November, 29 2021, 11:54am EDT
Undocumented Detainees Petition for Immediate Release as Biden's Prosecutorial Discretion Memo Goes Into Effect
Several detainees in ICE detention facilities filed petitions for release today, as the Biden Administration's new Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration law went into effect.
WASHINGTON
Several detainees in ICE detention facilities filed petitions for release today, as the Biden Administration's new Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration law went into effect.
The petitions filed this morning marks the beginning of a long journey for undocumented people across the country who have been unjustly detained and denied their due process.
"The new guidelines enacted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today represent a victory in the hard won battle around anti-criminalization waged by organizers," said Jacinta Gonzalez, Senior Campaign Organizer for Mijente. "For the first time, there are no categorical exclusions based on criminal convictions -- in other words, no criminal conviction will automatically make someone a priority for deportation. Eliminating these criminal bars will help diminish the arbitrary and discriminatory framework used by law enforcement to take away immigrants' rights."
For many years, DHS has systematically retaliated against immigrant rights organizers and leaders. From surveilling protests against family separation to deporting immigrant activists who speak out about ICE abuse, to pursuing deportation to undocumented people who do not pose a threat to public safety, DHS has weaponized immigration enforcement to punish those who speak out against injustice.
DHS frequently targets undocumented people who have already served time for criminal offenses, indefinitely incarcerating immigrants with no clear path to release -- a practice proven to be deadly during the COVID pandemic.
"Today begins another stage and opportunity for anti-deportation organizers around the country to continue fighting case by case. We certainly have a lot to accomplish on immigration, but we want to take every opportunity to defend our people," stated Jacinta Gonzalez.
About the Filers
Enrique Cristobal Meneses immigrated to California when he was 14 years old. In 2005, as a young adult, Enrique was sentenced to 27 years to life in the California prison system. For the past decade, he has attended classes, workshops, and self-help groups, and obtained his certification to be a substance use counselor. On November 11, 2020, in recognition of Enrique's rehabilitation, California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly commuted his sentence. However, Enrique was immediately transferred into ICE custody upon his release. Enrique has been detained in Golden State Annex in McFarland, CA since his release from prison where has suffered retaliation at the hands of ICE following the exercise of his First Amendment right to advocate for improved workplace conditions. The retaliation Enrique suffered includes wrongful termination of employment; purposeful deprivation of anxiety medication and access to mental health services; and the threat of transfer farther away from counsel and supportive community members.
Israel Arrascue was sentenced to serve a two-month sentence after committing a non-violent crime. He was almost immediately transferred to ICE custody and has been cycled between jail and NWPDC for two years. Arrascue suffers from chronic asthma, contracted COVID this year after a guard who refused to be vaccinated tested positive and spread the virus to detainees. His physical and mental health has dramatically deteriorated since his detainment: he has developed prediabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, and was hospitalized for gallstones. His family has had to take out nearly $20,000 in loans to pay lawyers' fees.
La Resistencia, a grassroots organization based in Washington State working to end the detention of immigrants, is delivering Mr. Arrascue's filing to the ICE Seattle offices today.
We are a political home for Latinx and Chicanx people who seek racial, economic, gender and climate justice.
LATEST NEWS
Dozens of UK Universities Warned of Criminal Liability Over Israeli Weapons Investments
"Aiding, abetting and in any other way assisting in the commission of a war crime including 'providing the means for its commission' is a war crime," said the director of a legal group.
May 01, 2024
As U.S. campus protests and the aggressive police response galvanized a growing number of British students to set up their own encampments at universities across the country on Wednesday, a legal group informed dozens of higher education institutions in the U.K. that their investments in weapons manufacturers could leave them open to criminal liability stemming from human rights violations by Israel.
The International Center of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) warned officers at 82 universities that if they have profited from investments in companies including Elbit Systems, Caterpillar, and BAE Systems, their financial holdings may be linked to weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces in its current escalation against Gaza.
"Aiding, abetting and in any other way assisting in the commission of a war crime including 'providing the means for its commission' is a war crime," said ICJP director Tayab Ali, citing Article 25 of the Rome Statute.
