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On Immigrants' Rights

2019-06-21copyfrom:en.humanrights.cnauthor:
The following is an excerpt of the US Human Rights Record from 1999 to 2021 on immigrants' rights:

2017

The US-led military operations in other countries have caused heavy civilian casualties. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp continued to detain and torture foreigners. The United States also made cyber warfare tools, hacking and spying foreign networks.

War of aggression on Syria caused a large number of civilian casualties. On June 19, 2017, The New York Times website reported that the U.S. administration had given the military “total authorization” to decide how, and how much, force would be used, while the American military had relaxed the oversight, investigation and accountability on civilian casualties, resulting in the civilian death toll ticking upward. The US-led coalition and Marines had bombed or shelled at least 12 schools, 15 mosques, 15 bridges as well as residential neighborhoods, hospitals, cultural relics and refugee camp. The coalition warplanes also launched a barrage of airstrikes targeting the boats, on which many families waited to cross a river to escape, reportedly massacring as many as 21 civilians (www.motherjones.com, August 6, 2017). The Muslim Times website reported on June 24, 2017 that the US military had attacked Syrian government forces “at least four times in recent months”, including a missile strike in April against a Syrian airfield. Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst, said the United States was violating the UN Charter by conducting a war of aggression against Syria(muslimtimes.co, June 24, 2017).
 

Foreigners have long been tortured and detained at the Guantanamo Bay. On December 13, 2017, The American Broadcasting Company website reported that the new U.S. administration had not released any prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay and not added any to the list of cleared men who can go home, or to a third country, for resettlement. The Al Jazeera website reported on September 22, 2017, that in a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the Commission), former Guantanamo detainee Djamel Ameziane prepared a written statement saying he was detained for 11 years, faced prolonged incommunicado detention, multiple forms of torture, and never received a judicial determination regarding the legality of his detention. According to a report of The USA Today website on December 13, 2017, the U.N. and human rights organizations had criticized U.S. authorities for creating a “legal black hole” allowing for the infinite detention of suspects without charge, and for holding many of the detainees for more than a decade. Nils Melzer, the United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur on torture, on December 13, 2017, urged the United States to end its torture of detainees held at the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility (www.usatoday.com, December 13, 2017).
 

Making cyber warfare tools. The US National Security Agency (NSA) operators had hacked into Pakistani mobile networks and had been spying on hundreds of IP addresses in the country, WikiLeaks claimed(economictimes.indiatimes.com, April 11, 2017). On May 14, 2017, the Zero Hedge website revealed that NSA created “Top Secret Arsenal” of tools that allowed anyone to "back door" into virtually any computer system. An unknown group of hackers used the same set of NSA-created tools to launch a global malware cyber attack by using ransomeware virus, holding at least 200,000 computer systems around the globe hostage (www.zerohedge.com, May 14, 2017).

2018

Continuous Tragedies for Immigrants

The U.S government used slanders and violence against immigrants. Inhumane immigration policies forcibly separated migrant children from their parents. Women and children seeking shelter and asylum were suffering from abuses and sexual assaults. Death incidents of children were appalling. All these practices of the United States drew strong condemnation from the United Nations and the international community.

Slander and violence against immigrants. The Atlantic website reported on December 12, 2018 that the U.S. government began in 2017 pursuing the deportation of many long-term immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries, alleging that these immigrants were "violent criminal aliens." The Washington Post reported on November 26, 2018 that the U.S. authorities fired tear gas on multiple occasions at the U.S. border with Mexico to stop immigrants from Central America, causing many injuries.

On November 28, 2018, UN experts including Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children and Chair of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, jointly issued letters to voice their concerns about the racist and xenophobic languages and practices used by U.S. authorities, which fly in the face of international human rights standards. The letters said that the official response in that country stigmatises migrants and refugees, equating them with crime and epidemics, which also fuels a climate of intolerance, racial hatred and xenophobia against those perceived as non-white, creating hostile emotional environments.

