside.”
“By the way,” she said, “the obvious question is whether the United States can do this and still cooperate with the Egyptian government on the Arab-Israeli peace process and other issues. The track record suggests that the answer is yes. The Egyptian government takes its decisions on Israel and other regional issues for its own national security reasons, not to do a favor for the US.”
Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, minimizes the importance of the US AID pro-democracy programs. He told IPS:
“The real issue is what (or what not) the White House and State Department are saying publicly (and privately to the Egyptian government) about the upcoming elections.”
He continued: “I have no doubt that the 2010 parliamentary elections will be less competitive than the 2005 balloting. One of the most important reasons for this is the lack of public comment about the issue (e.g., pressure) from the United States. No serious observer of the Egyptian political scene can deny that this public and high profile rhetoric (and the attention it generated) from the President [George W. Bush] and the Secretary of State [Condoleeza Rice] was one of the primary reasons we saw a political liberalization in Egypt in 2005, including more competitive parliamentary elections at the end of 2005.”
“The Obama administration is unfortunately not interested in pushing the sclerotic Mubarak regime (Mubarak is 82, in declining health and without a vice president) to display even mild respect for political freedoms, including free and fair elections,” he said.
Mohamed ElBaradei has also weighed in on the issue of U.S. pressure on Egypt. He said: "Well, it is up to Barack Obama [whether to pressure Egypt on democracy]. It's up to any government to decide how to react to the denial of basic human rights anywhere in the world including Egypt. All I can say is this-those who believe that stability comes with repression are really shortsighted and should not be surprised if the Middle East continues to move toward radicalization."
In the face of police brutality, crackdowns on political parties, closing of media, arrests of citizen journalists, and a host of other violations ahead of Egypt’s Nov 28th parliamentary election, human rights advocates are calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to use American leverage to persuade Egypt to reform its electoral process, allow international monitors to assess the election, and conduct transparent and accountable balloting.
The Egyptian parliamentary election – and the presidential election to follow in September 2011 – will play out against a background of years of police brutality and political corruption, buttressed by a so-called Emergency Law. That law, which has been in effect for three decades, gives police and security services sweeping powers to arrest and detain with little or no due process.
But Administration critics say President Obama and his advisors have become too dependent on Egypt for its help to Israel regarding illegal smuggling from the Egyptian desert into Gaza, and helping maintain Arab neutrality vis a vis the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. While they acknowledge the value of this help, they contend that Egypt is acting in its own self-interest and would provide such help regardless of what the U.S. says about its electoral process.
One of the most vocal critics of President Hosni Mubarak’s regime is Human Rights First, a New York City-based legal advocacy organization. It is urging U.S. President Barack Obama to publicly call on Egyptian authorities stop harassing ruling opposition party figures and open the nation's upcoming parliamentary elections to international monitors.
Neil Hicks, HRF’s International Policy Advisor, says “The Egyptian government is using a 30-year ‘state of emergency’ to make arbitrary arrests and violently repress political activists. In preparation for upcoming elections this November, the government has silenced independent journalists, cracked down on activists and opposition candidates, and refused international election monitors. You need a license in Egypt to send a political text message!”
Hicks added, “The last round of elections in Egypt found policemen beating voters and officials grabbing ballot boxes. We cannot let that happen again.”
The Egyptian Government appears to be doing what it can to disrupt opposition plans to contest the Parliamentary election. For example, the Associated Press reports that Egyptian security detained 65 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood while they were hanging election posters. Authorities said the posters violated a new ban on religious expressions. The government has arrested some 250 members of the Brotherhood and 30 remain in jails.
Media suppression has also ratcheted up in the pre-election period. For example, Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), imposed new restrictions on text-message news services and mobile phone companies, in an apparent attempt to pre-empt possible anti-government activism during the polls. And the Egyptian Ministry of Information now compels satellite channels to obtain licenses before broadcasting an event live or distributing news reports to other television channels.
The anti-media campaign has also included the firing of one of the country’s better-known veteran journalists, who was editor of the main opposition newspaper. He had recently also been fired from his television talk show.
In another media move, authorities closed the religious conservative satellite television network, Al-Badr, for inciting sectarian hatred, and shut down the studios that produced the political talk show “Al-Qahira il-Youm” (”Cairo Today”).
