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1. The Real Solution: Regional Response Rather than Border Closures, Mass Incarceration, and Refugee Returns Share

Author:
Eleanor Acer
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
The Trump Administration has purposefully mismanaged the refugee and humanitarian challenges pushing people to flee political repression, human rights abuses, economic deprivation, and climate displacement in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Trump Administration policies have actually made things worse, cutting programs countering displacement, turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, encouraging crossings between official ports of entry, and punishing people seeking U.S. protection through punitive and traumatizing family separations and detention. These harmful policies have aggravated humanitarian challenges—deliberately provoking disorder, chaos, and confusion. Congress must take swift action to push real solutions, and over the longer term the next administration will need to ensure these solutions are enduring. Congress should champion a new initiative to strengthen protection across the region. This initiative must truly tackle the rights abuses and deprivations pushing people to flee, greatly enhance the capacity of Mexico and other countries to provide asylum and host refugees, and set a strong example at home by upholding America’s own refugee protection commitments. Upholding human rights commitments is not only the right thing to do, it is also in the U.S. national interest. These commitments have saved millions of lives and encourage countries around the world—including front-line countries that host the vast majority of the world’s refugees—to continue hosting refugees. The heroic work of many Americans—working and volunteering with faith-based shelters, community groups, legal representation, and other organizations—should be supported. They are, and always have been, an essential part of the solution. The measures outlined below would restore order to the region and the U.S. border while upholding the United States’ legal and humanitarian commitments. Key steps include: 1. Address the actual causes of displacement in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The United States should increase support for effective programs that counter violence, strengthen justice systems, spur economic opportunities, and safeguard communities from climate displacement, so that people do not need to flee in search of safety or survival. In addition, U.S. diplomats must press the leaders of these countries to safeguard rights, support anti-corruption efforts, and address abuses from security forces. 2. Strongly support increased asylum and refugee-hosting capacity in Mexico and other Latin American countries, so that these countries—which are already hosting growing numbers—have the ability to continue accepting refugees. Asylum filings in Mexico, for example, have increased by over 700 percent since 2014. The United States should sharply increase support for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to increase regional capacity, to develop strong asylum and refugee protection systems, and to better integrate refugees in Mexico and the region. U.S. diplomacy, law enforcement cooperation, and rule of law assistance should be leveraged to reduce violence against refugees and migrants in Mexico. In addition, the United States should launch a regional resettlement effort, providing some refugees with routes to safety in the United States as well as other countries, and relaunch the Central American Minors (CAM) program to allow some children with family in the United States to come to our country safely. 3. Combat smuggling in the region while safeguarding access to protection. U.S. agencies must ensure anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts do not block escape from dangerous countries and include measures to safeguard human rights and access to asylum. By strengthening asylum, resettlement, and work visas in the region, more refugees and migrants will have alternate routes to protection. 4. Manage U.S. asylum arrivals effectively through a genuine humanitarian response that upholds U.S. law and provides order, including: Restore timely and orderly asylum processing at ports of entry and ensure humane conditions at all Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facilities; End the Remain in Mexico scheme and “metering” policies that push people to cross between ports of entry and put the lives of asylum seekers at risk as they wait in danger in Mexico; Support and fund NGOs and shelters in the United States—including faith-based groups that have been effectively partnering with DHS in U.S. cities along the border—to address humanitarian needs, a typical and necessary move in managing refugee arrivals; and Launch a community-based case management program that supports appearance, as recommended by ICE’s own advisory group, rather than jailing asylum seekers for even longer. 5. Restore order through measures providing timely, fair, and effective U.S. adjudications, including: Increase, rather than “get rid of,” immigration judges and interpreters. In order to understand what is being said in their courtrooms and ensure due process, judges must be supported by interpreters. And, since a judge set on furthering a politicized agenda is worse than no judge at all, safeguards against politicized court hiring must be immediately restored. Additional measures to support judges include: increased recruitment of interpreters who speak indigenous dialects to assure accurate hearings and prevent continued adjournments, ensuring the time necessary to gather evidence to prove cases, and rejecting absurd schemes that would entrust protection determinations to border agents or rush cases through adjudications; Support a major legal representation initiative to ensure eligible refugees receive protection at the earliest stages of the process and institute universal legal orientation presentations (LOPs)—including for families released from DHS/Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody—to explain appearance obligations, the legal system, and how to secure counsel; Enable more cases to be granted efficiently at the USCIS asylum office by providing initial decision-making authority to the asylum office in all asylum cases, changing policies and practices that have prompted asylum officers to refer, rather than grant, cases that meet the asylum criteria— unnecessarily adding them to the immigration court caseload—and assure the availability of an application process for “cancellation of removal” relief so these cases do not clog the asylum system; Make the immigration courts independent, as the American Bar Association recommends, to secure due process and judicial independence, ensuring that political appointees can no longer attempt to improperly influence the courts’ decisions in asylum and other cases; and Reverse Trump Administration efforts to prevent refugees from receiving asylum in the United States—including former Attorney General Sessions’ ruling attempting to deny protection to women who have fled domestic violence and families escaping from deadly gangs. The measures outlined above would restore order and bring about real and enduring solutions. As the president and top Trump Administration officials are doubling down on punitive policies and political rhetoric that fail to solve these challenges, Congress must demand effective strategies that are consistent with America’s ideals.
Topic:
Human Rights, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Border Control
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, North America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador

2. Protecting Refugees and Restoring Order: Real Solutions to the Humanitarian Crisis

Author:
Eleanor Acer
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
Families and children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—fleeing human rights abuses, deadly violence, climate displacement and economic deprivations—continue to seek refuge in the United States and other countries. This is a regional humanitarian crisis—a manageable one that should be addressed using proven strategies, as are humanitarian challenges around the world. Yet instead of taking the steps necessary to address the crisis, the Trump Administration is making things worse, threatening cuts to effective programs that could reduce the problems forcing people to flee, sending refugees back to danger, canceling rather than expanding case management, and cutting orderly processing at ports of entry, increasing crossings between ports of entry. The Trump Administration’s actions appear designed to generate chaos. The regional crisis requires real solutions in several key areas: tackling the rights abuses and deprivations pushing people to flee, enhancing the capacity of Mexico and other countries to provide asylum and host refugees, and managing U.S. refugee protection requests in fair, effective and orderly ways—ways that uphold America’s refugee laws and treaty commitments. Most immediately, the United States must end the dysfunction at the border by launching a public-private humanitarian initiative and a long overdue case management system, which would keep asylum seekers informed and ensure they appear for their hearings. At the same time, the U.S. government should fix the asylum and immigration court adjudication systems to provide fair, non-politicized, and timely decisions. To effectively manage border and adjudication systems, the United States must upgrade to manage new realities, instead of pushing mass detention and other outdated, inadequate and ineffective responses that are also costly, cruel, and inhumane. As part of this strategy, the United States should launch a major initiative, with other countries, to expand regional protection so that Mexico and others, which are already hosting growing numbers, have the ability to continue accepting refugees. Critically, the United States and other donors should increase support for efforts to build the capacity of these countries to provide asylum, host, protect, and integrate refugees. In addition, the United States should work with other resettlement countries to launch a robust regional initiative that provides orderly routes to protection in the United States and other third countries. The United States must also advance a targeted strategy—leveraging both diplomacy and aid - to address the actual root causes of migration and displacement in the Northern Triangle. This should focus on programs that reduce violence, combat corruption, strengthen rule of law, decrease femicide and other gender-based harms, address gang violence, protect vulnerable populations, and promote sustainable economic development. By helping to build real protections for women, children, LGBTQ, indigenous, and other at-risk people in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, while expanding protection of refugees in Mexico and other countries, this strategy will ultimately reduce the numbers fleeing to the United States. The measures outlined below would restore order to the region and the U.S. border while upholding U.S. legal and humanitarian commitments. Congress—and over the longer term, the next administration—must push real solutions.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Prisons/Penal Systems, Border Control, and Refugees
Political Geography:
United States, Central America, North America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador

3. How to Close Guantanamo

Author:
Human Rights First
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
President Obama should provide sustained leadership to increase the momentum to transfer prisoners out of Guantanamo and close the facility.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Cuba, North America, Washington, D.C., and Guantanamo

4. U.S. Prison Labor and the Legacy of American Slavery

Author:
Fawn Bolak
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
Last September, thousands of incarcerated individuals in the United States launched an organized protest on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison Uprising, in an effort to protest racial discrimination, excessive force, and demand an end to the current state of legalized slavery within the U.S. prison system. Across the nation, prisoners in state and federal correctional facilities are exploited for their labor in industries related to agriculture, clothing production, machinery, and technology. While prison officials who strike up deals with large corporations like AT&T and Walmart share in the profits of cheap production, the incarcerated laborers themselves make mere cents per hour for full time work. Additionally, those locked up in federal institutions, who are physically capable of full time work, are mandated to do so as prescribed by Title 29 of the Crime Control Act of 1990. Over 2 million people are currently incarcerated in the United States, making the U.S. the #1 jailer in the world, surpassing Cuba, Russia, and China. Moreover, inmates in the U.S. are disproportionately people of color. According data from the Sentencing Project, black men are incarcerated at a rate 5.1 times the rate of white men, and in 12 states, predominately in the south and east coast, more than 50% of the total state prison population is black. There is a prevailing conservative narrative that asserts that the disproportionate incarceration of black individuals in our criminal justice system is a product of a “culture of violence” centered in “inner cities” and predominately black neighborhoods, rather than a product systemic institutional racism. However, a quick glance at U.S. history indicates that the mass incarceration of black men, current use of exploitative prison labor, and our past economic system built on slavery, is not a mere coincidence.
Topic:
Human Rights, Race, Labor Issues, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Slavery
Political Geography:
United States and North America

