More complaints filed on treatment of LGBT refugee and immigrant detainees in US

Image by gianlucacostantini via Flickr

By Paul Canning

Complaints filed this week show that some LGBT detainees in the United States who are refugees, asylum seekers or undocumented are being subjected to inhuman, degrading and in some cases life-threatening treatment.

Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) has filed four more complaints with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), taking it to 17 filed since April.

All of these individuals are seeking protection from persecution in their native countries.

In one new case, a detainee was denied HIV treatment, which can be life-threatening.

Alexis* was detained at Boone County Jail, Kentucky, for two weeks in September then moved to Tri-County Detention Center, Illinois, where he remains. He immediately informed nurses that he was HIV+ and that he believed he had herpes. He has been seen by one doctor but in a public setting where it was unsafe to discuss his HIV status and a private exam was refused. He has still not been given HIV medication despite repeated requests to nurses and at Boone he was denied toothpaste, a toothbrush and soap for a fortnight.

Another new complaint tells of a transgender individual who was arbitrarily held in solitary confinement for 49 days.

The 13 complaints filed in April by NIJC detail instances of rape, sexual violence, misuse of segregation and punitive conditions in solitary confinement, denial of HIV treatment and hormone therapy, as well as pervasive discrimination and humiliation by guards on account of individuals' sexual orientation and gender identity.

"These latest reports highlight that abuse of vulnerable populations remains a systemic, pervasive problem in the immigration detention system," said NIJC Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy.

"It is unlawful for the U.S. government to detain individuals that it cannot protect."

One transgender woman detained in California was abused and singled out for public searches where guards forced her to remove her outer clothing and mocked her exposed breasts.

Both transgender and lesbian or gay people in immigration detention are often segregated and kept in cells for 22 hours per day. They have far less access to recreation compared with the general detainee population. When this transgender woman asked why she could have recreation access for only a couple of hours she was abused by a guard, told it was to "teach her not to be transgender." When she asked for toilet paper she was abused.

Transferred to a Jail she suffered further mistreatment and discrimination, including denial of access to a doctor.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released government documents this week containing 185 allegations of sexual abuse against female immigration detainees in federal detention centers since 2007.
Many of these women are refugees fleeing persecution including torture and rape.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) explicitly excludes immigration detention facilities from coverage under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

ACLU has provided detailed narratives by three women describing sexual assaults by guards whilst they were being transported in prison vans.

Human Rights Watch released a report last August that documented sex crimes committed in detention centers across eight states.

Since 9/11, the detainee population has increased from 7,500 people per day in 1995 to approximately 33,000 per day in 2010. With few dedicated immigration detention centers available to house the growing number of detainees, authorities began renting out beds in a variety of facilities primarily used for housing criminal convicts under very restrictive conditions. Often these facilities are in remote areas, restricting access to legal help. The intermingling and eventual conflation of civil and criminal detainees pushed immigration detention towards the highly punitive model prevalent today. Today nearly 400,000 undocumented immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers are detained every year.

*Name changed.

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Chicago forum addresses key LGBT immigration issues

Image by NidalM via Flickr

Source: Windy City Times

by Yasmin Nair

The Chicago-based LGBTQ Immigrant Rights Organization hosted a town hall forum to discuss immigrant issues Sept. 27 at the Adler School of Professional Psychology.

Mona Noriega, commissioner of human relations for the City of Chicago, was the moderator and took online questions ( as the event was streamed live online ) as well as inquiries from the floor. Panel presenters included U.S. Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Chicago, 4th District; and Mike Quigley, D-Chicago, 5th District.

Other panelists included Karen Zwick, supervising attorney for the LGBT Rights Initiative at the National Immigrant Justice Center ( NIJC ) ; Fred Tsao, policy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights ( ICIRR ) ; Reyna Wences, co-founder of the Immigrant Youth Justice League ( IYJL ) ; and Tania Unzueta, advocacy coordinator for the Association of Latino Men for Action ( ALMA ) . Unzueta is also a co-founder of IYJL.

Both lawmakers left an hour after the start of the forum, while the remaining panelists stayed to take questions from the audience in the room. The panel addressed four issues particularly relevant to the LGBTQ immigrant community: prosecutorial discretion, as outlined in an Aug. 18 Obama administration memorandum that lists 19 factors, including age at entry and a lack of a criminal record that enforcement authorities take into account when considering immigration and deportation cases; same-sex binational couples and the Defense of Marriage Act; detention conditions for LGBTQ immigrants; and asylum on the basis of sexual orientation.