These actions have triggered widespread calls from many for international monitors to supervise the election, and from others a campaign to boycott the balloting altogether.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the retired head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has given up his brief flirt with the idea of opposing Mubarak in the presidential election. Instead he has called for a wholesale boycott. He says this is the “easiest, fastest, the most direct way to delegitimize the regime.”
Political dissident and head of Al-Ghad Party, Ayman Nour, called on the European Union (EU) to oversee parliamentary and presidential elections, requesting that the European Commission “play a greater role” in supporting human rights in Egypt.
Washington has had little to say of current developments. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had taken an increasing interest in the need for political reform and human rights improvements inside Egypt, a position associated with his neoconservative vision of America spreading democracy around the world.
But the Bush position caused considerable friction between the two governments, and Obama returned to seeing Egypt as a peace process partner.
The Mubarak regime, however, has made the U.S. position difficult to maintain. For example, President Mubarak had promised to lift the state of emergency, which has been in effect since 1981 and significantly curbs civil liberties inside Egypt. But it chose to renew it instead. That drew a stiff protest from the Obama administration.
President Obama has also dramatically cut funds to promote democracy in Egypt. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that these cuts over the past year - amounting to around 50 percent - have drawn accusations that the Obama administration is easing off reform pressure to ensure Egypt’s support on Mideast policy, including the peace process with Israel.
Egypt has been one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid ever since it
became the first Arab country to sign a peace accord with Israel, in 1979. Since the Bush administration, Washington has been reducing the nonmilitary part of the package. This year's aid is $1.55 billion, including $250 million in nonmilitary aid. In 2008, the Bush administration dedicated around $45 million of that to programs for Governing Justly and Democratically.
The Obama Administration’s slash in these pro-democracy programs has drawn a mixed response. Some contend they are ineffective and merely plant seeds of discord between the U.S. and Cairo. Others think they have a place.
Michele Dunne, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and editor of the online journal, the Arab Reform Bulletin, told IPS, “I think that the United States should advocate democratization and greater respect for human rights for Egyptians. This does not mean that the U.S. can make these things happen in Egypt, but we should be clear that we are in favor and willing to use the influence we have to promote them.”
She added, “Public comments can make clear to Egyptian citizens where the United States stands on these issues—which has a value in and of itself—but clearly are not enough to have an effect on the calculations of the Egyptian government. That would require a more comprehensive strategy that considers public comment, private diplomacy, assistance programs, and other forms of engagement with the Egyptian government and Egyptian citizens—which is exactly was has been missing from U.S. policy so far.”
As to pro-democracy programs, Dunne told IPS, these “are helpful partly for the resources they offer and even more so from the implied U.S. support for pro-democracy groups in Egypt. But they can only assist and support a pro-democracy movement from Egyptian society itself, not create one from outside.”
“By the way,” she said, “the obvious question is whether the United States can do this and still cooperate with the Egyptian government on the Arab-Israeli peace process and other issues. The track record suggests that the answer is yes. The Egyptian government takes its decisions on Israel and other regional issues for its own national security reasons, not to do a favor for the US.”
Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, minimizes the importance of the US AID pro-democracy programs. He told IPS:
“The real issue is what (or what not) the White House and State Department are saying publicly (and privately to the Egyptian government) about the upcoming elections.”
He continued: “I have no doubt that the 2010 parliamentary elections will be less competitive than the 2005 balloting. One of the most important reasons for this is the lack of public comment about the issue (e.g., pressure) from the United States. No serious observer of the Egyptian political scene can deny that this public and high profile rhetoric (and the attention it generated) from the President [George W. Bush] and the Secretary of State [Condoleeza Rice] was one of the primary reasons we saw a political liberalization in Egypt in 2005, including more competitive parliamentary elections at the end of 2005.”
“The Obama administration is unfortunately not interested in pushing the sclerotic Mubarak regime (Mubarak is 82, in declining health and without a vice president) to display even mild respect for political freedoms, including free and fair elections,” he said.
Mohamed ElBaradei has also weighed in on the issue of U.S. pressure on Egypt. He said: "Well, it is up to Barack Obama [whether to pressure Egypt on democracy]. It's up to any government to decide how to react to the denial of basic human rights anywhere in the world including Egypt. All I can say is this-those who believe that stability comes with repression are really shortsighted and should not be surprised if the Middle East continues to move toward radicalization."
