Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Human Rights
Bring Human Rights Day Home
01 month ago
Tomorrow is Human Rights Day and will mark the 63rd anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR, created in response to the egregious atrocities of the Second World War, is the most foundational and internationally recognized human rights document ever developed.
The United States has a long tradition of leading the cause of human rights worldwide. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s historic 1941 State of the Union address articulated “four freedoms” that ought to be guaranteed for all humans: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Seven years later, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the United States played a central role in the drafting of the UDHR, and the “four freedoms” outlined by F.D.R. were explicitly incorporated into the document’s preamble.
In keeping with this long tradition, President Obama made a historic commitment to LGBT rights on Tuesday by issuing a memorandum directing all federal agencies abroad to take measures to protect the human rights of LGBT persons. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, delivered a landmark address that candidly and forcefully argued for the defense of LGBT rights worldwide, boldly declaring that “[G]ay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights.”
But the fight is far from over for the United States; in fact, some of the greatest human rights challenges that we face are not overseas, but are instead here at home. In commemoration of this year’s Human Rights Day, we are releasing an updated fact sheet that presents a glimpse of 13 critical human rights issues that the United States faces domestically in the following areas:
- Women’s Rights
- Immigration Detention
- Criminal Justice (more specifically, mass incarceration, capital punishment, life without parole for children)
- Voting Rights
- LGBT Rights
- Rights of Persons with Disabilities
- Socioeconomic Rights
- Racial Profiling
- Children’s Rights
- Accountability for Torture
As the fact sheet explains:
“Without doubt the U.S. continues to provide global leadership on some human rights issues. For example, the current administration has re-engaged with international human rights bodies and provided vigorous leadership in fighting for LGBT equality, demanded easier access to reproductive health services and information, and championed free speech and freedom of assembly.But while some U.S. laws and policies have been comparatively advanced in protecting civil rights and civil liberties, the U.S. has fallen behind in protecting the universal human rights recognized by the UDHR. Our government has only partially and selectively embraced these rights, ignoring international obligations and widening the gap between the United States’ sixty-three-year-old promise and its own current practice.”
In addition to our government’s overseas rhetoric, we must create effective mechanisms to monitor, enforce, and protect human rights on our own local, state, and federal levels. The legitimacy of our longstanding tradition with human rights can survive only if our practices at home reflect our words and speeches that champion human rights abroad.
You can learn more about the ACLU’s fight for domestic human rights implementation here, and we hope you’ll join us in asking the government to bring human rights home!
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Wildflower Inn "Assaulting" Vermont Law? Human Rights Group Thinks So.
04 months ago
The Wildflower Inn told Kate Baker and Ming Linsley that they could not have their wedding reception at the resort because the owners do not allow "gay receptions" at the facility. This discrimination clearly violated the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, which specifically prohibits public accommodations, like the Wildflower Inn, from discriminating based on customers’ sexual orientation.
When we filed suit on behalf of Kate and Ming, the Wildflower Inn responded by asking the court to strike down Vermont’s anti-discrimination law as unconstitutional. The owners of the Wildflower Inn argued that even though they have chosen to operate a public business that advertises itself as open to the general public, the First Amendment gives the owners the right to pick and choose which customers they want to serve.
Earlier this week, we found out that the Wildflower Inn’s argument was so alarming that it prompted the Vermont Human Rights Commission to file a motion to intervene in Kate and Ming’s case to defend the constitutionality of Vermont’s non-discrimination law. The commission’s motion makes clear that the Wildflower Inn’s argument is nothing less than a "constitutional assault on the underpinnings of [Vermont's public accommodation laws]."
The Commission also affirms what we already knew — that what happened to Kate and Ming was discrimination, plain and simple. When the owners of the Wildflower Inn decided to open up a public business they agreed to serve all members of the public on equal terms, in accordance with Vermont law.
In short, just because the Wildflower Inn is a "private business" does not mean they have free license to break the law. We do not allow the hotels, stores, or restaurants to pick and choose which customers they will serve based on the owners’ personal feelings about the customers. By moving to intervene, the Vermont Human Rights Commission has sent a clear message that when we allow business to deny goods and services to one group of people, then all of our rights are at risk.
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Remembering 9/11 and Reclaiming Accountability for Human Rights
04 months ago
Many people in the United States and around the world remember the horrific events of September 11th, 2001 as some of the worst crimes against humanity of the last decade. These attacks savagely flouted the fundamental values of international human rights.
While the international community was united behind the U.S. call to bring those responsible to justice, the struggle against terrorism — hardly a new enterprise — took a wrong turn towards undermining the international legal frameworks and accountability mechanisms that were developed after World War II.
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"In the last ten years, America has become an international legal outlier in invoking the right to use lethal force and indefinite detention against suspected terrorists outside battle zones." |
U.S. counter-terrorism policies today often blur the distinction between the more permissive rules that regulate the use of force and treatment of fighters and civilians in theatres of war, and the more restrictive rules that apply in all other contexts. The U.S.-led ‘War on Terror’ has resulted in the erosion of hard-fought human rights achievements, including the absolute prohibition on torture, and undermined accountability mechanisms against governmental abuses of power.
We all remember that President Bush’s White House counsel Alberto Gonzales determined that the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and "obsolete." We also recall the legal memos crafted by the U.S. Department of Justice, which distorted the legal definition of torture and purported to redefine U.S. obligations under the Convention against Torture — justifying systemic cruelty and barbaric treatment in legal black holes like Guantánamo Bay and CIA "black sites."
After 9/11, the U.S. engaged in policies in which anti-terror ends justified terrible means. In pursuit of such ends, the government justified racial and ethnic profiling, baseless surveillance of religious communities, warrantless wiretapping, unfair trials, indefinite detention, and the egregious use of torture. And Secret America became the rule rather than the exception.
Sadly, the post 9/11 anti-Muslim backlash continues to this date. In just the past year, more than twenty-five state legislatures have proposed (and some have enacted) measures designed to limit the role of "international" or "foreign" laws, including Sharia law, in state adjudication. These misguided and unconstitutional measures are largely driven by post-9/11 anti-Muslim rhetoric, which unfortunately seems to have become a national sport.
Commendably, the Obama administration has taken important steps to re-engage the international human rights community, including joining the U.N. Human Rights Council, signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and supporting U.S. ratification of Additional Protocol II and Article 75 of Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. At the same time, however, the Obama administration has refused to provide accountability for torture by, for example, invoking the "state secret privilege" to deny torture victims their day in court, and it has continued, and even expanded, the Bush Administration’s targeted killing program in which killings are carried out without transparency or accountability. The Obama administration has also implemented federal programs that encourage racial and ethnic profiling rather than securing communities.
Combined, these conflicting attitudes risk perpetuating a disastrous double standard on human rights issues and undermine the U.S. government’s ability to hold foreign governments to account for their rights violations.
The Obama administration also has yet to issue an executive order to fully implement U.S. treaty obligations and create an accountable and transparent mechanism to integrate international human rights into domestic policy. While enforcement levels of some anti-discrimination laws have increased across the nation due to the hard work of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, more needs to be done in order to bring U.S. laws and policies in line with international human rights norms.
The legacy of a post-9/11 world must be reshaped from a narrative of violations of the rule of law into one in which the United States embraces human rights principles consistent with both the U.S. Constitution and international law. Ten years later, it is not too late for the U.S. to turn things around and do the right thing by making it clear that human dignity is of paramount importance and that accountability for human rights is a U.S. national interest, not just another foreign policy tool.
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ACLU Police Brutality Video Showcased By Witness.org
04 months ago
Today, Peter Garbriel’s video advocacy non-profit Witness.org used the ACLU’s montage of protest footage from Puerto Rico as an example of effective video advocacy on its blog. The post dissects how the video contributed to the ACLU’s larger effort to bring awareness to police brutality and other civil rights abuses in Puerto Rico, an effort that scored a major win with the recent release of a scathing Justice Department report on the abuses of the Puerto Rico police department. Watch our latest video:
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Please note that by playing this clip You Tube and Google will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see You Tube’s privacy statement on their website and Google’s privacy statement on theirs to learn more. To view the ACLU’s privacy statement, click here.
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The video featured by Witness.org was originally used as visual testament to the abuse we were investigating during our May fact-finding mission and later posted as part of our larger advocacy work. We’ll release a report of our findings later this year, but in the meantime, check out the video and learn more about the campaign here.
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ACLU’s Anthony Romero Discusses Police Brutality in Puerto Rico on NPR
04 months ago
Today, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero spoke with NPR’s Michel Martin about last week’s release of a Justice Department investigation excoriating the Puerto Rican police for civil rights violations, corruption and illegal conduct. Listen to it here, and learn more about the issue by checking out our Lens and hub page.
Kissing is Forbidden ("No Se Permiten Besos")
06 months ago
Just outside the town of Ponce, on Puerto Rico’s southern coast, is a prison for girls. Although the place is named “Center for Detention and Treatment” (Centro de Detención y Tratamiento Social), little by way of “treatment” goes on there. Instead, the Ponce facility looks, feels, and functions in many ways like an adult prison. The buildings are topped with coils of razor wire. The girls wear prison uniforms and sleep on thin mattresses over beds of cement. While most of the workers wear civilian clothes, there is a uniformed corps of enforcers, called “custody staff.” These heavies carry pepper spray and metal handcuffs, and are called in to get physical if a child misbehaves. Children’s contact with their families is severely limited, and a sign in the visiting room declares: “Kisses, caresses,any demonstration of affection that could attract the attention of those present are forbidden.” (“No se permiten besos, caricias o cualquier demostración de afecta que pueda atraer la atención de los presentes”).
When an ACLU investigative team went into the Ponce youth prison, we witnessed and heard girls’ reports about an array of troubling conditions. One of the most striking is how girls confined in Ponce are treated when they commit self-harm, such as cutting the skin of their arms. Self-injury is common among adolescents, especially those coping with painful emotions, and it poses no threat to other people. Yet, girls in Ponce who harm themselves are stripped of their clothes, given only a thin paper gown to wear, and put in a bare and extremely cold solitary confinement cell. Each time a girl harms herself her imprisonment is lengthened by six months. In other words, instead of giving the girls the care and treatment they need, Puerto Rican authorities respond to self-harm by piling on more punishment.
Months ago, we sought information from Puerto Rican authorities about conditions in the Ponce facility, including the treatment of children who injure themselves. Both the United States and Puerto Rico Constitutions require the government to respond to such requests for public information. To date, the government has ignored the law and refused to break the secrecy surrounding the treatment of girls in Ponce. Sadly, this is not the first time law enforcement in Puerto Rico has caught our attention.
Today, we filed suit, asking a court to compel Puerto Rico to turn over its records. Government transparency is a prerequisite to good policy. As a civil libertiesanization, and a champion of the First Amendment, we at the ACLU defend the right of people to know what their government is doing, especially when government actions threaten individual rights. As the Women’s Rights Project of the ACLU, we also care deeply about the treatment of girls in the juvenile justice system. Reforming Puerto Rico’s policies with regard to incarcerated children will no doubt be a long road, and for the government to tell the public exactly what it is doing, and why, must be the first step.
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Living the Legacy: MLK Day in 2011
01 year ago
Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, is a day that provides Americans with the opportunity to reflect on our ongoing struggle for social justice and equality and a chance to renew our vision of what kind of country and people we want to be. This year, MLK Day falls in the middle of a profound period of grieving—not just for the victims of last weekend’s tragedy in Tucson, but for the entire country.
Americans want to believe this nation has moved beyond the violence that seems common in many other countries around the world. We like to think of ourselves as a peaceful society that solves our political disagreements with civic solutions rather than violence and angry rhetoric. Yet many public voices fell short this week as politicians and pundits continued pointing fingers and putting each other on the defense. However, a few remarkable and unsuspected voices did emerge this week, giving us hope and reason to believe that we can rise above our worst instincts and learn from our mistakes.
The first voice was that of Al Sharpton. Normally a fire-brand, political activist, Sharpton showed an incredible level of self-reflection and regret in the op-ed pages of the Washington Post this week. In his own pen, he recollected past events where his own words may have led to political violence and the loss of life:
I gave a speech during a weekly radio broadcast in which I said that we need to deal with a “white interloper” who was trying to alter the landscape of Harlem. My clear intent was to lead a peaceful protest. I did so that day, but I was wrong to refer to this man’s race, and I was not careful in making distinctly clear that we were solely calling for nonviolent opposition.
Two and half months later, a disturbed and troubled man went to a neighboring store and set a fire. He killed several of the store’s employees and then himself. My words were immediately raised in the media. My initial response was to defend the fact that I had never condoned such violence, and never would. But the fact is, if I in any way contributed to the climate – which was clearly more volatile than I had thought – I had to be more careful and deliberate in my public language rather than sharpen my defenses.
Next, there was the emergence of a new, surprisingly optimistic voice. The doctor who treated the victims in Tuscon, Dr. Peter Rhee, stepped before the cameras last Saturday and has become a guide and comfort through the tragic days since. Dr. Rhee was born in South Korea and moved to the U.S. at the age of 10. He served in the U.S. Navy for 24 years including stints in Afghanistan and Iraq where, according to the AP, he “handled “hundreds and hundreds” of battlefield injuries in two war deployments beginning in 2001. But beyond giving us the daily, hopeful updates of the injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Dr. Rhee reminded us that all victims must be remembered:
“People are injured every single day,” he said. “There’s nobody that’s more important than another.”
Finally, there was the poised young intern, Daniel Hernandez, who kept Congresswoman Giffords stable until medical personnel arrived. Standing next to the President of the United States, this young Mexican-American student displayed confidence and humility beyond his years and reminds us that heroism, as President Obama pointed out, “is here, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, all around us, just waiting to be summoned.”
These three shining lights remind us all that we can rise above our worst instincts, be honest about our errors, brave in the face of calamity and warm and reassuring to our fellow man. Sharpton reminds us to what extent Martin Luther King Jr. rose above the violence and lived his life as an example to us all:
“Although his house was bombed, he was stabbed, and he lived under constant threats, Dr. King never pointed his finger at others. He sought to be a healer rather than exacerbate tensions.”
Photos by Pictoscribe.
White House to Award Latino Civil Rights Advocate, Sylvia Mendez
01 year ago
Each year, the White House awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom—“the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” Among the recipients for the 2011 Medal of Freedom is civil rights activist Sylvia Mendez, whose story of strength and perseverance in the face of discrimination and bigotry is a tale from which everyone can take heart—especially DREAM Act students who face an uphill battle this month.
The Mendezes came to the U.S. as immigrants, worked in the cotton fields and citrus groves, and eventually became small business owners. Then, in an amazing historical twist, leased a farm in Westminster, CA from the Minemitsu family—Japanese-Americans who were interned. Yet rather than being allowed to attend the “white” school closest to their farm, the Mendez children were told they must attend the “Mexican” school. The location of the Minemitsu farm placed the Mendez family within close proximity of the “White” school in Westminster, but the Mendez children—Sylvia, Gonzalo, Jr., and Geronimo—were denied enrollment and informed they must attend the Mexican school. Unwilling to accept such overt discrimination, the Mendez family and other parents eventually filed Mendez v. Westminster in federal court in 1945. With the help of good attorneys, as well as Latino, African American, and Asian civil rights organizations, the Mendezes successfully challenged the notion of “separate but equal.” Unlike other lawsuits of the era, the Mendez plaintiffs did not argue that their segregated schools were unconstitutionally inferior; instead they opposed segregation itself as violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.
