Litigation

Calls for Immigration Reform, Due Process Concerns

By Lissette Villarruel

Two commentaries have likened conditions for captured immigrants to those of detainees at Guantanamo, and called on the new administration to improve the hearing process used in illegal-immigration cases.

?Just as President Barack Obama has ordered a review of the cases at Guantanamo, it is high time that he take a look at the immigrants who have been convicted in sham trials and housed within the U.S. borders,? declared Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez in a commentary for New America Media.

While immigration issues may not currently be at the forefront of the White House agenda, serious changes must be made in terms of immigration trials as well as the detention facilities, Rodriguez argued. Although President Obama has condemned torture and ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay, grave civil rights violations continue to occur as immigrants are denied fair trials and are housed in inhumane prisons, he said.

Each day, 70 immigrants are convicted in judicial proceedings within an hour at a federal court. The process is commonly known as ?Operation Streamline,? and Rodriguez said it makes a ?mockery? of a judicial system that depends on public confidence and a faithful adherence to the rule of law. In other states, thousands of immigrants are rapidly imprisoned and stripped of their due process rights.

According to another New America Media commentary, those held in detention facilities face a plethora of problems, including ?death from medical neglect, denial of habeas corpus and other basic legal rights, lack of sanitation, food and other basic necessities, violent and abusive guards.?  Considering the vast number of immigrants who are currently being tracked down, streamlined, and imprisoned, it is little surprise that reform groups see these injustices as a ??humanitarian crisis.??

While the closing of Guantanamo Bay is certainly a step in the right direction, Rodriguez concluded, it is quickly becoming apparent that President Obama ?should examine not simply the walls, the militarization of the border, the immigration raids, the detention facilities and the sham trials, but also the entire premise of his predecessor’s fear-based immigration and border enforcement policies.?

According to its website, New America Media is a collaboration that brings together voices of ethnic minorities.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).