Monday, November 01, 2010
To Opt or Not to Opt
By William Fisher
Will U.S. local law enforcement be forced to participate in a program that it says will put city police in the position of enforcing federal immigration law and, in the process, divert scarce resources from essential community policing, discourage immigrants from working with police to solve crimes and increase racial profiling?
Or is it a voluntary program?
Those are the questions being raised by civil rights advocacy groups in a federal court filing seeking an injunction requiring the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency to turn over critical documents concerning the ability of communities to “opt-out of what they label “the massive deportation dragnet,” the Secure Communities -- S-Comm -- program.
The groups seek to clarify ICE’s statements, which they say have been “inconsistent and confusing.” In August, ICE released a memo entitled, “Setting the Record Straight” which sets forth an opt-out policy:
“If a jurisdiction does not wish to activate on its scheduled date in the Secure Communities deployment plan, it must formally notify its state identification bureau and ICE in writing (email, letter, or fax). Upon receipt of that information, ICE will request a meeting with federal partners, the jurisdiction, and the state to discuss any issues and come to a resolution, which may include adjusting the jurisdiction’s activation date in or removing the jurisdiction from the deployment plan.”
Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), later confirmed that process to be accurate.
But subsequent communications to and from ICE have muddied the waters, making it less clear that there is any opt-out policy at all. The Washington Post claims that opting out of Secure Communities “is not a realistic possibility, and never was.” This question takes on significance because a number of municipal and country law enforcement agencies have made it clear that they do not wish to participate in S-Comm.
Advocates who have reviewed the initial S-Comm documents from the FOIA case say they ”reveal a pattern of dishonesty. Information about the nascent program has been scarce, and the development of operational details has been shrouded in secrecy,” they say.
Sunita Patel, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), told IPS, “The mis-named Secure Communities program is the Department of Homeland Security's current scheme to rope local cops into immigration enforcement. Though branded as a race-blind way to arrest certain people, the numbers show it's actually trap.”
And Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, told IPS,
“This is simply an exercise in racial profiling against Latinos.”
On August 10, the groups filing the new FOIA suit -- The National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law -- released internal government documents newly obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in a New York federal court in April. According to advocates who have reviewed the documents, they reveal a pattern of dishonesty regarding the S-Comm program.
S-Comm, which currently operates in approximately 600 jurisdictions across the country, functions like the controversial 287(g) program and Arizona’s SB1070, making state and local police central to the enforcement of federal immigration law.
The program automatically runs fingerprints through immigration databases for all people arrested and targets them for detention and deportation even if their criminal charges are minor, eventually dismissed, or the result of an unlawful arrest.
Several local jurisdictions have already asked to opt-out, and were given a variety of responses. In May 2010, Sheriff Michael Hennessey of San Francisco requested an opt-out from ICE, but ICE directed them to speak to California state officials. The California Attorney General denied the Sheriff’s request and claimed that there was no opt-out option.
Arlington County, Virginia, held a community forum in July to discuss opting out of the program, at which the Chief of Police stated that ICE had told him that there was no opt-out -- Secure Communities was federally mandated.
Others, including Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California (San Jose), the Santa Clara Board, and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, all contacted ICE asking for information about the opt-out policies. None received an immediate response.
In the meantime, in response to legislation before the Council of the District of Columbia to terminate Secure Communities, the Washington DC Chief of Police terminated the city’s Secure Communities program with ICE.
So now at least two counties, plus Washington, DC have decided not to participate in the program. Why?
The groups bringing the lawsuit claim that “People are concerned that, similar to the 287(g) program, there is no oversight of Secure Communities. The data provided by ICE thus far has shown that contrary to ICE’s intention to focus on immigrants with serious criminal convictions, the majority of people identified by Secure Communities have minor criminal convictions or have no criminal convictions.”
They add that, in some cases, “U.S. citizens have been wrongly identified by the program. There are also concerns that the program leads to racial profiling and pretextual arrests. Furthermore, local law enforcement agencies that suspect that persons in their jails may be deportable immigrants already have the ability to contact ICE directly.
