U.N. report criticizes U.S. treatment of migrants

America does not adequately protect the human rights of noncitizens, says an investigator. He takes aim at increased detentions, saying they are overused.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 8, 2008

The United States has failed to uphold its international obligations to protect the human rights of migrants, subjecting too many to prolonged detention in substandard facilities while depriving them of an adequate appeals process and labor protections, a United Nations investigator said Friday.

In the international body’s first scrutiny of U.S. treatment of its 37.5 million noncitizen migrants, U.N. investigator Jorge Bustamante took particular aim at what he criticized as the “overuse” of detention for immigrants. Noting that the annual detainee population has tripled in nine years to 230,000, he called on the United States to eliminate mandatory detention for certain migrants and instead expand the use of alternatives, such as electronic ankle bracelets.

Bustamante, who visited Los Angeles last year during a three-week fact-finding mission, also urged that migrants be given the right to legal counsel, more impartial hearings and improved holding facilities, particularly for women and children.

“The United States lacks a clear, consistent, long-term strategy to improve respect for the human rights of migrants,” said his report, which was presented Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. Bustamante serves as the body’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants.

In a statement to the council, the U.S. delegation called the report disappointing.

The report “focuses only on a narrow slice of the migrant population in the United States and makes no effort to recognize notable, positive aspects of U.S. migration policy,” the statement said. “This results in an incomplete and biased picture of the human rights of migrants.”

The delegation said the United States had one of the world’s most generous immigration policies and offered more than 11 million migrants green cards, citizenship, asylum, refugee resettlement and temporary protected status between 2000 and 2006. The United Nations estimates that global migrants number 200 million, with the United States by far the largest haven, with 35 million as of 2000.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Kelly Nantel also criticized Bustamante, saying he did not adequately consider the voluminous information provided him by U.S. officials documenting migrant protections in place here.

Those include the right to seek administrative review of detention and deportation decisions, along with access to federal courts to challenge removal orders.

Bustamante “has made a number of inaccurate or misleading claims and has drawn sweeping conclusions that appear to be based on anecdotal evidence from a small sample of individuals, for which he fails to provide appropriate evidence and reasoning,” Nantel said.

At the U.S. government’s invitation, Bustamante visited seven cities last year to interview dozens of migrants, community activists, immigration attorneys and senior government officials. He toured the U.S.-Mexican border and visited a federal detention center in Arizona, but he was denied access to other facilities in Texas and New Jersey.

In his two-day visit to Los Angeles in May, Bustamante said he was concerned about “rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States” and took testimony about worker abuse, government raids, family separations and other issues. In his report, he wrote that xenophobia and racism toward migrants had worsened since the Sept. 11 attacks, with a particularly devastating effect on children, Afro-Caribbean migrants, and those perceived to be Muslim or ethnic South Asians and Middle Easterners.

But the report said that two federal laws passed in 1996 accounted for the biggest changes toward a stricter approach in U.S. immigration policy. Among other things, the laws increased the number of people subject to mandatory, prolonged and indefinite detention, including those who commit an expanded list of crimes such as minor drug offenses, the report said. The laws also reduced avenues of appeal and limited judges’ discretion to grant migrants the right to remain in the United States.

The growing reliance on detention tears families apart and costs U.S. taxpayers $1.2 billion a year, the report said. In contrast, alternatives such as electronic monitoring are far cheaper — about 20% of the cost of detention, according to a 2006 congressional report.

Human rights activists hailed the report as an important and independent voice that brings public attention to problems faced by migrants.

“The U.S. touts the importance of human rights abroad, but rhetoric doesn’t match the reality at home,” said Chandra Bhatnagar of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York. “All we are asking is to bring human rights home.”

 Delegates:

BMUN 56 will be taking place in less than a week. As your prepare for next weekend’s conference, you may have questions about BMUN, the Bay Area, UC Berkeley, etc. Please use this blog to voice any of your questions, comments, or concerns. You can also email me directly at: rsandoval (at) berkeley.edu.

I am excited about meeting everyone soon!

-Roxana

March 8th is International Women’s day.

Here is an article about the UN calling for more investment in women. Officials are calling for more investment in women’s reproductive health and education.  Also, the UN is urging nations to bridge the gap between policy and practice when it comes to women’s issues.

What is your country doing to improve the health and education of women and girls?

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25905&Cr=women&Cr1=international

Marking International Day, top UN officials urge greater investments in women

8 March 2008 – Top United Nations officials commemorated this year’s International Women’s Day by calling on countries to invest more in women and girls, warning that failing to do so will undermine efforts to achieve global development targets.In his message for the Day, Secretary-General drew attention to the “serious” gap between policy and practice in many countries when it comes to gender equality, as reflected in a lack of resources and insufficient budgetary allocations.“This failure of funding undermines not only our endeavours for gender equality and women’s empowerment as such; it also holds back our efforts to reach all the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” he said, referring to the global pledges to slash poverty and other social ills, all by 2015.“As we know from long and indisputable experience, investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity and sustained economic growth,” he added, noting that no measure is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS, or as likely to improve nutrition, or reduce infant and maternal mortality.Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), agreed that “if we want to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we need more investments in women and girls.“Whether we are looking at it from a human rights, political or economic point of view, the conclusion is the same: It makes sense to invest in women. The returns are high for women themselves and for the world at large,” she said.

However, not only were investments still not being made to the extent they should be, they were actually declining in some areas, such as maternal health and family planning.

“Improving women’s well-being cannot be accomplished without improving their health, particularly their reproductive health,” she stressed, noting that by ensuring universal access to reproductive health, it will be possible to reduce poverty, reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, and meet the need for family planning.

“By investing in women’s reproductive health and well-being, we will stand a better chance of achieving the MDGs and making gender equality a reality.”

Part of the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality is the urgent need to end violence against women in all of its forms, a point highlighted by the acting Executive Director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), who drew attention to the UN campaign launched by the Secretary-General on 25 February, UNiTE to End Violence against Women.

“The campaign will add value and visibility to the efforts that Governments, women’s and other civil society organizations, UN and donor partners are making to combat gender-based violence and send the message that ending violence against women stands on par with other critical development goals,” said Joanne Sandler.

She added that it also comes at a time when the world’s leaders are renewing their commitment to financing for all national development goals, including the MDGs.

“Ending violence against women was a missing indicator in the MDGs, owing to the lack of comparable data,” she stated. “It is encouraging, therefore, that the United Nations has also committed to assist countries in efforts to generate the data needed to measure the extent of violence against women and girls.

“Together with proven evidence of what works and the financial and technical resources needed to support countries to meet the implementation challenge, there may indeed be an end in sight to the pandemic of violence against women and girls ? and genuine progress on achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment,” Ms. Sandler said.

From Afghanistan to Sudan, women around the world are celebrating the Day through events at the local and national levels. In the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, staff of the new African Union-UN mission there (UNAMID) handed out T-shirts and posters to women in the central market in El Fasher, and held a procession along with Sudanese female police officers and local residents.

Hundreds of women in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar marched for peace, while their sisters in the capital gathered in Kabul’s women’s garden to mark the Day with a UN agency fair, which included films and a performance by child artists. Female counsellors from UN agencies were also on hand to provide advice on health, education and social issues facing the country’s women.

Here is a link to a good summary about the migration of refugee women.

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/meetings/consult/CM-Dec03-EP8.pdf