Immigration polices separating children from parents. The New York Times website reported on May 12, 2018 that the U.S. government introduced a new "zero tolerance" policy, calling for criminal prosecution of everyone who enters the country illegally, in April. Minor children must be taken from the parents who are in custody in the process. As a result, more than 2,000 migrant children have been separated from their parents. The Guardian website reported on June 16 that according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security figures, a total of 1,995 minors were forcibly separated from their families between 19 April and 31 May 2018 at the U.S. southern border. This policy had drawn waves of strong criticism and protests from the U.S. society and the international community. An article on The Guardian website on June 23 quoted Anne Longfield, the children's commissioner for England, as saying that separating children from their parents is cruel and deeply distressing for them. In some it will cause long-lasting emotional damage. Laura Janner-Klausner, a leading British rabbi, drew a parallel between the policy and historical trends that have led to genocide.

Women and children seeking asylum suffered from abuses and sexual assaults. The website of The Independent on May 23, 2018 said there has been a startling increase in the number of instances where US Border Patrol officers have abused children seeking shelter in the United States. It quoted a previous disclosure from the American Civil Liberties Union that detailed 116 incidents where officers were alleged to have physically, sexually, or psychologically abused children between the ages of five and 17. The Texas Tribune website reported on June 20, 2018 that children held at the Shiloh Treatment Center, a government contractor south of Houston that houses immigrant minors, were subdued with powerful psychiatric drugs. The children were forcibly injected with medications that made them dizzy, listless and afraid of people and caused some long-term side effects. According to a report on the American Immigration Council website on August 30, the Atlanta City Detention Center, used by the U.S. authorities to hold individuals in immigration proceedings, were found to have problems such as unsanitary environment and rampant use of lockdown and isolation (immigrationimpact.com, August 30, 2018).

The New York Times website reported on November 12, 2018 that Esteban Manzanares, a Border Patrol agent in Texas, driven three women, including two teenagers, who crossed border to seek shelter, to an isolated, wooded area 16 miles outside the border city. There he sexually assaulted one girl and viciously attacked two others and left them, finally, to bleed in the brush. The report said that over the past four years, at least 10 people in South Texas have been victims of murder, kidnapping or rape by Border Patrol agents. According to a report by the CNN on December 26, 2018, Jakelin Caal Maquin, a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala, died December 8 in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, fewer than 48 hours after CBP detained her. Another 8-year-old Guatemalan boy, Felipe Alonzo-Gomez, died late Christmas Eve in the agency's custody.

Strong condemnation of the U.S. immigration policies from UN institutions. A report of the UN Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity, submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 35/3, criticized the populism and the racist and xenophobic languages to describe immigrants used by the U.S. administration as well as practices to separate children from their parents. It said these practices had imperiled the immigrants' human rights, including their rights to life, dignity and liberty (UN document A/73/206). A report by The Guardian website on June 5, 2018 quoted Ravina Shamdasani, a UN human rights official, as saying that "the use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent [against illegal immigration] runs counter to human rights standards and principles. The US should immediately halt this practice." She noted that the United States was the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN convention on the rights of the child. She called on the United States to fully respect children's rights.

On June 22, 2018, a group of UN experts, including Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Chairperson of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, jointly issued a statement saying that forcibly separating thousands of migrant children from their parents and holding them in detention violated international human rights standards. It said detention of children is punitive, severely hampers their development, and in some cases may amount to torture. "Children are being used as a deterrent to irregular migration, which is unacceptable."

2019

Migrants Suffer Inhumane Treatment
 

Decades of U.S. intervention in its “backyard” Latin America directly led to the worsening of the immigration problems in the Americas. The current U.S. government, out of political considerations, took unprecedented extreme measures and inhumane law enforcement actions toward immigrants, resulting in frequent human rights violations of immigrants that were severely condemned by the international community.
 