The Secure Communities program, launched in 2008, is currently active in 658 jurisdictions in 32 states, according to ICE, who plans to activate the program in every jurisdiction in every state by 2013.
According to the groups, “The merger of immigration enforcement and local criminal justice agencies is not only bad public policy, it also sabotages local law enforcement agencies’ core mission of protecting public safety by undermining the trust of the communities they serve. It discourages people from turning to the police when they need to, even to report crimes. It undermines public safety by diverting scarce resources away from local policing and focuses them on false threats from people who look or sound foreign.”
Secure Communities, 287(g), and the Criminal Alien Program – the Obama administration’s signature immigration enforcement programs – all rely on heavy involvement from and cooperation with local law enforcement to siphon immigrants into the immigration enforcement and detention system and, ultimately, through deportation proceedings.
Meanwhile, in a related development, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will be in federal appellate court in San Francisco on Monday, November 1, urging the court to keep in place an injunction blocking the core provisions of SB 1070, Arizona's racial profiling law.
The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of civil rights groups will also be present. They filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in September, supporting the injunction and illustrating the serious harm that SB 1070 would cause.
Will U.S. local law enforcement be forced to participate in a program that it says will put city police in the position of enforcing federal immigration law and, in the process, divert scarce resources from essential community policing, discourage immigrants from working with police to solve crimes and increase racial profiling?
Or is it a voluntary program?
Those are the questions being raised by civil rights advocacy groups in a federal court filing seeking an injunction requiring the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency to turn over critical documents concerning the ability of communities to “opt-out of what they label “the massive deportation dragnet,” the Secure Communities -- S-Comm -- program.
The groups seek to clarify ICE’s statements, which they say have been “inconsistent and confusing.” In August, ICE released a memo entitled, “Setting the Record Straight” which sets forth an opt-out policy:
“If a jurisdiction does not wish to activate on its scheduled date in the Secure Communities deployment plan, it must formally notify its state identification bureau and ICE in writing (email, letter, or fax). Upon receipt of that information, ICE will request a meeting with federal partners, the jurisdiction, and the state to discuss any issues and come to a resolution, which may include adjusting the jurisdiction’s activation date in or removing the jurisdiction from the deployment plan.”
Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), later confirmed that process to be accurate.
But subsequent communications to and from ICE have muddied the waters, making it less clear that there is any opt-out policy at all. The Washington Post claims that opting out of Secure Communities “is not a realistic possibility, and never was.” This question takes on significance because a number of municipal and country law enforcement agencies have made it clear that they do not wish to participate in S-Comm.
Advocates who have reviewed the initial S-Comm documents from the FOIA case say they ”reveal a pattern of dishonesty. Information about the nascent program has been scarce, and the development of operational details has been shrouded in secrecy,” they say.
Sunita Patel, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), told IPS, “The mis-named Secure Communities program is the Department of Homeland Security's current scheme to rope local cops into immigration enforcement. Though branded as a race-blind way to arrest certain people, the numbers show it's actually trap.”
And Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, told IPS,
“This is simply an exercise in racial profiling against Latinos.”
On August 10, the groups filing the new FOIA suit -- The National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law -- released internal government documents newly obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in a New York federal court in April. According to advocates who have reviewed the documents, they reveal a pattern of dishonesty regarding the S-Comm program.
S-Comm, which currently operates in approximately 600 jurisdictions across the country, functions like the controversial 287(g) program and Arizona’s SB1070, making state and local police central to the enforcement of federal immigration law.
The program automatically runs fingerprints through immigration databases for all people arrested and targets them for detention and deportation even if their criminal charges are minor, eventually dismissed, or the result of an unlawful arrest.
Several local jurisdictions have already asked to opt-out, and were given a variety of responses. In May 2010, Sheriff Michael Hennessey of San Francisco requested an opt-out from ICE, but ICE directed them to speak to California state officials. The California Attorney General denied the Sheriff’s request and claimed that there was no opt-out option.
Arlington County, Virginia, held a community forum in July to discuss opting out of the program, at which the Chief of Police stated that ICE had told him that there was no opt-out -- Secure Communities was federally mandated.
Others, including Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California (San Jose), the Santa Clara Board, and the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, all contacted ICE asking for information about the opt-out policies. None received an immediate response.
In the meantime, in response to legislation before the Council of the District of Columbia to terminate Secure Communities, the Washington DC Chief of Police terminated the city’s Secure Communities program with ICE.
So now at least two counties, plus Washington, DC have decided not to participate in the program. Why?
The groups bringing the lawsuit claim that “People are concerned that, similar to the 287(g) program, there is no oversight of Secure Communities. The data provided by ICE thus far has shown that contrary to ICE’s intention to focus on immigrants with serious criminal convictions, the majority of people identified by Secure Communities have minor criminal convictions or have no criminal convictions.”
They add that, in some cases, “U.S. citizens have been wrongly identified by the program. There are also concerns that the program leads to racial profiling and pretextual arrests. Furthermore, local law enforcement agencies that suspect that persons in their jails may be deportable immigrants already have the ability to contact ICE directly.
The Secure Communities program, launched in 2008, is currently active in 658 jurisdictions in 32 states, according to ICE, who plans to activate the program in every jurisdiction in every state by 2013.
According to the groups, “The merger of immigration enforcement and local criminal justice agencies is not only bad public policy, it also sabotages local law enforcement agencies’ core mission of protecting public safety by undermining the trust of the communities they serve. It discourages people from turning to the police when they need to, even to report crimes. It undermines public safety by diverting scarce resources away from local policing and focuses them on false threats from people who look or sound foreign.”
Secure Communities, 287(g), and the Criminal Alien Program – the Obama administration’s signature immigration enforcement programs – all rely on heavy involvement from and cooperation with local law enforcement to siphon immigrants into the immigration enforcement and detention system and, ultimately, through deportation proceedings.
Meanwhile, in a related development, the Department of Justice (DOJ) will be in federal appellate court in San Francisco on Monday, November 1, urging the court to keep in place an injunction blocking the core provisions of SB 1070, Arizona's racial profiling law.
The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of civil rights groups will also be present. They filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case in September, supporting the injunction and illustrating the serious harm that SB 1070 would cause.
Now Playing at GITMO: Kabuki Again
By William Fisher
A military jury at Guantanamo Bay sentenced a “child soldier” to 40 years in prison –unaware that Omar Khadr’s defense and prosecution lawyers had already agreed on an eight-year sentence and further agreed that the United States would send the Canadian home next year.
Under a plea bargain with a Pentagon official, Khadr would receive an eight-year sentence, in addition to the eight years he has been a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. But according to the plea arrangement reportedly reached between prosecution and defense, he would serve only one additional year at GITMO and the remaining seven in Canada, his home country. That means he could be released from prison at age 32, and perhaps sooner according to Canadian parole regulations.
The United States has pledged to support his return to Canada a year from now to serve out seven more years in a Canadian prison. While Canada has denied the repatriation idea publicly, it is known that the U.S. and Canadian government exchanged diplomatic notes on Oct. 23, declaring that “The Government of Canada is inclined to favorably consider Mr. Khadr's application to be transferred to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence,'' or whichever portion Canada's National Parole Board decides is required.
But the Guantanamo jury, officially, didn’t know any of that. Their decision would apply only if it decided on a lighter sentence.
According to eye-witness Carol Rosenberg of The Miami Herald, “Jurors were told only that Guantánamo's youngest captive had pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including hurling the grenade that mortally wounded Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, during a July 2002 assault on an al Qaeda compound.” Khadr was 15 at the time of the attack.
The prosecution argued for a sentence of 25 years; defense lawyers urged repatriation to Canada. The jury disagreed with both, finding that Khadr should remain in prison until age 64.
The sentence of 25 years would have been far less than the sentence possible for all the crimes Khadr admitted to. Observers have said he pled guilty to so many crimes to avoid receiving a life sentence from the jury.
Moreover, some experts contacted by IPS were certain that the plea deal was known to the jurors.
David Frakt, who gained fame when he resigned as a Guantanamo Bay defense attorney because he believed military commissions were not designed to produce fair trials, told IPS, "I am not sure that we can safely assume that the jury was unaware of the eight year plea deal, because it was plastered all over the news even before the trial started. Although the jurors were instructed by the court not to read news accounts related to the trial, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them knew about it.”
