Civil & Human Rights

ACLU Files Suit on Behalf of Refugee Children

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ACLU refugee children The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed suit on behalf of the 1000s of refugee children being held in detention centers in the southwest.

The ACLU suit claims that the children should have legal representation when they go through their deportation proceedings.

I have witnessed several immigration hearings for people with and without lawyers. Setting aside anxiety and potential Spanish/English/indigenous language barriers, judges and lawyers have their own lingo and their own rules. Even adult non-lawyers can get tripped up by the legal system. These deportation hearings are literally a life or death matter for the refugee children. There is a fine line between being label a refugee who is fleeing violence and persecution in her homeland (OK, you can stay) or a migrant who broke US law and crossed the border (Hasta luego).

Providing them with lawyers is the humanitarian thing to do to. I also believe that the government should make every effort to hook up these minors with relatives who are in the US. (I have this to say to the people who claim the US can’t afford to care for these children and treat them humanely: TAX THE RICH.)

From the ACLU..

Eleven-year-old Luisa was too young to apply on her own for a visa to come from Guatemala to the United States where she hoped to be reunited with her mother. But since federal immigration authorities detained her last year in Texas, Luisa has learned that she is apparently not too young to act as her own lawyer as federal immigration officials move to deport her back to her native Guatemala.

During a recent hearing in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom, Luisa and more than two dozen other children crowded into a small room where the U.S. government has begun deportation hearings against them. Some sat quietly, feet dangling from benches. Others, who spoke indigenous languages and understood little Spanish, looked nervously around struggling to understand the proceedings.

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A Truly ‘Christian’ Nation Would NOT Deport Refugees (video)

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Honduras violence
Screen capture from a video by Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman. Full video below.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…
— US Declaration of Independence

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
— Emma Lazarus’ poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

… One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
— US Pledge of Allegiance

It sucks when our national public relations story doesn’t match our actions.

On Monday– just a few days after the US celebrated the signing of the Declaration of Independence– our government released a statement saying that thousands of the unaccompanied child refugees who crossed the US-Mexico border fleeing violence and seeking safety and family members will likely be deported.

This is unconscionable. If we send these children back home to die, we must scratch Emma Lazarus’ poem off the Statue of Liberty and take “God” out of our political speech.

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Possibly the most terrible idea to be espoused in the Hobby Lobby furor

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

pill cartoon

There are, of course, a plethora of terrible arguments, bad faith assertions, and vile statements by anti-choicers in the past week to choose from but I have to give the top honor to one Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry for this:

In the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision, there was a lot of chatter about how the court had ruled about what healthcare employers should or shouldn’t provide, which leads me to make a small but important terminological point: contraception is not “healthcare”.

I made this point in passing on Twitter and had, I think, the most violent and unhinged response that I can recall, and I’ve gotten into a lot of arguments on Twitter and elsewhere on the internet.

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Ninth Circuit Court page for same-sex marriage appeals

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While perusing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals web site, I see that the Court has set up a special page for the same-sex marriage appeals to be argued on  Monday, September 8, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., Courtroom One, James R. Browning US Courthouse, San Francisco, California (does not include the Oregon case). Those of … Read more

Ninth Circuit rules for the DREAMers: ‘animus toward DACA recipients … is not a legitimate state interest’

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Our lawless Tea-Publican state legislature and governor just keep racking up losses in court, pissing away your tax dollars on attorneys fees and costs trying to defend their unconstitutional and unlawful acts motivated by their extremist ideology.

brewer_hateToday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals smacked down Governor Jan Brewer for her executive order denying drivers licenses to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) aka DREAMers because her executive order as motivated out of “animus toward DACA recipients themselves, in part because of the federal government’s policy toward them” . . . “Such animus, however, is not a legitimate state interest.” Read the unanimous opinion of the three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Here (.pdf).

the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Court clears way for “dreamers” driver’s licenses, says Arizona policy motivated by animosity:

Calling the state policy motivated by animosity, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ordered that “dreamers” who the federal government allow to work in this country also be issued Arizona driver’s licenses, at least for the time being.

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