"Zero-tolerance" policy caused family separation. In recent years, the U.S. government had adopted increasingly strict and inhumane measures against immigrants, in particular the “zero-tolerance” policy announced in April 2018 which caused the separations of many families. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reported on its website on Oct. 25, 2019 that U.S. immigration authorities had separated more than 5,400 children from their parents at the Mexico border since July 2017. Lee Gelernt, attorney of the ACLU, said the inhumane and illegal policy torn apart thousands of families, including babies and toddlers. “Families have suffered tremendously, and some may never recover.” Some children were detained in separate facilities for months. Video footage provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed children in cages and under thin space blankets. The practice of forcing parents to part with their children could constitute "government-sanctioned child abuse," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, UN high commissioner for human rights, said at a Human Rights Council session on June 18, 2018. Felipe González Morales, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, called for a halt to the detention of unaccompanied migrant children and families with children for reasons related to their administrative immigration status. He said detention of children based on their migratory status was a violation of the international law, noting that the move was detrimental to the well-being of a child and produced long-term severe adverse impacts on children. The Washington Post reported on its website on July 30, 2019 that the U.S. government had taken nearly 1,000 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border since the judge ordered the U.S. government to curtail the practice more than a year ago. Approximately 20 percent of the new separations affected children under 5 years old. The practice of forcing children to separate from their parents severely infringed migrants’ human rights. In a speech delivered by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the 42nd session of the Human Rights Council on Sept. 9, 2019, she said the continued separation of migrant children from their parents and the prospect of a new rule which would enable children to be indefinitely detained had sharply reduced the protection for migrant families. “Nothing can justify inflicting such profound trauma on any child.”
 
Migrant children were in the ordeal. According to a report by the Washington Post on its website on Aug. 22, 2019, two federal agencies that handle immigrants -- the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security -- said they would issue a rule allowing children to stay with their parents in U.S. detention centers for longer than the current 20-day maximum. The change would let the administration keep entire families in custody as long as needed and allow virtually unlimited incarceration of children. As of September 2019, at least 2,838 unaccompanied migrant children lived in 35 shelters across Texas. These shelters had a long history of regulatory inspections that had uncovered serious health and safety deficiencies. Between 2016 and 2019, inspectors discovered more than 552 health and safety violations at the facilities. The Los Angeles Times reported on its website on Dec. 10, 2019 that three children died from the flu while in federal immigration custody in 2018. The flu mortality rate among migrant children in federal immigration custody was nine times higher than the general population. The report quoted Dr. Mario Mendoza, a retired anesthesiologist, as saying that denying children the basic healthcare being offered was intentionally cruel and inhumane. According to a report by the New York Times on its website on June 26, 2019, a group of journalists, physicians and lawyers were allowed on tours of the border station in Clint, Texas, where hundreds of migrant children were held. A physician likened the conditions to “torture facilities.” According to a report by the Baltimore Sun on its website on July 31, 2019, the conditions of the McAllen Border Patrol Station was disturbing. The author of the report recounted that “I saw many families huddled together in overcrowded conditions. I saw children behind fencing and basically in cages. Some children were in clothing that was soiled and had not been changed since they arrived in the United States.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a report published on the UN website on July 8, 2019 that she was appalled by conditions of migrants and refugees in detention in the United States. “I am deeply shocked that children are forced to sleep on the floor in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions,” she said, adding that the detention of migrant children may constitute cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment that is prohibited by the international law.
 
Migrants suffer cruel abuses. The Washington Post reported on its website on Nov. 26, 2018 that the U.S. authorities used tear gas on multiple occasions to stop migrants from Central America, injuring many people. According to a report by the New York Times on June 21, 2019, a report of the Department of Homeland Security showed that the border processing center in El Paso held up to 900 migrants at a facility designed for 125. Some of the detainees had been held in standing-room-only conditions for days or weeks. The Time magazine reported on its website on July 10, 2019 that 24 immigrants had died in U.S. custody since 2018. According to a report by Arizona Range News on its website on July 8, 2019, the community group Arizona Jews for Justice organized demonstrations in Phoenix on July 2, 2019, protesting against human rights violations by immigrant detention centers and denouncing the squalid detention conditions that seriously violated humane standards, including expired food, inadequate medical care, moldy bathrooms and unreported security incidents. CNN on June 22, 2018 reported grave abuse at migrant detention facilities. It said the medical records of Shiloh Treatment Center, one of the detention facilities, showed that children were being injected with sedatives and antipsychotics. A 13-year-old from El Salvador described an incident when, after he tried to run away, he was assaulted by staff -- causing him to faint and leaving him with bruises. Then, despite his objections, he was given an injection of a drug "to calm him down." An 11-year-old referred to as Maricela in court records said she was taking 10 pills a day that had side effects including headaches, loss of appetite and nausea. One teenager, who fled Guatemala to escape an abusive father and forced child labor, had been in federal custody for almost two years at Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility in California, another secure facility paid by the government to house migrant children, which he described as a juvenile jail where they were treated like criminals. At Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center, detainees reported being stabbed with a pen, kept in handcuffs, taunted by staff and being deprived of clothing and mattresses.
 