In his historic decision, Judge Paul McCormick concluded that “segregation fostered antagonisms in the children and suggests inferiority among them where none exists.”
Today, most Americans are familiar with the Brown v. Board of Education decision. However, the link between Mexican-Americans and African-Americans in the struggle for desegregation is not well known. The Mendez case and the relationship between the two cases is an important piece of U.S. history that deserves to be more widely acknowledged.
By awarding Ms. Mendez the Medal of Freedom, President Obama is taking an important step toward educating more Americans about this critical moment in U.S. history.
Photo by utexas.edu.
Detention Reform: Change We Want To Believe In
01 year ago
BY KAREN TUMLIN*
A year ago today, the Obama administration promised a radical overhaul of the nation’s immigration detention system in response to a wave of reports revealing widespread and egregious violations of the basic rights of detained immigrants. Changes to date have been too slow and tinker only at the edges of the problem. Worse, the pipeline to immigration detention is growing: the Obama administration has lifted deportations to historic highs. This ensures that hundreds of thousands of immigrants will face months, and sometimes years, of detention in remote parts of the country and miles from loved ones. This is not the change we had hoped for.
To be sure, the immigrant detention system in this country was broken long before the Obama administration. However, his administration has not done enough to ameliorate the abuses suffered by immigrants placed in this sprawling system, which spans across the country and houses nearly 400,000 immigrants each year. These immigrants are routinely denied access to their lawyers or loved ones, and often restricted from seeing the light of day. Furthermore, in the past year, journalists have uncovered horrific accounts of medical negligence and sexual abuse in this system, sometimes in the very detention centers the Obama administration has attempted to improve. This is not what a reformed system looks like.
It’s time to reform the immigrant detention system as we have come to know it, and look for solutions that are humane, economically sound, and in line with our constitutional values. Washington has the power to create a civil system by following two simple steps:
- Make the use of alternatives to detention commonplace, rather than a rarity. The Obama administration has rightly signaled that the detention system must be transformed into a truly “civil” system. Yet, the administration has failed to turn the system into to one that always asks first whether an individual can remain in their community rather than being shipped off to a detention facility miles, or often states, away from their homes. The vast majority of immigrants detained in this system are not flight risks—they are fighting for their right to remain in the United States with their loved ones— yet they are treated as such.
- Create a set of legally enforceable standards for detention. Currently, detention facilities face no real penalty for denying their detainees their most basic rights, like access to the outdoors or a law library. Without giving detention standards the legal teeth they need, those running the prisons will feel no real pressure to ensure that the rights of their detainees are not routinely violated.
The administration tried to duck the need for legally enforceable standards, touting their review system as sufficient to monitor and correct the activities of their detention facilities. This review system has long since failed to protect the basic rights of immigrants—just ask the victims of sexual abuse at the Hutto Detention Facility in Texas, or detainees in Basile, Louisiana, who suffered such horrific conditions that they staged a hunger strike in order to make their voices heard.
To be fair, the Obama administration has taken a few critical steps toward improving conditions for detainees. Last month, ICE implemented the first-ever electronic detainee locator system to allow people to find their loved ones in the immigration detention maze. If the system works, the days where a wife can’t find her husband in the labyrinth of the detention system should be a thing of the past. We should expect no less.
The administration must not let another year pass before making good on its promise of real reform. It is cold comfort to ask the actual immigrants being detained—or their families— to wait for reform. Tell that to the child missing her father, the husband missing his wife, or the man whose cancer goes untreated while in detention.