What was the purpose of convening a jury to deliberate after a plea agreement had been reached? IPS reached out to constitutional scholars for answers. Here are some of them:
Daphne Eviatar, a senior attorney with the advocacy group Human Rights First and an eye-witness to the Khadr proceedings at GITMO, told IPS, “As the prosecutors said over and over to the jury, the government wanted them to ‘send a message’ -- to the American people, to al Qaeda, and to all the victims of this deadly war that the lives of U.S. service members are valued. One has to question, though, the choice of a 15-year-old child soldier forced into war by his father as the messenger.”
David Frakt told IPS, “Even if we accept that they did not know the specific terms of the pretrial agreement, they certainly knew that there was a plea deal, and they would have understood that the maximum sentence under the agreement was something less than the 25 years that the prosecution asked for, because it is standard practice for military prosecutors to ask for a sentence in excess of the agreed sentence cap. It is quite unusual for a military jury to give substantially in excess of what the prosecution requests. In fact, I’ve never seen it happen before.”
He added, “So they clearly were trying to send a message."
“Presumably, the message was intended to be a deterrent to other would-be terrorists and insurgents. In essence, they jurors were saying, “don’t mess with the U.S. military.” Given that the true extreme jihadists are quite willing to die for the cause, I doubt that the sentence will have the desired deterrent effect."
Scott Horton, a constitutional lawyer and Contributing Editor at Harper's Magazine, told IPS, "It can be argued that from the outset a prime function of the military commissions has been not to inform, but rather to deceive the public.”
“A plea bargain was struck, but the details of it were suppressed,” he said, adding:
“What the prosecution got out of the deal was a guilty plea to everything charged--indeed, Khadr would have pleaded to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby had they asked him to. This was then paraded before the public and the commission as a genuine guilty plea, with attendant melodrama, and the thrust behind it was suppressed. But the whole exercise we have seen is theatrics designed to cover the case that the prosecution case was weak and that the government severely mistreated this prisoner. The guilty plea and the courtroom drama will grab headlines, and the rest will be forgotten.”
Chip Pitts, a law lecturer at Stanford University law school, told IPS, “The result is entirely consistent with a process established to function more like the military show trials and Kangaroo courts the United States has traditionally condemned than one established to deliver justice. ‘Back to the USSR’?”
Bruce Fein, a conservative former senior justice department official in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, told IPS, the jury verdict was "a community expression of fear of international terrorism."
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois law school, told IPS, the purpose was “to put the blame on a Child Soldier instead of themselves."
IPS posed another question to the legal experts it contacted: How unusual is it for a judge to send a jury out to deliberate on a verdict without telling them that the prosecution and the defense had already agreed on a plea arrangement?
Scott Horton’s view is that "It's impossible to speak of established practice in military commissions, because they're new, but this is the practice that has been established, starting with the al-Qosi case. Evidently this process is part of the agreed bargain."
Prof. Boyle responded: “These are Kangaroo Court proceedings. Of course they knew [of the plea deal]. As Groucho Marx said, ‘Military justice is to justice as military music is to music.’ And The Marx Brothers are in charge of the GITMO kangaroo court proceedings.”
A military jury at Guantanamo Bay sentenced a “child soldier” to 40 years in prison –unaware that Omar Khadr’s defense and prosecution lawyers had already agreed on an eight-year sentence and further agreed that the United States would send the Canadian home next year.
Under a plea bargain with a Pentagon official, Khadr would receive an eight-year sentence, in addition to the eight years he has been a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. But according to the plea arrangement reportedly reached between prosecution and defense, he would serve only one additional year at GITMO and the remaining seven in Canada, his home country. That means he could be released from prison at age 32, and perhaps sooner according to Canadian parole regulations.
The United States has pledged to support his return to Canada a year from now to serve out seven more years in a Canadian prison. While Canada has denied the repatriation idea publicly, it is known that the U.S. and Canadian government exchanged diplomatic notes on Oct. 23, declaring that “The Government of Canada is inclined to favorably consider Mr. Khadr's application to be transferred to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence,'' or whichever portion Canada's National Parole Board decides is required.
But the Guantanamo jury, officially, didn’t know any of that. Their decision would apply only if it decided on a lighter sentence.
