DOJ vs. Joe Arpaio: Here Comes the Lawsuit
originally posted by Julianne Hing for Colorlines [click here]
Sep 2nd
The Department of Justice announced today that it is taking Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to court for obstruction of justice. According to the DOJ complaint, Arpaio’s office has refused to cooperate with a federal investigation into his office over allegations that Arpaio abused prisoners and relied on racial profiling to fill his jails.
The DOJ and Arpaio have been tussling in public for months, but it came to a head in August, when the DOJ sent a letter to Arpaio threatening legal action unless the sheriff complied. After Arpaio failed to turn over files to the Justice Department by their August 17 deadline the two parties had a joint meeting that sounded hopeful.
On August 25, the Arizona Republic reported that the DOJ has set two new deadlines in September and October for Arpaio; the Justice Department is trying to gain access to six of Arpaio’s jails to tour the facilities and interview staff. Investigators also demanded that Arpaio turn over arrest records. On August 27 Arpaio’s office responded by saying it would not cooperate.
The DOJ has been investigating the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for alleged civil rights abuses since 2009. Arpaio, who’s already responsible for one quarter of all the deportations in the country, has had his arrest powers restricted by the federal government. But that hasn’t stopped the cowboy sheriff from his very liberal interpretation of his powers.
Arpaio’s well known for his immigration sweeps through his juristiction–he ran his seventeenth on the day that SB 1070 went into effect. Arpaio’s been known to parade detainees down Phoenix streets, hold immigrants in tent cities and force people to wear pink underwear for the fun of it. But his jails also have a well-documented history of abuse. Settling all the various lawsuits against the MCSO have cost the county $42 million in the 16 years that Arpaio’s been in power.
“The actions of the sheriff’s office are unprecedented. It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. This is the first time the DOJ has sued to gain access to public facilities and documents.
Read the DOJ’s complaint here.
Pocahontas Gets a Makeover in New Video Mash-Up
originally posted by Naima Ramos-Chapman for Colorlines [click here]
Sep 2nd
This is one dope mashup. Courtesy of Latoya Peterson over on Racialicious, here’s a clever splice of the classic Disney flick Pocahontas and Adriel Luis’ spoken word poem Slip of the Tongue.
We first spotted the mash-up on Sociological Images, where a student, Samantha Figueroa, did the editing for a class project. The task was to combine two loosely related art forms in order to produce an inspirational and critical piece.
Humorous, informative and fast-paced, the manipulated visuals compliment Luis’ poem so well that you sort of wished the actual Disney film was just as good.
DOJ Sues Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for Failure to Cooperate in Federal Investigation
originally posted by Seth Hoy for Immigration Impact [click here]
Sep 2nd
Today, the Department of Justice filed suit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for his refusal to hand over documents in an ongoing federal investigation into allegations of discriminatory practices based on a person’s national origin (racial profiling) and unconstitutional searches and seizures. According to the Arizona Republic, “the lawsuit comes after weeks of back-and-forth letters between the agencies, threats to strip the county of federal funding, and a meeting in Washington last week among attorneys to discuss the investigation.” Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, called Sheriff Arpaio’s actions “unprecedented” and is “unaware of any other police department or sheriff’s office that has refused to cooperate in the last 30 years.”True to form, Sheriff Arpaio—known for his anti-immigrant enforcement antics—responded that he’s not going to be intimidated by the federal government’s lawsuit. According to the Associated Press, Arpaio had until August 17 to hand over documents the DOJ asked for 15 months ago. Watch Arpaio’s response:
How the Discovery Channel Gunman’s Green Activism Turned to Hate
originally posted by Julianne Hing for Colorlines [click here]
Sep 2nd
It’s a terrible day to be a Malthusian in America. On Monday afternoon James J. Lee decided to take several hostages in the Maryland headquarters of the Discovery Channel, and brought with him a list of wild demands for the television station to focus population control. Lee said his views were informed by his Malthusian ideals–Thomas Malthus was an 18th century British thinker who argued that unchecked population growth would be the downfall of human society.
Yesterday it was an obscure, though on its surface a not entirely unreasonable theory. Today Malthus is again in the news. Except Lee was more than a Malthusian. His passionate, valid cries about the desperate state of the environment–”Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels,” Lee wrote–and humans’ direct role in environmental degradation, were tinged with echoes of xenophobia. Lee’s screed called on the station to shift its programming to focus on strict population control via forced sterilization. He also advocated for closed borders and an end to immigration into the country.
Lee is dead now. After a tense standoff yesterday afternoon he was shot on the scene by a SWAT officer after pointing his weapon at one of his hostages. There were no other injuries, and the building’s 1,900 occupants all made it out safely. Lee’s legitimate fears about the environment had been clouded in part by xenophobia.
And not on accident, either.
The gunman’s deranged demands brought to the fore tenets of a growing sector of the environmental movement that’s been co-opted by white nationalists and immigration restrictionists with extensive ties to anti-immigrant networks like the American Immigration Control Foundation, Californians for Population Stabilization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (also known as FAIR) and its various offshoots like NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies.
And if FAIR sounds familiar to immigration rights watchers, they should. FAIR is the group, founded by anti-immigrant zealot John Tanton, that helped write Arizona’s SB 1070 and has been orchestrating the growing copycat bill movement around the country.
In a political climate where immigrants make easy scapegoats for a host of social and economic ills in the country, it’s easy for these anti-immigrant groups to blame immigrants, too, for increased fossil fuel use, urban sprawl, the melting of the polar ice caps. Immigrants track their dirt and babies and poverty into the country, and threaten “America’s environmental stability,” so the anti-immigrant environmentalists say.
The “greenwashing” of the movement has been well-documented. This summer the Center for New Community released a report documenting the nefarious connections between the anti-immigrant movement’s faux-environmentalism that stretch back to the 1960’s. They made an unsuccessful attempt to derail the Sierra Club’s agenda; they’ve started websites called Progressives for Immigration Reform; they’ve run convincing ads in lefty magazines masking their anti-immigrant views behind concerns about the planet. But it’s not that immigration restrictionists care so much about the environment; they just care much more about ending people’s right to enter the country.
Lee seemed to have bought the lies. He wrote:
Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!
Lee also condemned war as a contributor to climate change, and wanted the country to find solutions for the unemployment and housing crises. He wanted the best for the ailing planet. So should we all. But he missed a crucial point: migration is not the cause of climate change. Very often, the ravages of climate change and environmental degradation are the impetus behind people’s leaving their home countries in search of work and life elsewhere. Saving the planet and protecting immigrants’ rights to enter and be in the country are parallel pursuits. They are even very often unified goals among those who know that communities of color and immigrants often feel the brunt of the environmental crisis first, and worst, and know that the welfare of the planet is also dependent on the welfare of the world’s most marginalized people.
Wielding ‘Gender Card,’ Women’s Groups Campaign Against ‘Political Sexism’
originally posted by Michelle Chen for Colorlines [click here]
Sep 2nd
A new watchdog campaign is emerging to stamp out sexist attitudes and stereotypes in electoral politics. Perhaps inspired by the sub rosa misogyny that surfaced during the 2008 presidential campaigns, the Women’s Media Center and other feminist groups want to mobilize in direct response to sexist attacks that undermine women’s political presence, the Washington Post reports.
The Women’s Campaign Forum, Women’s Media Center and Political Parity plan to spend $250,000 on research and outreach for the initiative, which they have dubbed “Name It, Change It.” The idea is to call out a range of issues – everything from what the groups considers an unfair focus on women’s clothing and family responsibilities to profane name-calling.
The money will pay for an online advertising campaign, spoof videos and a smartphone application that will allow users to report sexist comments in the media.
But the clincher is the Post’s quote from Women’s Media Center President Jehmu Greene, evoking a tension that threaded through the Clinton-Obama primary race:
Sexism against women in the media has become normalized and accepted in a way that they would not be if the comments were racist…It dramatically affects women candidates.
Few would doubt that racism and sexism are handled differently in the media, but how, exactly? Subtle racial slights and sexist overtones are both prevalent in mainstream reporting, and as social issues, racism and sexism are both frequently glossed over or oversimplified in clumsy coverage. But does this campaign, dubbed “Name It, Change It,” suggest that racism in mainstream politics receives greater scrutiny than sexism in the same context?
As candidates Obama and Clinton went head-to-head in the presidential race, there was a palpable sense of injustice, or at least discomfort, about how the “race card” was playing out against the “gender card.” Recalling the legacy of a pioneering woman of color in politics, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem wrote in a 2008 New York Times op-ed:
So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.
I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.
So wither the “coalition of outsiders” in the age of Obama? Do women’s groups feel that it’s high time for their struggle to be vindicated now that the man in the White House has, at least on the surface, crossed a historic colorline? Is racism really easier to call out than sexism in political races? And aren’t we doing both struggles a disservice, as Steinem suggests, by framing them on an either-or divide?
The success of the “Name it, Change it” campaign might depend on whether activists recognize that, on an increasingly diverse political landscape, the more narrowly a problem is named, the smaller the potential for real change.
Ohio Governor Commutes Kevin Keith’s Death Sentence!
originally posted by Suzanne Ito, ACLU for Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union [click here]
Sep 2nd
Great news! Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has commuted Kevin Keith’s death sentence to life without the possibility of parole!
Gov. Strickland issued this statement, which reads in part:
[M]any legitimate questions have been raised regarding the evidence in support of the conviction and the investigation which led to it. In particular, Mr. Keith’s conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised. I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling."Clearly, the careful exercise of a governor’s executive clemency authority is appropriate in a case like this one, given the real and unanswered questions surrounding the murders for which Mr. Keith was convicted. Mr. Keith still has appellate legal proceedings pending which, in theory, could ultimately result in his conviction being overturned altogether. But the pending legal proceedings may never result in a full reexamination of his case, including an investigation of alternate suspects, by law enforcement authorities and/or the courts. That would be unfortunate–this case is clearly one in which a full, fair analysis of all of the unanswered questions should be considered by a court. Under these circumstances, I cannot allow Mr. Keith to be executed. I have decided, at this time, to commute Mr. Keith’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Should further evidence justify my doing so, I am prepared to review this matter again for possible further action."
Thank you to all of you who signed the petition and sent letters to Gov. Strickland. We’ll have more soon!
Act Now! Tell Gov. Strickland to Grant Kevin Keith Clemency
originally posted by Will Matthews, ACLU for Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union [click here]
Sep 2nd
It is more important than ever that Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland grant clemency to Kevin Keith, a 46-year-old man awaiting execution on Ohio’s death row, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit earlier this week denied one of Keith’s final appeals.
Despite overwhelming evidence pointing to his innocence, Keith is scheduled to be put to death Sept. 15. Gov. Strickland has acknowledged that the circumstances of Keith’s case are “troubling,” and since taking office in 2007 has granted clemency to four death row prisoners in Ohio. It is imperative that he do so again. Keith’s attorneys released the following statement this week on the heels of the 6th Circuit’s decision:
"[The] denial by the Sixth Circuit of Kevin Keith’s appeal is further reason why Governor Ted Strickland should grant clemency to Mr. Keith. Because of procedural barriers to raising the evidence suppressed by the State, the new evidence of innocence in Mr. Keith’s case will never be heard in its entirety by any court or jury. Now, only Gov. Strickland has the power to fully review Mr. Keith’s innocence claims.
As Judge Eric Clay pointed out in his separate concurring opinion, ‘Even if our jurisprudence has thus far failed to expressly recognize that an innocent person has a constitutional right not to be executed, it is deplorable that this Court has failed and refused in this case to consider and properly address Petitioner’s legal arguments in a manner indicating that the Court recognizes that "death is special."’
Because the evidence of Keith’s innocence has been uncovered piece by piece, our court system is ill-equipped to resolve the question of his innocence. And without intervention by Governor Strickland, this deplorable adherence to form over substance will result in the execution of an innocent man."
More than 30 former judges and prosecutors, nearly 60 innocence projects and legal organizations, over 100 Ohio faith leaders, leading eyewitness experts and thousands of supporters have called on Gov. Strickland to grant Keith clemency. Add your voice to the swelling chorus by sending a letter to Gov. Strickland today.
Fidel Castro Owns Up to Persecuting Gays in Cuba
originally posted by Julianne Hing for Colorlines [click here]
Sep 2nd
In an uncharacteristic show of contrition, Fidel Castro apologized this week for his regime’s treatment of gays in Cuba. “If someone is responsible, it’s me,” Castro told journalist Carmen Lida Saade about his country’s campaign to “re-educate” the country’s gay population in the 1960s. Well into the 1980s, gays in Cuba were sent off to labor camps and thought to be counter revolutionary “agents of imperialism.”
Castro’s remarks were published in an exclusive two-part interview with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada this week. Castro said the codified discrimination was clearly his fault.
“Yes, there were moments of great injustice – great injustice,” Castro acknowledged about the 1960s. And then, by way of a justification for the policies, he said that he was also dealing with death threats and the turmoil of the revolution at the time: “We had so many terrible problems, problems of life or death, you know, you do not pay enough attention.”
When pressed though, Castro relented, and reminded the reporter that he had many close gay friends. “I am trying to narrow my responsibility in all of this, because of course personally I have no such prejudice,” he said.
These days the country is mulling the possibility of legalizing civil unions, and started offering subsidized sex reassignment surgeries in 2008. But for all the praise of modern Cuba, The Miami Herald’s Kyle Munzenrieder pointed out that in the course of his rule, Castro’s often referred to gays using the anti-gay slur “maricones,” and once said: “Homosexuals should not be allowed in positions where they are able to exert influence upon young people.”
Today, Castro’s niece Mariela Castro is the country’s most vocal gay rights advocate. Cuba decriminalized homosexuality in the 1990s.
U.S. Submits its First Human Rights Review to U.N.
originally posted by ImmPolitic Blog for National Immigration Forum - ImmPolitic Blog [click here]
Sep 2nd
The United States submitted its first-ever report to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on August 20, evaluating how the nation is fulfilling its human rights obligations. Such reports are now required every four years from all United Nations members as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, established in 2006 and conducted through the UN Human Rights Council. Essentially, this reporting process affords nations the chance to self-evaluate their human rights record. The U.S. report will next be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, this fall.
Input to inform the report was gathered over the past several months in consultation with civil society organizations with diverse viewpoints, constituencies, and locations. Summaries of the various consultations are posted by the U.S. Department of State on their website (including one in which the Forum participated, addressing the rights of migrants). According to the State Department, the review “provides an opportunity to reflect on our human rights record and we hope will serve as an example for other countries on how to conduct a thorough, transparent, and credible UPR presentation.”
Although human rights obligations cover an enormous range—from voting rights to rights of indigenous persons—the United States found space to discuss the human rights of immigrants. This inclusion has already ruffled some political feathers. By dutifully noting the Department of Justice’s courtroom battle against Arizona’s “papers please” law in their report, the government so upset Arizona Governor Jan Brewer that she wrote a letter to Secretary of State Clinton demanding that the reference to the Arizona law be stricken. Gov. Brewer is running for election this November.
Beyond the reference to the embattled Arizona immigration law, numerous mentions of the rights of immigrants and the national commitment to ensuring equality before the law for all are sprinkled throughout the 25 pages of the report.
In a section on post-9/11 practices, the government proclaims its commitment to protect the rights of and to combat discrimination against Muslim, Arab-American and South Asian American persons. By way of example, the report cites limitations on country-specific travel bans and an ongoing review of how law enforcement agencies use race and national origin.
Another section discusses efforts to achieve excellence in education for children for whom English is a second language and who may face language discrimination in public schools.
The most extensive discussion of human rights commitments to immigrants falls under the heading of “Values and Immigration.” Alongside the deserved self-recognition for its acceptance of millions of refugees and for undertaking to reform the immigration detention system, the government acknowledges “challenges in developing and enforcing immigration law and policies that reflect economic, social, and national security realities.”
Unfortunately, these challenges will persist as long as we lack meaningful reform to our creaking immigration system; the current laws are a far way off from current realities. Many enforcement efforts the Government touts as improvements would not be necessary—or would not be so overwhelming—if our immigration system got the reform it requires. Reforming our immigration detention system, for example, is a far more formidable task because immigrants who have been living and working in our country for years are thrown in jail instead of given work visas. (We recently assessed the government’s limited progress in making the immigration detention system more civil here and here.)
Some recognized “improvements” in the government’s report refer to flawed programs that should be scrapped altogether. State and local police operating under 287(g) agreement wouldn’t need the better oversight or stronger guidelines touted in the report if the government did the right thing and terminated this deeply flawed program. (Learn more about why the program is inherently flawed here and here.
On a note of optimism, the United States assures the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that change is coming for our immigration system. This is a welcome (and hopefully not hollow) assurance. In the words of the report,
“President Obama remains firmly committed to fixing our broken immigration system, because he recognizes that our ability to innovate, our ties to the world, and our economic prosperity, depend on our capacity to welcome and assimilate immigrants. The Administration will continue its efforts to work with the U.S. Congress and affected communities toward this end.”
That is a commitment we hope is fulfilled when the United States submits its next scheduled UPR report in 4 years.
Image by Flickr user Marionzetta.
Former Florida Candidate Jeff Greene Sues the Media for Doing Its Job
originally posted by Jamilah King for Colorlines [click here]
Sep 2nd
In the end, former candidate Jeff Greene had a lot going against him in last week’s Florida Democratic primary for the US Senate: stories that he’d made his millions on shady business deals that had left hundreds of California families homeless, reports that Mike Tyson had been the best man at his wedding and may have done cocaine on Greene’s yacht and, ultimately, the fact that both Presidents Obama and Clinton had endorsed his Democratic rival Kendrick Meek, who ended up beating Greene badly at the polls.
But Greene’s only pointing the guilty finger at one culprit: the media.
Half a billion fingers, actually. Greene recently filed a $500,000 libel lawsuit against the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times, alleging that both papers ran stories about him that were false and misleading.
“They tried to engage in character assassination, there’s no question about it,” he told Talking Points Memo.
The New York Times reports on the basis of Greene’s case:
At issue are two news articles written by St. Petersburg Times reporters that were printed in both The Times and The Herald, and a Times editorial urging a federal investigation into Mr. Greene’s business activities.
[snip]
In one article, The Times reported that Mr. Greene was party to a real estate deal that left 300 California families homeless and a partner of his in jail. The other left the impression that the boxer Mike Tyson, who was the best man at Mr. Greene’s wedding, used drugs while on Mr. Greene’s yacht. The paper later ran a front-page correction clarifying that Mr. Tyson said he had not used drugs on the yacht.
Greene maintains that a handful of the state’s top political reporters that make up the Florida’s “media elite” suffer from a bad case of groupthink and need to be taught a lesson. And it’s not just for his sake, but for the sake of other potential politicians who may be afraid to run because of the media’s influence. Which makes this fight, in his view, just as important as his bid for US Senator.
For this next battle, Greene’s enlisted the help of attorney L. Lin Wood, who represented Richard Jewell, the exonerated suspect in 1996’s Olympic bombing in Atlanta.
St. Petersberg Times editor Neil Brown thinks Greene’s claims are baseless, and that the billionaire is just pouting over having lost so much of his own fortune in his failed Senate run. Over at Talking Points Memo, Brown got to the heart of the issue:
“Democracy won’t work if we let lawsuits full of baseless charges from a political candidate inhibit us from providing voters with the independent information that they need and rely on.”