Creating a system that protects these civil detainees from egregious abuse wouldn’t require a major legislative effort, nor would it be costly for the taxpayer. These common-sense changes to the immigrant detention system have been proposed by Congress, and the administration could easily enact some of these changes without legislation. The time has come for real accountability—Washington must act to codify legally enforceable standards to protect the basic human rights of the men and women in its care.
*Karen Tumlin is a Managing Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC).
Currently she is litigating cases challenging state anti-immigrant ordinances and federal immigration detention policies. Her practice also includes litigation on due process, detention, and employment issues. Ms. Tumlin holds a juris doctor degree and a master of public policy from the University of California at Berkeley.
The Right Side of History: Religious Leaders Urge Immigration Reform at Hearing
01 year ago
At a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration hearing today, a panel of conservative religious leaders made the case for common sense solutions to our immigration problems—comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) that secures our borders, follows the rule of law and provides a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. While the hearing, The Ethical Imperative for Reform of Our Immigration System, started off with ethical and biblical arguments supporting and opposing reform, it later evolved into what most immigration debates eventually boil down to—fairness, justice and the punitive aspects of a reform effort.
The majority witnesses—Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson and VP of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Dean Mathew Staver of the Liberty University School of Law—testified to the moral and biblical mandate to care for “the least of these among us,” the “strangers” who reside in our land, and to act justly and mercifully by enacting comprehensive immigration reform. Faith leaders will continue to reach out and support the undocumented population, Dr. Land said, but “only a proper government response can resolve our immigration crisis.”
“Get tough on immigration” hardliners—Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA)—however, pushed back on religious leaders by citing scripture that quote the “rule of law” and advocate the “punishing of wrongdoers.” “Americans need not repent for wanting to follow the rule of law,” Rep Smith said, “A truly Christian approach would be to end illegal immigration.” Likewise, the single witness for the minority, Dr. James R. Edwards, Jr. of the restrictionist group Center for Immigration Studies, testified that biblical precepts of compassion and mercy “might not apply to civil government of the nation-state of which we are citizens. Sometimes, such application would actually be harmful and wrong.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL)—among others—took particular offense to Dr. Edwards’ distinction. Rep. Gutierrez replied, “I want my government to be a reflection of my values, don’t you?” Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX) asked Dr. Edwards if our current immigration laws were just and whether deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living here was considered “justice?” Dr. Edwards replied “no” to both questions.
The underlying tension in the room, however, wasn’t whether our immigration system is broken (everyone in the room agreed on that) but in how to fix it—and a step further, what a “just punishment” might look like. While the majority of committee members and witnesses agreed on CIR as a solution, immigration restrictionists championed the Arizona SB1070 model—enforcement through attrition—that is, create enforcement laws so harsh that people choose to leave the state. Rev. Mathew Staver, Dean of Liberty University School of Law, argued that deportation wasn’t the answer and that the conservative “amnesty” scare tactic wasn’t helping anyone:
I call upon those who label an earned path to legal status as amnesty to stop politicizing this debate needlessly and to honestly acknowledge the difference.
Dr. Richard Land echoed Rev. Staver’s complaint that “amnesty” is, in fact, something very different from proposed CIR proposals.
Some critics, however, suggest that “comprehensive reform” is a code for amnesty, but such action is not amnesty because it does not merely pardon an offender. My proposal requires lawbreakers to pay a fine, learn to read, write and speak English, and follow a rigorous process for legal status. Penalties, probation, and requirements do not equal “amnesty.” Going to the back of the line behind those who have, and are trying, to come here legally is not amnesty. These are principles of justice and fairness that respect the rule of law and treat all parties involved (American citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants) with dignity.
While restrictionist committee members continued to argue that CIR and its prescribed penalties—paying fines, going back to the end of the line, etc.—were simply not enough, religious leaders like Rev. Staver, continued to drive home the point that immigration is not a “right left” issue, but a “right wrong” issue, a moral issue, and that we “should not allow partisan politics to deter us from the ultimate goal of fixing a broken system.”
Photo by Lone Primate.