According to eye-witness Carol Rosenberg of The Miami Herald, “Jurors were told only that Guantánamo's youngest captive had pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including hurling the grenade that mortally wounded Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer, 28, during a July 2002 assault on an al Qaeda compound.” Khadr was 15 at the time of the attack.
The prosecution argued for a sentence of 25 years; defense lawyers urged repatriation to Canada. The jury disagreed with both, finding that Khadr should remain in prison until age 64.
The sentence of 25 years would have been far less than the sentence possible for all the crimes Khadr admitted to. Observers have said he pled guilty to so many crimes to avoid receiving a life sentence from the jury.
Moreover, some experts contacted by IPS were certain that the plea deal was known to the jurors.
David Frakt, who gained fame when he resigned as a Guantanamo Bay defense attorney because he believed military commissions were not designed to produce fair trials, told IPS, "I am not sure that we can safely assume that the jury was unaware of the eight year plea deal, because it was plastered all over the news even before the trial started. Although the jurors were instructed by the court not to read news accounts related to the trial, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them knew about it.”
What was the purpose of convening a jury to deliberate after a plea agreement had been reached? IPS reached out to constitutional scholars for answers. Here are some of them:
Daphne Eviatar, a senior attorney with the advocacy group Human Rights First and an eye-witness to the Khadr proceedings at GITMO, told IPS, “As the prosecutors said over and over to the jury, the government wanted them to ‘send a message’ -- to the American people, to al Qaeda, and to all the victims of this deadly war that the lives of U.S. service members are valued. One has to question, though, the choice of a 15-year-old child soldier forced into war by his father as the messenger.”
David Frakt told IPS, “Even if we accept that they did not know the specific terms of the pretrial agreement, they certainly knew that there was a plea deal, and they would have understood that the maximum sentence under the agreement was something less than the 25 years that the prosecution asked for, because it is standard practice for military prosecutors to ask for a sentence in excess of the agreed sentence cap. It is quite unusual for a military jury to give substantially in excess of what the prosecution requests. In fact, I’ve never seen it happen before.”
He added, “So they clearly were trying to send a message."
“Presumably, the message was intended to be a deterrent to other would-be terrorists and insurgents. In essence, they jurors were saying, “don’t mess with the U.S. military.” Given that the true extreme jihadists are quite willing to die for the cause, I doubt that the sentence will have the desired deterrent effect."
Scott Horton, a constitutional lawyer and Contributing Editor at Harper's Magazine, told IPS, "It can be argued that from the outset a prime function of the military commissions has been not to inform, but rather to deceive the public.”
“A plea bargain was struck, but the details of it were suppressed,” he said, adding:
“What the prosecution got out of the deal was a guilty plea to everything charged--indeed, Khadr would have pleaded to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby had they asked him to. This was then paraded before the public and the commission as a genuine guilty plea, with attendant melodrama, and the thrust behind it was suppressed. But the whole exercise we have seen is theatrics designed to cover the case that the prosecution case was weak and that the government severely mistreated this prisoner. The guilty plea and the courtroom drama will grab headlines, and the rest will be forgotten.”
Chip Pitts, a law lecturer at Stanford University law school, told IPS, “The result is entirely consistent with a process established to function more like the military show trials and Kangaroo courts the United States has traditionally condemned than one established to deliver justice. ‘Back to the USSR’?”
Bruce Fein, a conservative former senior justice department official in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, told IPS, the jury verdict was "a community expression of fear of international terrorism."
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois law school, told IPS, the purpose was “to put the blame on a Child Soldier instead of themselves."
IPS posed another question to the legal experts it contacted: How unusual is it for a judge to send a jury out to deliberate on a verdict without telling them that the prosecution and the defense had already agreed on a plea arrangement?
Scott Horton’s view is that "It's impossible to speak of established practice in military commissions, because they're new, but this is the practice that has been established, starting with the al-Qosi case. Evidently this process is part of the agreed bargain."
Prof. Boyle responded: “These are Kangaroo Court proceedings. Of course they knew [of the plea deal]. As Groucho Marx said, ‘Military justice is to justice as military music is to music.’ And The Marx Brothers are in charge of the GITMO kangaroo court proceedings.”
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