The companies in question also "have a track record of providing equipment that has been used in home demolitions, the illegal Israeli separation wall in the West Bank and around Jerusalem, and other tools of apartheid," said the ICJP, making the universities potentially complicit in Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank.
Dania Abul Haj, senior legal officer for ICJP, said in a statement that "the massive crackdown on civil liberties we are seeing in the U.S. is a huge catalyst" for the group's letter to the universities.
"This money is paid to the universities by the students, and yet their voice is being totally disregarded in how it is being immorally invested," said Abul Haj.
Solidarity encampments were set up at schools including University of Warwick, University of Bristol, and Newcastle University this week.
Students in the U.S., U.K., and other countries have demanded that universities divest from companies in tech, weapons manufacturing, and other industries that contract with Israel.
Student organizers at the University of York celebrated last week as administrators announced it had divested from companies that "primarily make or sell weapons," following mass protests, marches, and rallies held at the school.
"Investment in these companies was already morally bankrupt," Abul Haj toldMiddle East Eye. "In the current circumstances, it is beyond belief that universities, which are educational institutions, paving the way for future generations of leaders and politicians, would continue to invest in them."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israeli Finance Minister Denounced for Calling for 'Total Annihilation' of Gaza
"But… did he say it on a college campus? Otherwise, it's just not news. Sorry, them's the rules," said one journalist sardonically.
May 01, 2024
In just the latest example of a top Israeli official openly calling for the elimination of Gaza and the 2.3 million Palestinians who live there, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday demanded the destruction of cities and refugee camps in the blockaded enclave.
"There are no half measures," said Smotrich at a government meeting. "Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat—total annihilation."
"'You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven,'" he added, quoting the biblical story of the nation of Amalek, whose people God commanded the Israelites to exterminate and which right-wing Israeli leaders have long invoked to justify the killing of Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also referenced Amalek in the first weeks of Israel's current escalation against Gaza; Smotrich's comments came as he and other government officials pushed Netanyahu to forge ahead with a planned attack on the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people have been displaced as other cities across Gaza have been decimated by Israeli forces.
Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), called on President Joe Biden to stop condemning thousands of U.S. college students who have demanded a cease-fire and an end to military aid for Israel and direct his ire toward the Israeli government, which he has repeatedly insisted is targeting Hamas despite its genocidal statements and indiscriminate attacks.
"In case the Israeli government's genocidal intent in Gaza was unclear to anyone despite its daily war crimes against the Palestinian people, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's words should serve as another wake-up call," said Hooper. "The intent of the Netanyahu government has always been Palestinian land without Palestinians, and violence has always been the route to achieve that heinous goal. Instead of condemning college students, President Biden must condemn Israeli leaders for making and acting on their genocidal threats."
In recent months, Israeli officials have stated that the "migration" of Gaza residents is their ultimate goal in relentlessly attacking the enclave, that all Palestinians in Gaza are "responsible" for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October and are legitimate targets, that the enclave should be "flattened," and that the Israel Defense Forces is fighting "human animals."
Journalist Mehdi Hasan sardonically suggested that Smotrich's comments will be deemed acceptable by the Biden administration, members of Congress, and the U.S. corporate media because he didn't "say it on a college campus."
"Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the security cabinet, ought to be fired immediately over his latest remarks," read an editorial in Haaretz Tuesday night that was published as police in New York were storming Columbia University to arrest students. "That's how any properly run country would act, and all the more so a country against which the International Court of Justice in The Hague has issued provisional measures requiring it to refrain from genocide, including one requiring it to deal properly with incitement to genocide."
Smotrich and others have objected to what National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Tuesday called a "reckless" deal that would allow for the release of scores of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners who have long been detained in Israeli jails. The deal would include a 40-day halt in fighting.
CAIR also pointed out Tuesday that five units of Israel's security forces have been accused of committing a "gross violation of human rights," according to a U.S. State Department analysis.
"Our nation's repeated claim that it supports international law and human rights," said national executive director Nihad Awad, "is a cruel illusion."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Florida's Near-Total Ban Shows Real-Life Version of Trump Abortion Policy
"There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump," said President Joe Biden. "This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: Don't mess with the women of America."
May 01, 2024
As former Republican U.S. President Donald Trump campaigns on his contribution to reversing
Roe v. Wade and endorses letting states track pregnancies and prosecute those who violate local restrictions on reproductive care, Florida's six-week abortion ban took effect on Wednesday.
