Border Babies — Medical Ethics and Human Rights in Immigrant Detention Centers

2020 ◽  
Vol 383 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-299
Author(s):  
Sondra S. Crosby ◽  
George J. Annas
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
Immigrant Detention

scholarly journals Detained during a Pandemic: Human Rights behind Locked Doors

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 276
Author(s):  
Justine N. Stefanelli
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Legal Representation ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
United States Immigration ◽  
States Immigration ◽  
Locked Doors ◽  
The U.S

Every year, thousands of people are detained in United States immigration detention centers. Built to prison specifications and often run by private companies, these detention centers have long been criticized by academics and advocacy groups. Problems such as overcrowding and lack of access to basic healthcare and legal representation have plagued individuals in detention centers for years. These failings have been illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted detained migrants. Against a human rights backdrop, this article will examine how the U.S. immigration detention system has proven even more problematic in the context of the pandemic and offer insights to help avoid similar outcomes in the future.

scholarly journals Khlaifia and Others v. Italy

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-280
Author(s):  
Jill I. Goldenziel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
European Court ◽  
Grand Chamber ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Domestic Law

In Khlaifia and Others v. Italy, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber or Court) released a landmark opinion with broad implications for how states must respect the individual rights of migrants. In the judgment, issued on December 15, 2016, the Court held that Italy's treatment of migrants after the Arab Spring violated the requirement of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that migrants receive procedural guarantees that enable them to challenge their detention and expulsion. The Court also held that Italy's treatment of migrants in detention centers did not violate the ECHR's prohibition on cruel and inhuman treatment, in part due to the emergency circumstances involved. The Court further held that Italy's return of migrants to Tunisia did not violate the prohibition on collective expulsion in Article 4 of Protocol 4 of the ECHR. Enforcement of the judgment would require many European states to provide a clear basis in domestic law for the detention of migrants and asylum-seekers. Given the global diffusion of state practices involving migrants, and other states’ desires to restrict migration, this case has broad implications for delineating the obligations of states to migrants and the rights of migrants within receiving countries.

Compounding Racialized Vulnerability: COVID-19 in Prisons, Jails, and Migrant Detention Centers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew G.T. Denney ◽  
Ramon Garibaldo Valdez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Harm Reduction ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Correctional Facilities ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
Life Saving ◽  
Improved Sanitation ◽  
Immigrant Detention

Abstract Context: Carceral institutions are among the largest clusters of COVID-19 in the United States. As outbreaks have spread throughout prisons and detention centers, detainees have organized collectively to demand life-saving measures. Chief among these demands has been the call for decarceration: the release of detainees and inmates to prevent exposure to COVID-19. This paper theorizes the compounding racial vulnerability that has led to such a marked spread behind bars, mainly among race-class subjugated communities. Methods: We use journalistic sources and administrative data to provide an in-depth account of the spread of COVID-19 in American correctional facilities and of the mobilization to reduce contagions. We also use two survey experiments to describe public support for harm reduction and decarceration demands and measure the effects of information about (a) racial inequalities in prison, and (b) poor conditions inside migrant detention centers. Findings: We find that only one-third to one-half of respondents believe that response to COVID-19 in prisons and immigrant detention centers should be a high priority. We also find that Americans are much more supportive of harm reduction measures like improved sanitation than of releasing people from prisons and detention centers. Information about racial disparities increases support for releasing more people from prison. We do not find any significant effect of information about poor conditions in migrant detention centers. Conclusions: The conditions in prisons and migrant detention centers during the pandemic—and public opinion about them—highlight the realities of compounding racialized vulnerability in the United States.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-54
Keyword(s):  
Jim Crow ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indian Reservations ◽  
The Core ◽  
Detention Centers ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Immigrant Detention ◽  
Jim Crow South

