scholarly journals A Study and Analysis of the Treatment of Mexican Unaccompanied Minors by Customs and Border Protection

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 96-110
Author(s):  
Kiera Coulter ◽  
Samantha Sabo ◽  
Daniel Martínez ◽  
Katelyn Chisholm ◽  
Kelsey Gonzalez ◽  
...  

Executive Summary The routine human rights abuses and due process violations of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have contributed to a mounting humanitarian and legal crisis along the US–Mexico border. In the United States, the treatment of UAC is governed by laws, policies, and standards drawn from the Flores Settlement, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), and CBP procedures and directives, which are intended to ensure UAC’s protection, well-being, and ability to pursue relief from removal, such as asylum. As nongovernmental organizations and human rights groups have documented, however, CBP has repeatedly violated these legal standards and policies, and subjected UAC to abuses and rights violations. This article draws from surveys of 97 recently deported Mexican UAC, which examine their experiences with US immigration authorities. The study finds that Mexican UAC are detained in subpar conditions, are routinely not screened for fear of return to their home countries or for human trafficking, and are not sufficiently informed about the deportation process. The article recommends that CBP should take immediate steps to improve the treatment of UAC, that CBP and other entities responsible for the care of UAC be monitored to ensure their compliance with US law and policy, and that Mexican UAC be afforded the same procedures and protection under the TVPRA as UAC from noncontiguous states.

Author(s):  
Sofia Gruskin ◽  
Paula Braveman

Violation or neglect of human rights jeopardizes health by interfering with physical, mental, and social well-being. This chapter considers the relevance of human rights to public health as legal standards and obligations of governments, as a conceptual framework of analysis and advocacy, and as guiding principles for designing and implementing policies and programs. It recommends institutionalizing perspectives on social justice and human rights in all health-sector actions, monitoring implications of policies in all sectors that affect health, and building public consensus for equitable financing of healthcare. The authors assert that human rights principles provide a framework that can guide health workers and others in achieving social justice in health and that health workers should be aware that human rights norms, standards, laws, and accountability mechanisms are relevant tools to help achieve social justice in health. A text box focuses on promoting the rights of “undocumented immigrants” in the United States.


2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Lykes ◽  
Erin McDonald ◽  
Cesar Boc

As the number of immigrants in the United States has increased dramatically in recent decades, so has the number of human rights violations against immigrants in the form of arrests without warrants, detention and deportation of parents without consideration of the well-being of their children, and incarceration without bail or the right to a public attorney. The Post-Deportation Human Rights Project (PDHRP) at Boston College was developed to investigate and respond to the legal and psychological effects of deportation policies on migrants living in or deported from the United States. This unique multidisciplinary project involves lawyers, social science faculty, and graduate students—all of whom are bilingual, one of whom is trilingual, and many of whom are bicultural—working together in partnership with local immigrant organizations to address the psychosocial impact of deportation on Latino and Maya families and communities. Our work includes psycho-educational and rights education workshops with immigrant parents and their children in southern New England as well as a cross-national project based in the U.S. and Guatemala supporting transnational families through participatory research, educational workshops, and legal resources.


2021 ◽  
pp. 283-315
Author(s):  
Richard Martin

The focus of the empirical account of human rights in Part IV is on the suspect’s right to liberty in the context of police custody. In keeping with the style adopted in Part III, the discussion that follows seeks to closely analyse how particular aspects of police practices and decision-making interact with human rights law standards. The aim in this chapter is to explore how the three statutory safeguards established in PACE to protect the suspect’s right to liberty have fared in the face of organizational pressure to detect and ‘clear up’ crime. Using the three due process safeguards established in PACE to form a framework for this chapter’s analysis, the chapter explores how officers apply, dismiss, interpret and reconstruct each of these safeguards in their everyday work. Once again, the richness of this analysis, specifically its appreciation for how law and practice do (or do not) interact, is enhanced by paying close attention to the development of lines of authority in the case law that have, it is argued, watered down the legal standards officers must apply. This analysis of the case law is based on recent judgments from the High Court and Divisional Court of Northern Ireland, as well as from the Court of Appeal in England and Wales.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-405
Author(s):  
Nathan K. Hensley

“We saw no issues,” reports the Department of Homeland Security in a self-study of its practices for detaining children at the US–Mexico border, “except one unsanitary bathroom.” The system is working as it should; all is well. “CBP [Customs and Border Protection] facilities we visited,” the report summarizes, “appeared to be operating in compliance with the 2015 National Standards on Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search.” A footnote on page 2 of the September 2018 document defines the prisoners at these facilities, the “unaccompanied alien children,” as “aliens under the age of eighteen with no lawful immigration status in the United States and without a parent or legal guardian in the United States ‘available’ to care and [provide] physical custody for them.” Available is in scare quotes. This tic of punctuation discloses to us that the parents of these children have been arrested and removed. They are not available, and cannot take physical custody of their children, because they themselves are in physical custody. In a further typographical error, the word “provide” has been omitted: the children are without a parent or legal guardian in the United States “available” to care and physical custody for them. The dropped word turns “physical custody” into a verb and sets this new action, to physical custody, in tense relation to “care.”


2013 ◽  
Vol 107 (4) ◽  
pp. 858-863 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Grosswald Curran ◽  
David Sloss

In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., the Supreme Court held that “the presumption against extraterritoriality applies to claims under the [Alien Tort Statute (ATS)], and that nothing in the statute rebuts that presumption.” The Court preserved the possibility that claims arising from conduct outside the United States might be actionable under the ATS “where the claims touch and concern the territory of the United States ... with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application.” However, the Court’s decision apparently sounds the death knell for “foreign-cubed” human rights claims under the ATS—that is, cases in which foreign defendants committed human rights abuses against foreign plaintiffs in foreign countries.


