July, 31 2014, 01:45pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Josh Bell, ACLU national, 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
Sandra Hernandez, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, 213 977 5252, SHernandez@aclusocal.org
Lawsuit Charges U.S. Uses Secret, Unfounded 'National Security Concerns' to Deny Muslim Immigrants Citizenship
Five people who have lived in the United States legally for decades filed a lawsuit today challenging a little-known government program used to deny thousands of law-abiding people citizenship, green cards, and visas on counterterrorism grounds - most of them from Muslim-majority countries. Immigrants whose applications are denied under the program do not find out why or have a meaningful opportunity to respond, the same as people who find themselves in the government's wider watchlist system.
LOS ANGELES
Five people who have lived in the United States legally for decades filed a lawsuit today challenging a little-known government program used to deny thousands of law-abiding people citizenship, green cards, and visas on counterterrorism grounds - most of them from Muslim-majority countries. Immigrants whose applications are denied under the program do not find out why or have a meaningful opportunity to respond, the same as people who find themselves in the government's wider watchlist system.
The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, the national ACLU, and the law firms of Jones Day and Stacy Tolchin. It charges that the program violates immigration law, and is unconstitutional because it was adopted without any congressional approval and violates the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process.
"Our clients are long-time, law-abiding residents of the United States who, for years, the government has walled off from becoming citizens and lawful residents of this country without legal authority to do so," said Jennie Pasquarella, a staff attorney with the ACLU SoCal. "Under this unfair and unconstitutional program, the government has blacklisted their applications without telling them why and barred them from upgrading their immigration status in violation of the immigration laws."
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security, reviews and adjudicates immigration applications. In 2008, the agency unilaterally adopted the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (CARRP), which prohibits USCIS field officers from routinely approving an application with a potential "national security concern." They must instead deny the application or delay a final determination, often indefinitely. The plaintiffs' immigration applications have been pending for several years, even though the process is supposed to take no more than six months.
CARRP's definition of a "national security concern" is far more expansive than the ineligibility criteria specified by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which USCIS is required to follow. For example, CARRP automatically covers anyone whose name is on the government's Terrorist Watch List, which has been reported to include close to a million names. The government's guidelines for including people on the watchlist, which were leaked last week, show that the standards are vague and overbroad, particularly for non-citizens. The guidelines show that a person could be added to the list simply because he or she is "associated" with someone already on the watchlist, even if the government does not have reliable information about that person's activities.
"CARRP's definition of a 'national security concern' is far broader that any national security bar to immigration benefits set forth in the law," said Stacy Tolchin, of the Los Angeles-based Tolchin Immigration law firm. "It is the imperative of Congress, not USCIS, to set the standards for who can become American citizens or legally immigrate to this country."
Although the USCIS has not revealed the total number of people who have been subject to CARRP, the agency's data reveals that between fiscal years 2008 and 2012, more than 19,000 people from 21 Muslim-majority countries or regions were subjected to the program.
"It's deeply problematic that USCIS has a secret program identifying people as national security concerns based in part on their inclusion in the government's flawed watchlist system," said Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "The watchlist system is composed of overbroad, exception-ridden standards that inevitably result in many individuals, like our clients, being blacklisted even though they are wholly innocent of wrongdoing."
The case, Muhanna, et al. v. USCIS, et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court in for the Central District of California.
Today's complaint is at:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/muhannacomplaint073114.pdf
Plaintiff bios and a video are at:
https://www.aclu.org/national-security/muhanna-v-uscis-challenge-government-program-denying-citizenship-and-green-cards
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Indigenous Brazilians Mobilize for Land Demarcation, Tribal Rights
Participants in the 20th Free Land Camp demanded that leftist Brazilian President Luiz InĂ¡cio Lula da Silva deliver on his promises to Indigenous people.
Apr 26, 2024
Thousands of people rallied this week in BrasĂlia for the 20th annual Free Land Camp—the largest gathering of Indigenous people in Brazil—where participants demanded that President Luiz InĂ¡cio Lula da Silva's administration safeguard their lands and cultural rights
Organized by the Association of Brazil's Indigenous Peoples (APIB), the five-day Free Land Camp—in Portuguese, Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL)—wrapped up Friday after a week of solidarity and action. Activities included rallies and marches; events commemorating slain Indigenous activists; and plenary sessions on the climate emergency, education, mental health, and more.
Some participants criticized Lula—who was notably absent from this year's ATL after attending the previous two camps—for what they said was his failure to fulfill campaign promises to Indigenous Brazilians—although attendees also acknowledged that his administration has taken major steps toward tackling illegal resource extraction and demarcating tribal lands.