As to the issue of prosecutorial discretion, Gutierrez said that it provided "an opportunity to show the strength of the movement." Both he and Zwick emphasized that the memo did not mean that immigrants no longer faced the possibility of being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) . Zwick said the benefits "should not be overstated."

Gutierrez talked about the Uniting American Families Act ( UAFA ) , proposed legislation which would enable LGBT citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration. He said that "UAFA will be an important part of CIR." Both legislators talked about the importance of recognizing a broader definition of family that would recognize LGBTQ relationships.

Kevin Goodwin took the floor to describe the struggle facing him and his Indonesian partner, who is applying for asylum.

Read more »

US government defending asylum seeker exclusion from prison rape law

Image via Wikipedia

By Jane Zurnamer

Dear members of the Department of Justice’s Review Panel on Prison Rape. Thank you for providing us with an opportunity to submit testimony concerning the exemption of immigration detention facilities from the proposed regulations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). In his introductory remarks regarding the implementation of PREA, Attorney General Holder confirmed: “Protection from sexual abuse should not depend on where an individual is incarcerated: It must be universal.”

There is no justification for failing to apply this principle to immigrants and asylum seekers who are in U.S. federal custody. In fact, the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission – a nonpartisan task force Congress established to draft the PREA regulations – recognized that detained immigrants require “special intervention” due to their “heightened vulnerability and unusual circumstances.” Failing to apply the PREA standards to immigrant detainees who are held in civil, not criminal custody, blatantly ignores these realities. 

Detained Immigrants are Particularly Vulnerable to Sexual Abuse in Custody 

We are in a unique position to attest to the particular challenges that individuals face in immigration detention. Immigrants in custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) face numerous obstacles that make them highly vulnerable to sexual assault. Many detained immigrants are either unable or unwilling to report sexual abuse due to language barriers, cultural differences, and a fear that reporting abuse will result in deportation or retaliation by prison guards. The fear of reporting assault is often exacerbated by a history of sexual violence and state-sanctioned abuse that individuals experienced in their home countries. Moreover, unlike criminal defendants, detained immigrants do not have the right to a court-appointed attorney.

Lack of representation means that most are not aware of their right to be free from sexual abuse, and often do not know where to turn if they are sexually assaulted. The result is that the perpetrators of sexual abuse in immigration facilities act with immunity for their crimes. 

NIJC’s client Juan illustrates this extreme vulnerability. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Juan*, a gay man seeking asylum, in a remote area of the Southeast. Juan faced obstacles typical of immigrants in isolated detention centers: he lacked legal representation and had limited capacity to communicate with guards or his deportation officer.

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Why is Obama refusing to protect detained asylum seekers, migrants from rape?

Source: National Immigrant Justice Centre

Sexual violence is pervasive in America’s prisons and jails. Congress took an important step to prevent sexual abuse in prison when it passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which set a “zero-tolerance standard” for prison rape and created guidelines to hold correctional facilities accountable for protecting inmates. But the Obama administration refuses to apply these protections to the 400,000 immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers it detains every year, even though a 2010 report by Human Rights Watch uncovered numerous allegations of sexual abuse in immigration detention facilities.

This exemption is flawed and dangerous and It is time for the Obama administration to apply PREA’s common-sense standards to all immigration detention facilities. This policy brief examines the need for PREA protection in immigration detention facilities and the important impact this measure would have.

Take Action: Protect the human rights of detained immigrants

Tell US Attorney General Eric Holder to uphold his committment to universal protection for all people in American prisons and jails. Ask him to implement the PREA regulations and include immigration detention facilities as mandated by Congress and international law.

• Send an email to Holder at www.immigrantjustice.org/action/prea or call (202) 353-1555.

Policy Brief PREA

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Action alert: US authorities won't release recognised gay Honduran refugee

Source: National Immigration Justice Coalition

UPDATE, 22 September: Miguel has finally been freed from detention.