The United States was the culprit of the worsening immigration problems in the Americas. The Guardian reported on its website on Dec. 19, 2018 that “the destabilization in the 1980s -- which was very much part of the US cold war effort -- was incredibly important in creating the kind of political and economic conditions that exist in those countries today. The families in the migrant caravans trudging toward the U.S. border are trying to escape a hell that the US has helped to create.” An article carried by commondreams.com on Aug. 15, 2019 said that factors driving Central Americans from their homes were political corruption and repression, the power of the drug cartels and climate change -- all factors that, in significant ways, could be attributed to the United States’ actions in Latin America for decades.

2021

CREATING A MIGRANT CRISIS AGAINST HUMANITY
 
The U.S. government has often interfered in other countries' internal affairs by wielding the club of "human rights." However, the policy of separating migrant children from their families has severely endangered the migrants' lives, dignity, freedom and other human rights. The migrant and refugee crisis has even been used as an instrument for American partisan attacks and political strife. Constant government policy changes and police brutality adds to the sufferings of the migrants who have already been subject to extended custody, cruel torture, forced labor and many other inhumane treatments.
 
Asylum seekers are subject to police brutality. In 2021, the humanitarian crisis continued to intensify as the southern border of the United States saw an increasing inflow of migrants, and border enforcement officers used increasingly violent means to expel or prevent asylum seekers from entering the country.
 
Data released by U.S. Border Patrol shows that in fiscal year 2021, as many as 557 migrants died on the southern border of the United States, more than double the previous fiscal year, hitting the highest number since records began in 1998. Media reports say this does not reflect the dire situation on the U.S. southern border and "the real number of migrant deaths may be greater."
 
The USA Today website reported on Nov. 29, 2021 that from January to November 2021, there have been more than 7,647 publicly reported cases of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and other violent assaults against asylum seekers.
 
In September 2021, more than 15,000 asylum seekers from Haiti crowded under a bridge in the Texas border town of Del Rio, sleeping in squalid tents or dirt in the sweltering heat, and surrounded by trash under dire living conditions. U.S. border patrol authorities brutalized the asylum seekers, with patrols on horseback, brandishing horsewhips and charging towards the crowds to expel them into the river. The footage of the scene immediately sparked outrage when they were released.
 
CNN commented that this scene is reminiscent of the dark era in American history when slave patrols were used to control black slaves. The New York Times commented that "there were the outrageous images of agents on horseback herding the migrants like cattle" and the U.S. government in general always seems to say the right things on racial issues, but too often their deeds come up short when measured against their talk.
 
Facing a flood of criticism, the U.S. government soon forcibly deported thousands of asylum seekers back to Haiti, most of whom had not lived there for nearly a decade since the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
 
On Oct. 25, 2021, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent issued a statement, condemning the systematic and mass deportation of Haitian refugees and migrants by the United States without assessing the individuals' situation was a violation of international law, "the mass deportations seemingly continue a history of racialized exclusion of Black Haitian migrants and refugees at U.S. ports of entry."
 
Dissatisfied with the U.S. government's inhumane handling of Haitian migrants and refugees, Daniel Footie, the U.S. special envoy for Haiti, resigned in anger after just two months in office.
 
Immigrant children face prolonged detention and abuse. "And while Biden has officially ended Trump's policy of 'family separation,' his use of Title 42 has created family separation 2.0," USA Today website reported on Nov. 29, 2021. It forced many minors to separate from their parents.
 