Two big issues at this year's ATL—whose theme was "Our Existence is Ancestral: We Have Always Been Here!"—were the demarcation of Indigenous lands and opposition to proposed Amazon megaprojects, especially the plan to build the EF-170 railway through the heart of the imperiled rainforest in order to boost mining, logging, agribusiness, and other resource extraction and exploitation.
Last year, Brazilian lawmakers overruled Lula's partial veto of the highly contentious "Marco Temporal" law, which effectively paused demarcations and potentially opened more Indigenous lands to exploitation.
Demarcation confers legal protections against the illegal logging, mining, and ranching that have plagued rural Brazil for generations. On April 19—Indigenous Peoples Day in Brazil—Lula touted his government's demarcation of Aldeia Velha, land of the PataxĂ³ people, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as well as the territory of the KarajĂ¡ people in Cacique Fontoura, Mato Grosso.
Lula has acknowledged that his administration is falling short of its own demarcation pledges to Indigenous people and has promised to do more.
Alessandra Korap Munduruku, a member of the Munduruku people and a 2023 winner of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, criticized the demarcation delay.
"Twenty years of resistance struggle by the Terra Livre camp. For 20 years we've been coming to BrasĂlia, occupying and seeking our rights," she said. "This year, we're waiting for the government to demarcate all our lands. But the government is letting the [state] governors decide for us."
"This is not what we expect. It's not the governor's decision to make. It's the federal government's," Korap Munduruku added. "This is written in the Constitution, and we see that we are being used."
Brazilian and international agribusiness interests, including commodity traders like U.S.-based Cargill, are pushing Lula's administration to proceed with EF-170—commonly called the FerrogrĂ£o—over the objections of Indigenous peoples. KayapĂ³ leader Doto Takak-Ire warned last year that the FerrogrĂ£o threatens the survival of no less than 48 native peoples, calling the project "the railway of Indigenous genocide."
Earlier this year, Brazilian Transport Minister Renan Filho said that building the FerrogrĂ£o is a top administration priority, sparking widespread disappointment and anger among the KayapĂ³ and other Indigenous people who say they'll be adversely affected by the railway.
ATL participants on Thursday led a "train of death" through BrasĂlia's Esplanade of Ministries, a greenway bisecting numerous government buildings, to draw attention to the project's perils.
"FerrogrĂ£o is the train of death, of deforestation," Korap Munduruku said Thursday.
"The railroad is not going to carry people, as they claim, but grain production of international companies that are financing this project," she continued. "It's a project that will affect not only Indigenous people, but also traditional communities and the people who live in the towns alongside its route."
"In addition, it is a project that will affect people all over the world because it would exacerbate climate change with the massive deforestation it would cause," Korap Munduruku added.
APIB executive coordinator Kleber Karipuna said the government did not adequately consult Indigenous peoples when planning the FerrogrĂ£o.
"Hearings have only been held in cities, none in Indigenous villages," the Karipuna tribal leader said. "Once again, we demand that the protocols for consulting Indigenous peoples be respected. Additionally, the absence of a consultation protocol should not be used as an excuse to deny consultation of peoples affected by the project."
Takakpe Tapayuna Metuktire of the Raoni Institute, which promotes Indigenous rights and sustainability, warned that "FerrogrĂ£o represents the death of kilometers and kilometers of forest."
"While we should be thinking about how to preserve what remains and think about alternative infrastructure projects that respect our rights, nature, and Indigenous and traditional peoples," Tapayuna Metuktire asserted. "We are fighting to prevent yet another project of death and destruction from prevailing in the Amazon. With FerrogrĂ£o all that will be left is scorched earth."
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UN Warns of 'Catastrophic' Imminent Escalation in Sudan
Warring factions in North Darfur state must "avoid locating military installations within or near densely populated areas, including towns and camps for internally displaced people," said one U.N. official.
Apr 26, 2024
The United Nations' top humanitarian affairs officials on Friday called for an immediate deescalation of hostilities in Sudan, where rival factions in the military government have been fighting for a year and where an attack on the city of El Fasher is reportedly imminent.
About 800,000 people in the city, the capital of North Darfur state, are in "extreme and immediate danger," U.N. aid operations director, Edem Wosornu, told the U.N. Security Council earlier this week, as she reported that clashes between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are nearing El Fasher.
