In the media and in popular culture, the face of unauthorized migration is commonly that of the single male, coming to the United States to work and support his family back home. Although this image is repeated and reinforced by policy makers, popular media and politicians, in reality it is no longer the only face of unauthorized migration across our Southwest border.
Migration by adults for economic reasons has decreased dramatically in recent years. In fact, the Pew Research Center recently released a report stating that net migration from Mexico has reached 0 percent, meaning that as many people are returning to Mexico from the U.S. as are coming here. In addition, the Chief of U.S. Border Patrol recently testified before Congress that unauthorized migration has decreased 53 percent since 2008, and numbers are less than one-fifth of what they were at their peak in 2000.
But these statistics do not tell us who is coming, or why they are exposing themselves to the dangerous and harrowing journey to seek protection in the United States.
Read the full blog on the Huffington Post website.
Jeanne[1], from Haiti, lived in the U.S. with her four U.S. citizen children. The sheriff’s department appeared at her home after her abusive boyfriend made a false 911 call against her. Rather than protecting her, the police placed her under arrest, booked her, strip searched her in front of male deputies and then sent her to a detention facility over 400 miles away from her children.
No one asked Jeanne about the domestic violence she had suffered at the hands of her boyfriend or told her that she might qualify for immigration relief because she had been a victim of crime. And no one responded to her concerns for the safety of her children. Jeanne had no way to keep in touch with her children or to make arrangements for their care while she was in detention. When she was finally released several months later, Jeanne learned that one of her sons had been sleeping in his abusive father’s taxi cab and her daughter was living with a school friend’s family after her father kicked her out of the house. An interaction with the police, who were supposed to protect Jeanne and her children from the boyfriend’s abuse, had ended up leaving her children in increased danger of neglect and abuse. The experience left Jeanne and her children traumatized, and put her at risk of both deportation and permanent separation from her children.
Read the full blog on the Rights Working Group website.
On this World Refugee Day, I have in front of me the faces of the young refugee girls the Women's Refugee Commission met on a recent visit to Ethiopia. As I read through the notes from that visit, I am reminded again that for many refugee girls around the world, there are no good choices.
I see the sad eyes of 14-year old Zala*, who fled Somalia two years ago after her parents were killed in front of her. Somehow, this young girl survived a harrowing trip on a boat that capsized after five weeks at sea. She was rescued and eventually ended up in a refugee camp.
Read the full blog on the Huffington Post website to learn about the situation for refugee girls like Zala, and what the Women's Refugee Commission is doing to ensure they have the opportunity to develop the confidence, critical thinking, leadership skills and support networks that will allow them to better protect themselves and to participate fully in community life and decision-making.
As is sometimes the case with good news, the announcement about deferred action for eligible DREAM students caught us pleasantly by surprise. The Women's Refugee Commission's Detention and Asylum staff had just logged into their computers for what we thought might be a quiet day when the emails began streaming in. Major White House announcement about DREAM! Call with Department of Homeland Security officials happening right now!
Read the full blog on the Huffington Post website.
Listening to a live band cover a Frank Valli song at an outdoor basketball stadium surrounded by palm trees is not my normal Monday morning. But that was how my Monday began recently on a trip to the Philippines. My colleague Jennifer Schlecht and I were at a team-building meeting for several hundred local government officials in Mindanao, an island an hour and a half north of the capital, Manila. Mindanao is a lush tropical island, with a gorgeous coastline and waterfalls. But it is also home to multiple rebel groups. And in December 2011, the island was hit by Tropical Storm Washi, which forced over half a million of its inhabitants from their homes, with little or no access to basic services and health care. Many fell victim to the chaos that ensued—especially women and girls.