The introduction analyzes the ways in which distinct regimes of incarceration and removal—from jails and prisons to Indian reservations and immigrant detention centers and deportation trains—have constituted what Michel Foucault has called a “carceral continuum, network and archipelago” that stretches across time, space, and region. Foucault defined this “carceral continuum” as a disciplinary network where the prison served as the core and root of carceral power but where different branches of other carceral regimes entwined. The introduction expands Foucault’s “carceral continuum” to explore how a variety of federal, state, local, and privatized institutions developed from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first. The introduction situates overlapping “carceral networks” as the core nexus that connects otherwise distinct historiographies of the American West, the Jim Crow South, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. As a collection of essays that analyzes the intersection of carceral networks across different regions and transnationally between different nations, the introduction addresses a historiography of carceral literature that is often defined by its attachment to regional characteristics and different methodological approaches. The introduction concludes that the intersection of these carceral states may yet provide the critical lens needed to dismantle the tangled state of mass incarceration.

scholarly journals Dignity, personhood and culture: reflections on bioethics of today

2010 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Munzarova
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Sono Stati ◽  
Inherent Dignity ◽  
The World ◽  
Loss Of Dignity ◽  
Human Family ◽  
Modern Form

Il rispetto per la dignità intrinseca di ogni essere umano è il fondamento di ogni etica medica, nonché il fondamento di molte dichiarazioni. Quella fondamentale, la Dichiarazione Universale dei Diritti dell’Uomo (ONU 1948) – ricordando “gli atti di barbarie che oltraggiarono la coscienza dell’umanità”, ha sancito che “il riconoscimento della dignità intrinseca ... di tutti i membri della famiglia umana è il fondamento della libertà, della giustizia e della pace nel mondo”. Nell’attuale disputa della bioetica diversi autori negano questo fatto, negano la personalità di tutti, incoraggiano l’uccisione di coloro che non sono, secondo il loro punto di vista, persone, argomentano contro il rispetto della coscienza, mettono insieme dignità intrinseca ed estrinseca (attribuita), ritengono che la dignità sia un concetto inutile in etica medica, ecc., ecc. E poiché le idee hanno sempre conseguenze, i medici uccidono i loro pazienti (accettando i loro sentimenti di perdita della dignità) e scoprono una novità piuttosto sorprendente, una forma moderna di paradossale guarigione-uccisione: le cure palliative e l’eutanasia legalizzata non sono antagonisti, sono uniti in una “cura palliativa integrale”. Dobbiamo vedere la realtà: alcuni aspetti del ragionamento odierno ricordano in maniera inquietante le motivazioni degli atti di barbarie precedenti alla guerra. Svariati segnali urgenti provenienti da uomini di cultura, che hanno avuto una personale esperienza tragica a causa di questi atti di barbarie, sono stati riportati. ---------- Respect to the inherent dignity of every human being is the cornerstone of all medical ethics as well as the cornerstone of many declarations. The fundamental one, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948) – remembering the “barbarous acts, that have outraged the conscience of mankind” – proclaimed that “recognition of the inherent dignity … of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. In the present arena of bioethics several authors deny this fact, deny the personhood of everybody, recommend killing of those who are, according their point of view, not persons, speak against the respect of conscience, conflate inherent and extrinsic (attributed) dignity, think that dignity is a useless concept in medical ethics, etc. etc. And as ideas have always consequences, physicians kill their patients (accepting their feelings of the loss of dignity) and find out quite strange innovation, a modern form of healing-killing paradox: palliative care and legalized euthanasia are not antagonistic; they are joined together in “integral palliative care”. We must see the reality: certain aspects of present day reasoning are disturbingly reminiscent to the reasoning of those who prepared barbarous acts before the war. Several urgent warning coming from the men of wisdom, who had personal tragic experience due to these barbarous acts, are quoted.

scholarly journals Medical Ethics and Human Rights in Reproductive Health

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
K Muhunthan ◽  
S Arulkumaran
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Reproductive Health ◽  
Medical Ethics

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njog.v9i1.11177 NJOG 2014 Jan-Jun; 2(1):5-7

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