"There are more than 5,000 unaccompanied children in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody," CNN reported on April 23, 2021. Many of them have been staying in custody for longer than the 72-hour limit set by federal law, it added.
 
"A stash of redacted documents released to the human rights group (Human Rights Watch) after six years of legal tussles uncover more than 160 cases of misconduct and abuse by leading government agencies, notably Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Border Patrol," The Guardian reported on Oct. 11, 2021. "The papers record events between 2016 and 2021 that range from child sexual assault to enforced hunger, threats of rape and brutal detention conditions."
 
Conditions in private detention facilities where migrants are held are poor. Most of the detention facilities in the United States are built and operated by private companies. In order to reduce operating costs and maximize profits, private companies generally build in accordance with the minimum standards contracted with the government, resulting in poor detention facilities and a harsh internal environment. A lack of supervision has led to chaotic management of the detention facilities and repeated violations of human rights, while detainees suffered varying degrees of physical and mental health damage.
 
U.S. authorities detained more than 1.7 million migrants along the Mexico border during the 2021 fiscal year that ended in September.
 
Among them, up to 80 percent are held in private detention facilities, including 45,000 children.
 
"Conditions were deteriorating inside the 'emergency intake' shelter erected in the harsh desert of Fort Bliss (Texas)," reported the El Paso Times on June 25, 2021.
 
"There were nearly 5,000 children there, and some 1,500 children are still being held at the troubled site, where conditions in 'jam-packed' tents resembled 'a stockyard,' were 'traumatizing' and risky for the children's health and safety, according to half a dozen current and former workers, volunteers and civil servants, as well as internal emails obtained by the El Paso Times.
 
Many immigrants are victims of human trafficking and forced labor in the United States. Tighter U.S. immigration policies, combined with weak supervision at home, have exacerbated human smuggling and labor trafficking targeting immigrants.
 
A report by AP on Dec. 10, 2021 said that for years, immigrants who smuggled into the U.S. have been forced to work long hours on farms, living in filthy, overcrowded trailers, lacking food and clean drinking water, and facing threats of violence from regulators. The workers' IDs and travel documents were withheld, which limits their ability to seek help to escape their predicament.
 
A human trafficking indictment released on Nov. 22, 2021 on the website of U.S. Department of Justice documents that dozens of workers from Mexico and Central American countries have been smuggled to farms in the southern part of the state of Georgia, where they were illegally imprisoned under inhumane conditions as contract agricultural laborers, becoming victims of U.S. modern-day slavery.
 
After being cheated into farms with the promise of an hourly salary of 12 U.S. dollars, they were required to dig onions with their bare hands, paid 20 cents for each bucket harvested, and threatened with guns and violence to keep them in line. At least two of the workers died as a result of workplace conditions and one suffered from multiple sexual assault.
 
The New York Times website reported on Nov. 11, 2021 that hundreds of workers from India were lured to New Jersey, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles etc. with the promise of fair pay and good hours, but instead they had nearly no time off from work that was grueling and frequently dangerous, moving stones that weighed several tons and facing health risks from exposure to harmful dust and chemicals. The workers were confined to their living quarters and had their passports confiscated, and were also threatened with retaliation, said the report.
 
Exclusion of immigrants becomes more and more extreme. The immigration policy, that is wavering, inconsistent and often disregards human rights, is the main cause of border crisis and immigrants' tragedy. The situation reflects that the policy is deeply affected by extreme xenophobia. According to an article published by Washington Post on Aug. 22 last year, with domestic debates in the U.S. over immigration increasingly driven by racialized resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment and entangled with domestic political battles, U.S. policymakers are more inclined to use techniques like force and coercion when resettling refugees. According to another article on Washington Post published on Oct. 20 last year, more than 1.7 million immigrants were detained by the U.S. Border Patrol along the southern border during the 2021 fiscal year, soaring to the highest level since 1986. The U.S. government hopes to deter illegal border crossing through tough law enforcement, which has made it more difficult for illegal immigrants to enter the country, resulting in them being forced to cross more dangerous areas. The situation in turn creates a larger humanitarian crisis.
 

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