“I am very happy,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to get out [of detention]. There’s nothing like freedom. Thank you to everyone who supported me.” 

~~~~~

Miguel Caceres Juarez fled Honduras after being targeted for abuse and persecution since age 12 because he is gay. Gang members tortured, raped, and beat Miguel on multiple occasions. His own brother harassed and beat him and threatened to decapitate him.

He came to the United States because he feared he would be killed. Miguel was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a county jail as the U.S. government sought to deport him back to Honduras. 

On July 12, 2011, a U.S. immigration judge determined Miguel was a refugee and granted him withholding of removal, a form of immigration protection for people who have suffered or fear persecution in their native countries. But ICE refuses to release him from immigration detention even though he has won his case and the government attorneys are not appealing the decision nor seeking his removal to any alternate country.

• Tell ICE to release Miguel immediately.

Miguel should be able to celebrate his new-found safety and freedom in the United States, but as long as he remains detained, he continues to be at risk for the same human rights abuses he suffered in Honduras. The ICE immigration detention system is broken and continues to put vulnerable immigrants like Miguel at risk. Throughout his detention, Miguel has suffered harassment, abuse, and threats because of his sexual identity.

ICE has no lawful grounds to detain Miguel, whose abuse continues every day he remains in custody.

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• In Honduras, violent homophobia is 'rampant' (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

In the US, growing concern over treatment of LGBT asylum seeker, refugee detainees

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Jane Zurnamer, National Immigrant Justice Center

Defending the rights of sexual minorities in the custody of the U.S. immigration detention system has gained momentum since the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) filed a mass civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in April 2011. The complaint, submitted to DHS’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on behalf of 13 gay and transgender individuals in immigration detention documented the discrimination, abuse, and medical neglect that these individuals suffered in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The complaints report instances of rape, sexual violence, misuse of segregation and punitive conditions in solitary confinement, denial of HIV treatment and hormone therapy, as well as pervasive discrimination and humiliation by guards on account of individuals’ sexual orientation and gender identity.

Since NIJC filed the complaint, policy makers and advocates from across the country have come out to join us in defending the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) immigrants in detention:

• Media all over the country reported on the systemic abuse detailed in the complaints. Several of the complainants courageously spoke out about the abuse they suffered.
• Members of Congress held a briefing on the mistreatment of sexual minorities in immigrant detention, and are pressing the Obama administration to provide a full and comprehensive investigation into the complaints. On June 29, 38 members of Congress sent a letter [see below] to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder calling for thorough investigations into the complaints and for the Obama administration to apply protections and remedies contained in the Prison Rape Elimination Act to immigration detention facilities.
• One of the Southern California jails which formerly held a blanket policy prohibiting the provision of hormone therapy for transgender individuals – violating DHS standards – has tweaked its policies. Still falling short of recognized medical standards, the facility now provides access to hormone prescriptions for individuals who can document they were receiving treatment prior to their detention.
• Another of the Southern California jails has modified its practice and is no longer holding transgender individuals in 22-hour lock down.
• NIJC filed an urgent appeal with the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture describing repeated instances of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against sexual minorities in U.S. immigration custody, adding further pressure on the Obama administration to expedite the investigation process and issue public findings.
• Lambda Legal and 16 other advocates issued a letter [PDF] in support of NIJC’s recommendations calling on the Obama administration to end the pervasive discrimination against sexual minorities in immigration custody.
• New York City Council Member Daniel Dromm introduced a resolution on June 29, urging DHS to investigate the abuse allegations and to take action to ensure the safety of LGBT immigrants in its custody.

Despite these local, national and international efforts, NIJC continues to receive complaints from LGBT immigrants of routine mistreatment.

Since the filing of the mass complaint we are aware of at least 10 new cases of abuse. Further, five of the 13 original complainants are still detained. All of these individuals are seeking protection from persecution in their native countries. They are not flight risks, nor do they pose a danger to the community.

The U.S. government cannot continue to detain people whose basic human rights it cannot protect. What will it take for the Obama administration to meaningfully address this systemic abuse?

House Letter in Support of LGBT Civil Rights Complaint

Read more »

In US, violent, sexual abuse of LGBT refugee detainees draws too little attention

COMMENT

By Paul Canning

Over the past year a number of American non-government organisations have reported on the abuses prevalent in that country's vast and expanding immigration detention system. This website has covered those reports.

One transgender woman detained in California was abused and singled out for public searches where guards forced her to remove her outer clothing and mocked her exposed breasts.

Both transgender and lesbian or gay people in immigration detention are often segregated and kept in cells for 22 hours per day. They have far less access to recreation compared with the general detainee population. When this transgender woman asked why she could have recreation access for only a couple of hours she was abused by a guard, told it was to “teach her not to be transgender.” When she asked for toilet paper she was abused.