Abortion rights have dominated this year's contest between Trump, a Florida resident, and Democratic President Joe Biden—who blamed the presumptive GOP candidate for the new ban, which prohibits care before many patients know they are pregnant.
"There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump," Biden said in a campaign statement. "Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade, making extreme bans like Florida's possible, saying his plan is working 'brilliantly.' He thinks it's brilliant that more than 4 million women in Florida, and more than 1 in 3 women in America, can't get access to the care they need."
"Trump brags about overturning Roe v. Wade, making extreme bans like Florida's possible."
"Now, he wants to go even further, making it clear he would sign a national abortion ban if elected. Just yesterday, he once again endorsed punishing women for getting the care they need," Biden continued. "Trump is worried the voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He's right. Trump ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America. This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: Don't mess with the women of America."
Florida's six-week ban—signed last spring by a failed Trump primary challenger, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—was allowed to go into effect because of a state Supreme Court ruling last month. The same day, the high court approved a ballot initiative—known as Amendment 4—that would outlaw pre-viability abortion bans in Florida. The measure is expected to appear on the November ballot.
Dr. Chelsea Daniels of the Yes on 4 campaign, which is working the pass the ballot measure, said Wednesday that "the women of Florida are in trouble. Today, we awoke to a new world. A world where the state, and not individuals, is in control of our bodies, our lives, and our futures. A world where treatable complications in pregnancies will become life-threatening, not because we don't know how to treat them, but because we won't be allowed."
Daniels continued:
It should go without saying that doctors should not have to risk criminal prosecution to treat the patient in front of them.
But these bans have even more dangerous consequences for patients: a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who was raped had to travel to Indiana to get the abortion she needed, and in Texas, one woman who miscarried lost liters of blood and had to go on a breathing machine before doctors were legally able to intervene and help her. And in Louisiana, we've seen the OB-GYN shortage that anti-abortion bans have caused for the entire state.
"Don't believe the politicians who say there are meaningful exceptions in this law for rape and incest," the doctor added. "The so-called exceptions are a cruel deception designed to fail women and girls when they are most in need."
NBC Newsreported Tuesday that before Florida's new law took effect, abortion clinics in the state had full waiting rooms and "phones were ringing off the hook" as providers were "trying to see as many patients as possible" before Wednesday.
"Tomorrow is going to look very different," Kelly Flynn, CEO of A Woman's Choice of Jacksonville, told the outlet Tuesday. "A lot of patients will come in for the consult and be told that we can't see them."
Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida interim CEO Barbara Zdravecky similarly told the Orlando Sentinel that she expects the group's clinics will have to decline care.
"Planned Parenthood's motto has always been 'care no matter what.' And we don't turn patients away," she said. "So this is a very devastating and tragic situation for our staff, who have to say, 'We can't take care of you, we have to send you someplace else.'"
Zdravecky confirmed clinics will still provide follow-up exams to those who acquire abortion pills online, saying that "we want to be able to assist anyone with any type of care that we legally can do in order to make sure they have the care that they need to stay healthy."
The newspaper noted that "those who can find the funds will travel to other states. For most Floridians, and most of the southeast U.S., the closest state to get an abortion past six weeks will be North Carolina. The closest place to terminate a pregnancy past 12 weeks will be Virginia or Illinois."
"It is horrifying that extremist politicians have forced pregnant people and their healthcare providers into this nightmare. But it does not have to be this way."
Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel at the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement that "no one should be forced to travel thousands of miles across state lines in search of essential healthcare."
"It is horrifying that extremist politicians have forced pregnant people and their healthcare providers into this nightmare. But it does not have to be this way," Gross added. "Amendment 4, which limits government interference with abortion, will be on the ballot this November and we must all vote yes on 4 to ensure that the freedom to determine whether and when to grow our family remains with the people—not politicians."
Like the ACLU of Florida, Planned Parenthood is among the groups backing the ballot measure. So is Flynn, who founded the independent clinic in Jacksonville over two decades ago.
"I am optimistic that we will have the votes," she said. "In the meantime, we are really talking to patients and explaining to them how important this is to get out and vote."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular