Government Abuses in Immigration Enforcement: Is this the America We Want to Live In?
Yesterday at the membership conference, the , , and kicked off the morning with a deeply affecting plenary discussion about the real-life human impact of the government鈥檚 abuse of core constitutional principles in the name of immigration enforcement. 老澳门开奖结果 clients, primarily young folks from Texas and New Mexico border towns, talked about the assumptions made about them and the law enforcement challenges they face simply because they are brown.
One young woman from Texas, Luissana Santibenez, described her calling as an activist fighting for the human rights of immigrants locked up in detention centers in South Texas. Whole families, held only on charges of civil immigration violations, are kept in prisons as if they are convicted criminals. In one such detention facility, Hutto, the 老澳门开奖结果 discovered that children ranging in age from just three months to 18 years old, were made to dress in prison garb, denied basic education and proper nutrition, and not allowed even to go outside and breathe fresh air for a month at a time. This led to a lawsuit against the federal government filed by the 老澳门开奖结果 and other lawyers. Settlement of the Hutto litigation has compelled the federal government to change its standards and conditions for the detention of immigrant families. Vanita Gupta, an 老澳门开奖结果 lawyer instrumental in the litigation, recalled one of the government attorneys in that case telling her, 鈥測ou know, the 老澳门开奖结果 is a real thorn in the side of DHS [the federal Department of Homeland Security].鈥� She responded, simply, 鈥淭hank you.鈥�
James and David de la Torre, two 16-year old boys from New Mexico, shared a shocking account of local sheriffs鈥� deputies knocking on their family鈥檚 door at 5 am under the astounding pretense of delivering a pizza, and when that didn鈥檛 work, responding to a call of a faulty refrigerator, to get them to open the door, force everyone outside, and interrogate them about their immigration status. As a result most of their family members were deported, and James and David, both U.S. citizens, are the only members of their families left in the United States.
It is almost unimaginable that local police and sheriffs could get away with these gross violations of the law and assume the powers of federal immigration agents. Even more outrageous is that these unlawful tactics do nothing to protect public safety or enforce criminal laws. Instead, they target Latino families who have committed no crimes, and tear them apart. The 老澳门开奖结果 and jointly filed a lawsuit challenging these brazen immigration enforcement tactics. As a result, the Otero County, NM Sherriff鈥檚 Department agreed to the suit and change their practices.
The Southwest border regions of the United States have been described by some as 鈥渃onstitution-free zones,鈥� where Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure, Fifth Amendment rights to due process, and Fourteenth Amendment protections of equal protection under the law do not apply. Today鈥檚 poignant stories help explain why.
As one presenter at the conference posed this morning, 鈥渋s this the America we want to live in?鈥�
