Endorse the Diginity not Detention Campaign!
We ask you to join us in this campaign and to work together to restore due process in the detention and enforcement to ensure immigrants are treated with full respect for their human rights and human dignity. Click here.
Immigrant rights & criminal justice communities join forces to protest private prisons in DC
On January 24 over a hundred people gathered in Tivoli Square to call for a boycott of Wells Fargo, one of the primary investors in GEO Group. GEO is the second largest private prison corporation in the country, and manages about 18% of immigration detention beds. Private prison companies lobby extensively at the federal, state and local levels for the laws and policies that are putting ever-growing numbers of people behind bars.
via Anju Gupta, Director, Immigrant Rights Clinic, Rutgers University School of Law – Newark
Please save the date for a day-long conference on immigration detention to be held on March 23, 2012 at Rutgers Law School — Newark. A save the date flyer is attached and the text pasted below. Please circulate widely. Read more…
Enlace, in partnership with community groups and unions across the US, is calling on all public and private institutions to divest their holdings in Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group, America’s largest for profit prison corporations which have profited from billions in taxpayer money.
Together with Wall Street investors these companies finance anti immigrant laws like AZ Copycat Laws and lobby for anti immigrant federal policies like SCOMM.
Prison investors include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, General Electric, Fidelity, Wellington, and Vanguard. Read more…
via Anjela Jenkins
The National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights (NCIWR) will soon be releasing a white paper highlighting some of the challenges that immigrant women face in their daily lives, as well as in immigration detention and with the immigration “enforcement” system. Read more…
via @ACLU: Unprecedented Ruling on Immigrants’ Right To Be Free From Artbitrary Detention
reposted from the ACLU blog
District Court Rules that “Arriving Aliens” May Not Be Subjected to Prolonged Detention Without a Hearing To Determine Whether Detention Is Justified
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
SAN DIEGO — A district court today ruled that the Department of Homeland Security may not detain an immigrant for a prolonged period without proving that detention is justified in an individualized hearing. It is the first ruling to find that immigrants classified as “arriving aliens” – a large group encompassing all individuals stopped at the border, including asylum seekers – are entitled to fair hearing protections against arbitrary detention. DHS had argued that it has sole discretion to decide whether to detain or release an “arriving alien” and that the law does not require detention hearings. Read more…
via Annie Sovcik of Human Rights First
A dialogue among experts in the criminal justice/corrections and immigration detention systems
As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security takes steps to reform the immigration detention system – a patchwork of 33,400 beds scattered throughout the country in over 250 different facilities, holding a diverse population under its “civil” immigration enforcement authority – there are lessons to be learned from experiences, challenges and best practices in the criminal justice/corrections system. Please join our panel of distinguished experts in a discussion of conditions of confinement, access to legal counsel, alternatives to detention/incarceration, barriers to release, and use of discretion in decision to detain/incarcerate.
Monday, January 30, 2012
8:30 – 10:00 AM
Coffee and a light breakfast will be served beginning at 8:00 AM Read more…
via Andrea Black, Detention Watch Network:
Dear Colleagues,
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants is seeking submissions on immigration detention worldwide. The deadline is 1/30/12.
Michele Garnett McKenzie of the Advocates for Human Rights and Laura Rivas and Cathi Tactaquin of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights have offered to coordinate a joint submission for DWN allies to sign on to that will include: Read more…
1/24 in #DC: Protest the Private Prison Industry in Columbia Heights
Please join other DWN members and allies, along with friends from OccupyDC, to protest the private prison corporations who are driving the mass incarceration of people of color in the United States, including nearly 370,000 immigrants every year.
The action will take place Tuesday January 24 at 5:00pm at the Wells Fargo branch in Tivoli Square (between Park Road and Monroe Street off of 14th in Columbia Heights ). If you are interested in helping with the last stages of planning for the action, please send me an email. There will be a poster making party this weekend at the DWN offices. We are also looking for singers and musicians to help liven things up on what will likely be a cold night, so if you or someone you know has some talent that they would be willing to lend to the occasion, please get in touch! Read more…
Invitation to join study of #LGBT persons in immigration detention & collaborative #LGBT asylum working group
via Ariel Shidlo of Research Institute Without Walls:
The Research Institute Without Walls, an NGO that does collaborative research on the impact of human rights violations on LGBT mental health invites you to join the Collaborative Working Group for LGBT Asylum and Refugees.
Physician for Human Rights, Immigration Equality, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility are our first member groups.
The purpose of the Collaborative Working Group is to share information and coordinate research on the psychological effects of persecution and torture because of sexual orientation and gender identity in asylum seekers. This population faces special mental health challenges when navigating the challenges of rebuilding their lives. Read more…