Read more: Notes from the Field: Community Comes Together to Plan for a Safer Future
Co-authored by Michelle Brané, Director, and Jennifer Podkul, Program Officer, Detention and Asylum
It's been two years since Sergio Hernandez-Gueraca was killed by Customs and Border Protection agents. In June 2010, as 15-year-old Sergio was attempting to cross into the United States, a confrontation between a smuggler and Border agent broke out. According to allegations made by the U.S. government, Sergio threw rocks at the agents from the Mexican side of the border. The agents responded by shooting and killing him.
This month, the Department of Justice closed the investigation into Sergio's death. After over a year of investigations involving the Inspector General, FBI, U.S. Attorney's Office and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Justice Department declared that "there is insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution of the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] agent for a federal homicide offense." In essence, authorities found that the agent acted consistently with U.S. policies regarding the use of force.
Read the full blog on the Huffington Post website.
This blog is an update on a blog written in 2011 on the ongoing crisis in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with women and girls continuing to face sexual attacks.
“We were eighteen women and eight small children in a cell. Men came all the time to demand sex from women. They had different uniforms, blue, khaki, black...They shared us among them, in turns… If you refused they beat you with whips. They raped us inside the cell and told us simply to close our eyes. The children who were with us cried a lot.” —Congolese migrant detained in a jail in Angola
This horrifying account describes an ongoing cycle of human rights violations and alarming violence against women and girls in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Many of the attacks are against Congolese who had fled to Angola and are now being detained and thrown out of the country. This violence has become a fact of life for many undocumented women and girls.
Read more: Women and Girls Suffer Most as Angola and DRC Continue Their Dispute
Nearly 10 years ago, Congress passed, in a bipartisan vote, the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). This was the first legislation to call for a zero-tolerance approach to sexual assault and rape in any kind of confinement throughout the United States. Immigration detention and juvenile custody were expressly included in the recommendations that were subsequently issued by the Prison Rape Elimination Commission.
Last week the Justice Department issued its long-awaited regulations in regard to PREA. And although these particular regulations will not apply to immigrants held under the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, the White House issued a memorandum on the same day calling for any federal agency with jurisdiction over confinement facilities to work with the Justice Department to develop their own regulations in compliance with PREA.
Read the entire blog in the Impact section of the Huffington Post website.
“To get into the United States, I swam across the river in south Texas, in the middle of the night in my underwear, carrying a plastic bag filled with dry clothes.” This was the beginning of Olga Cantarero’s harrowing journey from Nicaragua to the United States — fearing for her life at the hands of her smugglers. Olga’s story is filled with tragedies and triumphs.
When Olga was 19, her work as a volunteer for the Red Cross was seen as subversive and, with her life at risk, she was forced to flee her native Nicaragua. She endured a dangerous journey through Mexico across the border to Texas – she walked throughout the night with no food or water, passing the bodies of women and children who had died on their journeys to freedom. She now works with immigrant and asylum-seeking girls in Texas, girls ages 13-17 who faced persecution in their home countries or suffered similar traumas during their own difficult journeys to the United States.
Read the entire blog on the Forbes.com website.
Actress and humanitarian Liv Ullmann kicked off the Women's Refugee Commission's 2012 Voices of Courage Awards luncheon at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City on May 4 with a story about a young boy she met in a refugee camp many years ago. He told her he only cried when it rained so he would not dampen the spirits of the other children. The gala honored intrepid women who are improving the lives of refugee women and girls, and featured corporate and humanitarian leaders such as PepsiCo's Chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi; former CFO of JPMorgan Chase Dina Dublon; Afghanistan's award-winning Dr. Sakena Jacoobi; and young refugee women from Sudan, Congo and Nicaragua.
Read the entire blog on the Impact section of the Huffington Post website.
NEW! “Early Relationships and Marriage in Conflict & Post-Conflict Settings: Vulnerability of Youth in Uganda” http://t.co/XNl7vnsKFq
May 17, 2013 at 3:12 pm UTC Retweet this
A price of #immigrant detention- suicide. http://t.co/TYO9EdPxru
May 16, 2013 at 2:46 pm UTC Retweet this
Connect with us on Flickr