2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lopez ◽  
Alan LeBaron

Guatemalan Maya living in the United States as refugees, migrants, or immigrants without official documents do not entirely escape the troubles they previously faced in Guatemala, such as political and social disadvantages, language barriers, and maintaining identity; moreover additional problems result from the complexities of coping with the US immigration system and the likelihood of incarceration and deportation. This situation becomes more ambiguous with the mixed reception they receive from the United States, where some segments of law and society constantly strive to make survival improbable, and other segments such as churches, employers, and human rights organizations strive to protect. Among the multitude of organizations created within this contentious field of "pro" and "anti" is Pastoral Maya, best described as a "self-help" organization for Maya immigrants; and the Maya Heritage Community Project (the Maya Project) at Kennesaw State University. These two organizations have distinct but overlapping goals and methods designed to defend Maya fundamental human rights to life, security, and well-being. Of course, achieving such lofty goals has been problematic, and with anti-immigration laws and high unemployment of recent years many people have had hopes for the future dashed. But positive signs for the Maya exist, for an increasingly sophisticated Maya leadership has emerged with experience and with the security of having obtained documents of residence. These leaders hope to take advantage of their relatively safe space in the United States to promote a force for change that will lift up the Maya in the United States and in Guatemala. The Pastoral Maya organization has developed a particularly strong leadership that strives for these goals.


2021 ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Susan Page

It is easy for Americans to think that the world’s most egregious human rights abuses happen in other countries. In reality, our history is plagued by injustices, and our present reality is still stained by racism and inequality. While the Michigan Journal of International Law usually publishes only pieces with a global focus, we felt it prudent in these critically important times not to shy away from the problems facing our own country. We must understand our own history before we can strive to form a better union, whether the union be the United States or the United Nations. Ambassador Susan Page is an American diplomat who has faced human rights crises both at home and abroad. We found her following call to action inspiring. We hope you do too.


Refuge ◽  
2003 ◽  
pp. 63-65
Author(s):  
Wendy Young

Political violence and human rights abuses are escalating in Haiti, as the country’s nascent democracy deteriorates. Already, the United States and countries in the Caribbean region are developing and implementing policies designed to deter and prevent the arrival of Haitian asylum seekers, despite the fact that the flow of asylum seekers has not yet significantly increased from past years. This paper raises concerns about the failure of the United States to offer protection to Haitian refugees and proposes the implementation of a resettlement program as a partial solution to this systemic failure. The paper endorses the concept of in-country processing of Haitian refugees if done with significant safeguards to prevent further abuses against such applicants.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Brandon Friedman

Statement of Significance: This article aims to summarize relevant literature on the topic of prolonged solitary confinement from the perspective of the medical sciences to outline the detrimental health impacts associated with this practice, evaluate the extent to which the current use of this practice in the United States (US) aligns with the recommendations outlined in human rights literature, and offer recommendations to further regulate the use of solitary confinement in prisons to better align with the rehabilitative goals of the US criminal justice system. This review details the well-studied physical and psychological harms associated with prolonged solitary confinement to support the notion that restrictions should be placed on the use of this practice for the well-being of incarcerated individuals. Additionally, it reviews the recommendations for appropriate use of this practice outlined in human rights literature and examines how the contemporary utilization of solitary confinement within US prisons fails to meet these proposed standards. Finally, this article offers specific recommendations regarding the appropriate settings in which solitary confinement should be used, key regulations to limit the extent of its use, and additional measures to minimize harm to incarcerated individuals. The limitations of this study include the decision to pursue a targeted literature review, as opposed to an exhaustive systematic review, which may have excluded specific arguments relevant to this paper’s discussion. Further, the scope of this article was focused on a discussion on the topic of prolonged solitary confinement and did not comment on the separate issue regarding the moral permissibility of the solitary confinement, as a whole. Finally, the cultural differences between the US and other high-income countries may limit the ability to compare models of rehabilitation in correctional institutions between these nations, suggesting that the proposed impact of the chosen recommendations should be interpreted with caution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nguyen Van Quan ◽  
Nguyen Bich Thao

Currently, civil procedure legal science in the world begins to study the application of fair procedural rights. Meanwhile, Vietnamese civil procedure legal science seems to pay attention to the proceedings instead of the procedural rights. In this context, the paper examines the application of rights of due process around the world and in Vietnam. From there, the author suggests a number of appropriate orientations in this area that Vietnam should apply in the near future in order to match the trend in the world and the reality of Vietnam. Keywords: Civil procedure, due process, rights of due process, human rights. References: [1] Rhonda Wasserman, Procedural Due Process: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004.[2] E. Thomas Sullivan and Toni M. Massaro, The Arc of Due Process in American Constitutional Law, Oxford University Press, 2013.[3] Khoa Luật Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội, Giáo trình Luật tố tụng dân sự Việt Nam, NXB. Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội.[4] European Court of Human Rights (2013), Guide to Article 6: The Right to a Fair Trial (Civil Limb), http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Guide_Art_6_ENG.pdf.[5] C.H. Van Rhee & Alan Uzelac (eds.), Truth and Efficiency in Civil Litigation: Fundamental Aspects of Fact-Finding and Evidence-Taking in a Comparative Context, Intersentia, 2012, pp. 5-6.    


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document