Criminal Justice: A Sin and A Shame

A Sin and A Shame

By: Llenda Jackson-Leslie

Someone or some people ought to be losing their jobs over the wrongful deportation and incarceration of Houston teenager, Jakadrien Turner. Turner ran away from home to Atlanta, GA last year at the age of 14 and was picked up for shoplifting. After she gave the name of a Colombian native to police—they turned her over to ICE even though her fingerprints weren’t a match—and she spoke no Spanish—not one word. ICE then deported her to Colombia. Her grandmother who had been searching for Jakadrien—finally tracked her whereabouts through Facebook.

If you think the incompetence and callous treatment of the African American teen is pretty shocking up to this point—it gets worse. ICE officials told the grandmother that if she wanted her granddaughter returned to the US—she would have to buy a plane ticket for her. Finally as news accounts of the story spread, the government was shamed into returning her. And fortunately she was reunited with her family two days ago.

No one charged with enforcing the law or immigration policy looks good in this story—not ICE, the Colombian government or Atlanta police. Even sadder, immigration advocates and lawyers say Jakadrien’s story isn’t that unusual or even that tragic. The case against ICE is replete with stories of people dying in custody, being denied medical treatment or medication and nursing infants being separated from their mothers.

Yet so far there have been no reports of ICE officials being fired or investigated—no calls from Congress for eliminating the agency. Is it because this error and a host of others—humiliating, outrageous and even fatal—disproportionately impact Black, Brown and poor people?

You can read a pretty full account of Jakadrien’s ordeal at Madame Noire and Juliane Hing offers more details at Colorlines.

Criminal Justice: Finally- A New Sheriff in Town

Associated Press

Finally- A New Sheriff in Town

By: Llenda Jackson-Leslie

Civil rights supporters heard welcome news on a couple of fronts last week. First Attorney General Eric Holder made it clear in a speech at the LBJ Center at the University of Texas that the Department of Justice was prepared, able and ready to enforce the Voting Rights Act, and to seek legal sanctions against states refusing to comply. Welcome news for voting rights supporters busy tallying up the new restrictive voting measures passed in 25 states.

Then in an even more satisfying move, DOJ civil rights chief Tom Perez released a devastating report detailing how Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, also known as America’s meanest sheriff, had engaged in racial profiling and other civil rights abuses against Latinos. Rinku Sen wrote a brilliant piece in Colorlines titled “Because the Arc is Bending Toward Justice.” You can check out her analysis here.

Poor Joe really had a bad week, after the report was released, the Department of Homeland Security run by none other than former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano announced that it was ending an agreement with the Maricopa department that allowed deputies to enforce immigration laws and use the Secure Communities programs which uses fingerprints collected in local jails.  DHS sanctions Arpaio.

The Supreme Court will review Arizona’s restrictive immigration law, SB 1070 in 2012. Arizona voters spoke last month when they recalled the bill’s author, Senate President Russell Pearce. He is the first state senate president to ever be recalled. More about Arizona law here. Meanwhile Pearce’s followers in Alabama are scrambling to undo the damage their state’s copycat anti-immigrant law has caused the state’s bottom line and reputation. Apparently several traffic cops have been enforcing the strict laws against the wrong immigrants. When executives with Honda and Mercedes were stopped for not having proof of citizenship—Chamber of Commerce types thought they had gone just too far. Despite the fact that the Chamber backed most of the miscreants behind the bill. The Republican attorney general is suggesting several fixes as is the Republican governor who signed the bill. The arrests of the two auto execs prompted Missouri to run an ad encouraging foreign investment saying, “We’re the show me state—not the show me your papers state.”

Mayor Sheldon Day in Thomasville Alabama is worried about recruiting industries. According to Day, "Up until a few months ago, nobody raised the immigration issue," he said. But in the last few months, it's been brought up regularly. Day suspects competing states are portraying Alabama as hostile to foreigners even though he says that is not the truth. Based on the questions he gets from industrial prospects, he also believes competing states are recounting stories from Alabama's civil rights past. "It's bringing back old images from 40 or 50 year ago," he said.

The governor says he's declined many national TV interviews about the law because he doesn't want to fuel comparisons with what he sees as Alabama's long gone past. "It's going to take us a long time to outlive those stereotypes that are out there among people that Alabama is living in the '50s and '60s," Bentley said.  You can read more here.

Rolling Out The Welcome Mat

Rolling Out The Welcome Mat

By Shannon Mouton

Wow, this is a big world with 193 countries and 7 billion people speaking 6,500 languages. Think of it, immigrants from the around the world come here, the United States of America. We should be humbled, with our widely known and often discussed history of slavery, discrimination, intolerance and injustice, they still want to come here. They want to live with us; they want to be our neighbors and they want to call America home.

They come here singing "America! America! God shed his grace on thee..."
They come here thinking we are "the land of the free and the home of the brave..."
They come here accepting Lady Liberty's invitation, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses..."
They come here knowing with hard work and perseverance, they too can achieve the American Dream.
They come here believing in democracy, "with liberty and justice for all."
To put it quite simply, they think we are all of that and a bag of chips.
Are we? Is America living up to the hype?

I'm not so sure anymore:

Most of us are aware of the Arizona law, SB 1070, which encourages racial profiling because it requires "law enforcement officers attempt to determine an individual's immigration status during a 'lawful stop, detention or arrest' when there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is an illegal immigrant..."

In June Alabama passed HB 56, which "requires public schools to check students’ immigration status, criminalizes giving an undocumented immigrant a ride, and instructs police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop if they suspect the person of being an undocumented immigrant."

Not to mention redlining, LGBTQ discrimination, sexual harassment and pay inequities, voter fraud elimination schemes and the rise of hate crimes.

Yep, I can see why immigrants would want to come here. We're so open to people not like us.