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Tasha Moro
Communications Coordinator
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) objects to the President's decision to detain and expedite deportations of thousands of children fleeing persecution and violence in Central America. The NLG also opposes any efforts by Congress to roll back critical human rights protections - such as the right of an unaccompanied minor to see an immigration judge - in the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization.
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) objects to the President's decision to detain and expedite deportations of thousands of children fleeing persecution and violence in Central America. The NLG also opposes any efforts by Congress to roll back critical human rights protections - such as the right of an unaccompanied minor to see an immigration judge - in the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization. The Guild is disturbed that the Department of Homeland Security has continued to jail thousands of women and children in hastily erected family detention centers, despite reports of abuse. Detaining and deporting refugees is a wholly inadequate response by the Obama administration and ignores the root causes of this forced migration. The NLG calls on the Obama administration to: (1) adhere to its international human rights obligations and designate these children as refugees; (2) halt the expansion of family detention centers; (3) meaningfully respond to reports of abuse; and (4) provide counsel for children to ensure their civil and human rights are protected.
Many of these unaccompanied children describe systemic violence, enslavement, and trafficking in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. According to the UN, the majority of these children reported a targeted fear, such as a death threat or attempted kidnapping, as reasons for their departure. The majority of these children faced an incredibly dangerous journey, often marked by robberies, rape, and assault, to seek refuge in the US and other countries in the region, such as Mexico, Belize, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
The current refugee influx is not a new phenomenon. For the last four years, several immigrants' rights and international groups have tracked an increasing exodus of children from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. It is no coincidence that the countries generating the most refugees are on the direct receiving end of harmful US foreign policies, such as the US-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which eviscerated Central American economies; US government interference with democratic policies of leftist governments in Honduras and El Salvador; and US continued support for the "War on Drugs," pushing cartels from Colombia into Central America.
One stark example of US implication in the recent crisis is its support of the 2009 military coup in Honduras, which gutted democratic and economic reforms, and its continuing support of the coup government. The NLG has sent three delegations to Honduras since the June 2009 coup that ousted democratically elected President Manual Zelaya: (1) shortly after the coup in August 2009; (2) as credentialed election monitors for the November 2013 elections; and (3) last month, on the fifth anniversary of the coup. Based on its interviews and observations, the NLG has consistently expressed its concern about the grave human rights crisis in the country.[1]
It is unfortunate and telling that the US, despite signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child on February 16, 1995 - an international treaty supported by such broad international consensus that it was ratified by 193 of the 195 sovereign and independent UN members - has continued to tarnish its international reputation by refusing sanctuary to refugee children in their time of need. Smaller countries like Turkey, Kenya and Jordan have offered refuge to millions during comparable human rights crises. For the US, fifty-thousand refugees are entirely manageable.
The US has historically failed to take meaningful, humanitarian action in response to refugee crises.[2] This is an opportunity for the country to change that trend. The United States must not abandon its self-proclaimed commitment to human rights when these children need it the most.
Already, members of the NLG and its National Immigration Project have joined other groups in filing a class action lawsuit demanding that the US provide children with legal counsel[3] and are investigating reports of abuse in detention centers.[4] To help remedy this situation and prevent similar ones in the future, the Obama administration must redress US foreign policies that undermine democratically-elected institutions in Central America and fuel the ongoing human rights crisis in the region.
ends
[1] National Lawyers Guild Honduras delegation reports available at:https://www.nlginternational.org/report/HONDURAS_FINAL_Prelim_Report_Eng_.pdf andhttps://www.nlginternational.org/report/NLG_Honduras_Election_October_2013_Report.pdf
[2] One case in point is from June 6, 1939, when the United States government turned away the MS St. Louis, a German trans-Atlantic liner carrying 937 Jewish refugees fleeing from the Third Reich, and forced them to return to Europe.
[3] https://www.nwirp.org/news/viewmediarelease/40062 (last visited July 17, 2014)
[4] https://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/unaccompanied-immigrant-children-report-serious-abuse-us-officials-during (last visited July 17, 2014)
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) works to promote human rights and the rights of ecosystems over property interests. It was founded in 1937 as the first national, racially-integrated bar association in the U.S.
(212) 679-5100"Our schools are starved for resources with a $32.7 billion surplus, yet Gov. Abbott has no problem spending $1,841 per person for a political stunt," said one Texan.
Since April 2022, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has spent over $221 million in taxpayer money transporting nearly 120,000 migrants to six Democrat-led cities outside of the state, the Washington Examinerrevealed Thursday.
"That's roughly $1,841 per person," noted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council who has previously criticized Abbott's "dehumanizing" bus scheme and other elements of the governor's Operation Lone Star.
"By comparison, a bus ticket to New York costs about $215, while a flight costs about $350," he highlighted. "It would have WAY cheaper to just give migrants money for tickets. Abbott's effort not only made it a political stunt, it lined a contractor's pocket."
As the conservative Examiner reported:
A public information request filed to the Texas Division of Emergency Management showed that the state made more than 750 payments totaling $221,705,637 to transportation companies since the start of operations in April 2022 and August 2024.
Nearly all of the costs were picked up by the state's 30 million residents, with a small portion, $460,196, donated from outside parties. Less than 1% of the $221 million was picked up by nontaxpayers.
The Examiner noted that the almost 120,000 migrants bused north are a "small number" of the more than 5.3 million people who crossed the southern border illegally but have been allowed to remain in the United States since January 2021, according to a U.S. House Judiciary Committee draft report the outlet exclusively obtained earlier this year.
While the busing reportedly stopped earlier this summer due to lack of demand, Abbott's office said last month that since 2022, his taxpayer-funded scheme had transported over 45,900 migrants to New York City, 36,900 to Chicago, 19,200 to Denver, 12,500 to Washington, D.C., 3,400 to Philadelphia, and 1,500 to Los Angeles.
"The overwhelming majority of migrants didn't want to stay in Texas. They wanted to go elsewhere. So if the question was the most efficient way to help them leave the state, the answer would be just buy them tickets and not pay millions to bus them to NYC," Reichlin-Melnick said Thursday. "They are able to live wherever they want while they go through the court process. It's just that many people used up every last cent to get here, so a free bus from Abbott was a very enticing option."
"I've been on record saying that most migrants were extremely happy with the free buses. Despite a lot of lies out there about migrants being bought tickets, the reality is that nearly all migrants have to purchase transportation away from the border, making free buses a godsend," he added. "The problem with the buses has always been that they weaponized migrants by going to only a small handful of politically charged locations (regardless of where migrants wanted to go), and that they were a big waste of money given the cheaper option of donating bus/plane tickets."
In addition to the busing stunt, Abbott has come under fire in recent years for installing razor wire and buoys—which critics called "death traps"—in the Rio Grande as well as signing a pair of anti-migrant bills that Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, described as "deeply harmful and unconstitutional."
According to a New York Times investigation published in July, over half of the migrants bused out Texas were initially from Venezuela—a South American nation enduring not only ongoing political turmoil but also U.S. economic sanctions that, as hundreds of legal experts and groups wrote last month, "extensively harm civilian populations" and "often drive mass migration."
"Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance," said one observer.
A Republican-appointed U.S. federal judge in Georgia raised eyebrows and objections Thursday after taking what observers called the "unprecedented" step of blocking a rule that hasn't even been finalized in order to stop the Biden administration from implementing a plan to deliver promised debt relief to millions of student borrowers.
U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia James Randal Hall issued an order blocking the Biden administration's proposed federal student debt relief rule. Hall—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—granted a motion by a coalition of right-wing state attorneys general to preempt the rule's eventual implementation.
"The court is substituting its judgment for those elected to serve the public," American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in response to the ruling. "It subverts the democratic process and denies relief to student loan borrowers, many of whom rely on debt relief programs already advanced by the Biden-Harris administration."
"This court's unprecedented decision to block a rule that does not yet exist is not only bad for the 30 million borrowers who were relying on the administration to deliver much-needed relief," she continued. "It's a harbinger of the chaos and corruption right-wing judges seek to force on the American people."
Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center—which called the ruling "dangerous and unprecedented"—denounced Hall for preventing the Biden administration from delivering student debt relief "even though no plan has been finalized."
"This is an extraordinary break with precedent and a brazen move by the conservative movement to shift even more power to unelected, unaccountable red-state judges," he said. "Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance."
"This is the clearest sign yet that Project 2025 is already terrorizing student loan borrowers through a slow-moving judicial coup," Pierce added, referring to a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right takeover of the federal government—which critics warn would worsen the U.S. student debt crisis.
Biden's proposal would forgive some or all student debt for around 30 million borrowers who have been repaying undergraduate loans for at least 20 years, or graduate loans for 25 years.
Hall's order is based on what he said was the plaintiffs' "substantial likelihood of success on the merits given the rule's lack of statutory authority" and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona's "attempt to implement a rule contrary to normal procedures."
"This is especially true in light of the recent rulings across the country striking down similar federal student loan forgiveness plans," he added.
The U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority last year struck down Biden's initial plan to relieve up to $20,000 in federal scholastic debt for around 40 million borrowers, and last month the justices kept in place a sweeping suspension of the administration's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which aims to lower monthly repayments and hasten loan forgiveness.
"We're here for you and your children," one campaigner told a police officer who was arresting her. "We're here for our world."
Closing out a "historic" summer of civil disobedience—but with no plans to back off their demands that Wall Street divest from planet-heating fossil fuels—the "Summer of Heat" campaign blockaded the entrance of Citibank's headquarters in New York for an hour on Thursday.
At the 32nd protest held by Stop the Money Pipeline, New York Communities for Change, and other groups since June 10, organizers said 50 people were arrested, including climate scientists and an advocate dressed as an orca—a reference to numerous cases of whales ramming and sinking luxury yachts in recent years.
"The water is too damn hot!" said the costumed protester. "Stop funding fossil fuels."
Summer of Heat has targeted Citibank due to its status as Wall Street's largest funder of methane gas extraction since 2016 and the second-worst funder of oil, coal, and gas projects in recent years, spending $396.3 billion from 2016-23.
For an hour, roughly 1,000 Citibank employees were barred from entering the building as protesters blocked the doors.
"I've been studying climate change since 1982 and no one is listening to the data," said biologist and anti-fracking advocate Sandra Steingraber—who has joined multiple Summer of Heat actions—as she was arrested. "So today they're going to have to listen to my body blocking the doors of the world's largest funder of new fossil fuel projects."
More than 5,000 people have joined Summer of Heat protests since June, and there have been more than 600 arrests. Citibank's response to the demonstrators has escalated to violence at times, with a security guard punching one protester in the building's lobby last month.
One woman told police arresting her on Thursday that her grandson suffers from asthma resulting from wildfire smoke, which climate scientists have linked to fossil fuel extraction and planetary heating.
"We're here for you and your children," she told an officer. "We're here for our world."
As the campaigners blocked the Citibank entrance, cellist John Mark Rozendaal and Stop the Money Pipeline director Alec Connon were preparing to attend a court hearing on Friday regarding assault and criminal contempt charges. Connon has said he was "falsely accused of assault by Citibank security so they could get a restraining order" keeping him from returning to protests at the headquarters.
Mary Lawlor, United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, expressed "strong concern at the charges" and said she would be "closely following" the trial.