5. U.S. Prison Labor: Constitutional & Profitable

Author:
Kate Morgan
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
Abstract:
In the United States modern prison industrial complex (PIC), there are about 2 million inmates, marking the U.S. as the largest prison population in the world and the second highest incarceration rate per capita. The U.S. has 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s population. With historical roots involved in using inmates as labor for agriculture, textiles, and other manufactured goods, this practice still continues by means of privatizing labor. Under the 13th amendment, forced labor is legally allowed when a person is imprisoned. Prisoners will never have “family emergencies”, ask for a pay raise, or refuse work without the threat of solitary confinement. This makes them the ideal economically conservative employee. Private companies and organizations will lease work out to prisons, and the prisons will then use their inmates to perform the needed work, whether it be mining, agricultural work, making military weapons, or making garments and clothing for Victoria’s Secret. The pay grade for an inmate doing this work can range from nothing to $3 per hour varying per state, with Texas and Georgia legally not having to pay anything to their inmates/employees.
Topic:
Human Rights, Privatization, Labor Issues, Prisons/Penal Systems, and Manufacturing
Political Geography:
United States and North America

6. Guantanamo’s Last Year

Author:
Ken Gude
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
With one year left in his administration, President Barack Obama remains committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay during his time in office. Congress has prohibited, at least for now, one aspect of the president’s preferred pathway to close the prison—transferring some detainees into the United States for trial or continued law of war detention. Much of this debate has focused on the question of whether President Obama will use executive action to override the congressional transfer ban. Doing so would be impractical and extremely unwise. The Obama administration should state publicly that it will not use executive action to bring large numbers of Guantanamo detainees into the United States in defiance of congressional statute. A better strategy would be to pursue alternative options for closing Guantanamo that, even given current statutory constraints, remain entirely in the control of the executive branch. Amid disappointment at the failure to close Guantanamo, it is easy to forget that President Obama originally believed it was feasible to identify, categorize, prosecute, and transfer all 242 detainees in just one year—the same amount of time he has left for the remaining 91 detainees. While congressional resistance is a new obstacle not present at the time of President Obama’s original pledge, moving the majority of detainees out of Guantanamo is now mostly about the implementation of policies and decisions already made, a much more manageable challenge than the one that Obama faced in 2009. If that goal is to be achieved, however, President Obama must command a greater level of urgency throughout his administration and especially at the Pentagon. The risk is not simply a failure that becomes a stain on the president’s legacy; rather, the much more serious risk is that the next administration could resume sending detainees to Guantanamo, which is on the wish list of many conservatives. The latter would do irreparable harm to American national security—and be a colossal waste of money. Holding a detainee at Guantanamo now costs $4 million per year per detainee, compared with less than $100,000 per inmate in the highest security prison in the United States. And while it is fair to say that the salience of Guantanamo as a recruiting tool for terrorist groups has faded during the Obama administration’s efforts to close it, it is not gone. Hostages held by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, are not dressed in Guantanamo-like orange jumpsuits by accident. And if new detainees were to be sent to Guantanamo by the next administration, the prison would roar back to prominence in terrorist propaganda and be an enormous self-inflicted wound on the country. We cannot afford to risk this possibility. Guantanamo must be closed during the Obama administration. This can be achieved by completing the following steps: Hold Periodic Review Board hearings for all eligible detainees by July 1, 2016. Accelerate transfers of those detainees designated for transfer or release. Order the Department of Justice to review detainee cases for prosecution and potential plea bargain in federal court. Pursue agreements with countries to prosecute under their laws any Guantanamo detainees accused of serious crimes. Engage the Afghan government to seek an agreement to transfer back to Afghan custody any remaining law of war detainees captured in connection with the war in Afghanistan. Some of these options may not represent the best or preferred method for the Obama administration to close Guantanamo, but this is a feasible and realistic path to close the prison in one year. Some of these choices will be difficult, but when measured against the possibility that Guantanamo could be back in the business of accepting new detainees in 2017, those difficulties should not be disqualifying. A reinvigorated effort from the Obama administration is urgently needed to make 2016 Guantanamo’s last year.
Topic:
Terrorism, Prisons/Penal Systems, Counter-terrorism, and Detention
Political Geography:
Caribbean, North America, United States of America, and Guantanamo

7. The Applicability of International and Domestic Immigration Law to Relocated Guantanamo Detainees

Author:
Sarah Weiner
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
Abstract:
The physical relocation of detainees from Guantanamo to the United States would not meaningfully alter U.S. obligations under domestic immigration law or international law concerning refoulement. Domestic immigration law would not affect U.S. authority to bring aliens into the United States and to detain those aliens under the laws of war. Detainees would not enter the United States as immigrants, but rather would remain legally “at the border” during their detention. If a detainee secures his release from law-of-war detention, then the United States would be prohibited from transferring the former detainee to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. This obligation applies equally to detainees held at Guantanamo and in the United States. If the United States could not find a suitable country to accept the former detainee, then the United States may have the authority to hold the alien indefinitely in immigration detention, provided that his custody meets statutory requirements. This authority is constitutionally untested and potentially inconsistent with obligations under international law, but these concerns would apply equally to both Guantanamo- and U.S.-located former detainees.
Topic:
Law, Prisons/Penal Systems, War on Terror, and Detention
Political Geography:
North America, United States of America, and Guantanamo