Transferred to a Jail she suffered further mistreatment and discrimination, including denial of access to a doctor.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has documented the prison-like conditions to which immigration detainees of all ages are subjected. This means confining detainees in general in small cells for up to 12 hours a day, forcing them to wear prison uniforms, and routinely depriving them of access to education, health care, and privacy.

Mass immigration detention is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. Prior to the 1980s, only those immigrants deemed “a danger to national security” were detained for any period of time. Mass detention as we know it today evolved under the Reagan administration, as a means of deterring large influxes of Cuban, Haitian, and Central American refugees.

Read more »

NIJC files mass civil rights complaint for LGBT immigration detainees

Image via Wikipedia

By National Immigrant Justice Center - A Heartland Alliance Partner

Hundreds of immigrants are trapped in the U.S. immigration detention system, vulnerable to discrimination and abuse with little recourse for justice. Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center submitted civil rights complaints this week on behalf of 13 transgender and gay immigrants recently and currently held in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detention centers and county jails throughout the United States.

These complaints detail sexual assault, denials of medical care, arbitrary confinement, and severe harassment and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) immigrants. The individuals who filed complaints all came to the United States to escape persecution in their native countries, only to face continued abuse in the immigration system. The experiences of these courageous individuals reflect the wrongful treatment suffered by hundreds of LGBT immigrants in DHS detention facilities throughout the country.

Civil rights complaint for LGBT immigration detainees

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New report shows thousands of refugees denied protection due to asylum filing deadline

By Dusty Arunjo

Washington, D.C. - 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 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, 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.”

 The study’s conclusions are detailed in a new report, The One-Year Asylum Deadline and the BIA: No Protection, No Process (PDF), a collaboration among the National Immigrant Justice Center’s National Asylum Partnership on Sexual Minorities, Human Rights First, and Penn State Law’s 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. The study analyzed 3,472 BIA asylum cases decided in January from 2005 to 2008.

The report is available at www.immigrantjustice.org/oneyeardeadline.

Enacted in 1996, the one-year filing deadline requires asylum seekers to establish by “clear and convincing” evidence that their asylum applications were filed within one year of their arrival in the United States, or demonstrate that their applications were delayed due to changed or extraordinary circumstances. Asylum seekers who cannot meet these requirements, even if they are refugees with well-founded fears of persecution, are barred from asylum protection and face deportation to the countries from which they fled.
Among the report’s key findings are the following:

• One out of five asylum cases was denied because it was filed 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. 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.

“Our study found that the one-year deadline serves no public policy purpose other than to bar legitimate refugees from obtaining the protection they deserve under international and U.S. law,” said Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, clinical professor of law, Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights. “It is not being applied in the way Congress intended and should be repealed.”

Recommendations

Only legislative repeal of the deadline will ensure that refugees are not denied protection based on a technicality. The U.S. Attorney General, who supervises the BIA, also should take a number of steps outlined in the report – including to revise regulations governing exceptions to the deadline and require adjudicators to consider more circumstances that justify delayed filings.

“This study confirms that the filing deadline is leading the United States to deny asylum to credible refugees who are likely to face persecution in their home countries,” said Eleanor Acer, director of Human Rights First’s Refugee Protection Program. “Not only is the deadline inconsistent with this country’s commitment to protecting the persecuted, but it also wastes already limited government resources litigating a technicality. Congress should simply eliminate the asylum filing deadline.”

The One-Year Asylum Deadline and the BIA: No Protection, No Process is available for download as a PDF at www.immigrantjustice.org/oneyeardeadline.

Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) is a Chicago-based organization dedicated to ensuring human rights protections and access to justice for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers through a unique combination of direct services, policy reform, impact litigation and public education. NIJC's National Asylum Partnership on Sexual Minorities (NAPSM) applies a comprehensive human rights and due process framework to issues that particularly affect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-positive immigrants. www.immigrantjustice.org

Human Rights First (HRF) provides pro bono legal representation to refugees who seek asylum and advocates for their protection consistent with international refugee and human rights conventions and law. Based in Washington, D.C., and New York, HRF builds respect for human rights and the rule of law to help ensure the dignity to which everyone is entitled and to stem intolerance, tyranny, and violence. HRF safeguards the rights of refugees through direct legal services and advocacy by helping asylum seekers find safety in the United States and by advocating for progressive reform of asylum policies.www.humanrightsfirst.org

Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights. Launched in 2008, the Center for Immigrants’ Rights is an immigration clinic where students work on innovative advocacy and policy projects relating to U.S. immigration primarily through representation of immigration organizations. The mission of the Center is to represent immigrants’ interests through legal excellence, advocacy, education, and collaboration with key stakeholders and the community. http://law.psu.edu