Fighting between the two groups has intensified in recent weeks, forcibly displacing an estimated 40,000 people.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that the security situation in North Darfur has left more than a dozen aid trucks with relief supplies for 122,000 people stranded in neighboring Northern state, unable to proceed into the only capital city in Darfur that is not controlled by RSF.
"A patchwork of armed actors, including the Darfur Joint Protection Forces, the SAF, and the RSF control different parts of the El Fasher area," Human Rights Watch reported this week. "Tense calm alternating with episodic fighting has prevailed for months."
Since April 14, when RSF began to push into El Fasher, at least 43 people—including women and children—have been killed due to fighting between the SAF and RSF.
"Civilians are trapped in the city, afraid of being killed should they attempt to flee," said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker TĂ¼rk. "This dire situation is compounded by a severe shortage of essential supplies as deliveries of commercial goods and humanitarian aid have been heavily constrained by the fighting, and delivery trucks are unable to freely transit through RSF-controlled territory."
The lack of humanitarian aid in North Darfur has pushed the state toward a famine, with one child dying of starvation every two hours, according to a February report by Doctors Without Borders.
In December, the U.S. State Department announced an $85 million sale of radar and other military equipment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which The New York Times reported last year has been covertly supporting the RSF.
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) proposed a joint resolution to block arms sales to the UAE in January, in light of its support for the paramilitary group.
Omar was among several lawmakers who wrote to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this week, urging them to "deliver urgently-needed humanitarian assistance" and to help end the hostilities.
Sudanese-Australian writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied urged Americans on Friday to pressure lawmakers and the White House to take more action.
"There is a tiny window of opportunity for us to find a way to get the UAE... to make the RSF to stop in their tracks," said Abdel-Magied. "Maybe there's a way that we can avoid this massacre."
OCHA called on the warring parties to "take constant care to spare civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of military operations."
"They must, to the extent possible, avoid locating military installations within or near densely populated areas, including towns and camps for internally displaced people," said the office. "It is also imperative that the parties allow safe passage for civilians to leave El Fasher for safer areas."
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With US Workers on the March, Southern States Take Aim at Unions
GOP leaders in the region are "truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement," said one critic.
Apr 26, 2024
Since six Southern Republican governors last week showed "how scared they are" of the United Auto Workers' U.S. organizing drive, Tennessee Volkswagen employees have voted to join the UAW while GOP policymakers across the region have ramped up attacks on unions.
The UAW launched "the largest organizing drive in modern American history" after securing improved contracts last year with a strike targeting the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. The ongoing campaign led to the "landslide" victory in Chattanooga last week, which union president Shawn Fain pointed to as proof that "you can't win in the South" isn't true.
The Tennessee win "is breaking the brains of Republicans in that region. They're truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement," Thom Hartmann wrote in a Friday opinion piece.
"The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle."
"The problem for Republicans is that unions represent a form of democracy in the workplace, and the GOP hates democracy as a matter of principle," he argued. "Republicans appear committed to politically dying on a number of hills that time has passed by. Their commitment to gutting voting rolls and restricting voting rights, their obsession with women’s reproductive abilities, and their hatred of regulations and democracy in the workplace are increasingly seen by average American voters as out-of-touch and out-of-date."
Just before voting began in Chattanooga, GOP Govs. Kay Ivey of Alabama, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Greg Abbott of Texas claimed that "unionization would certainly put our states' jobs in jeopardy" and the UAW is "making big promises to our constituents that they can't deliver on."
The next nationally watched UAW vote is scheduled for May 13-17 at a Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama.
"Workers at our plant are ready for this moment," Mercedes employee Jeremy Kimbrell said last week. "We are ready to vote yes because we are ready to win our fair share. We are going to end the Alabama discount and replace it with what our state actually needs. Workers sticking together and sticking by our community."
As workers gear up for the election, the Alabama House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 72-30 for a bill that would withhold future economic incentive money from companies that voluntarily recognize unions rather than holding secret ballots. The state Senate previously passed a version of the legislation but now must consider it with the lower chamber's amendments.
The Associated Pressnoted that "Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed similar legislation on Monday" and that Tennessee already has one on the books.
With his signature on Senate Bill 362, "Kemp's aim is to thwart future organizing attempts by workers at automotive plants in Georgia, such as those operated by Hyundai Motor Group," according toThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
As the newspaper detailed:
Georgia has been a right-to-work state since 1947, when Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, allowing workers to refuse to join a union or pay dues, even though they may benefit from contracts negotiated by a union with their employer. Just 5.4% of workers in the state belonged to a union in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, protects the right for workers to form a union and collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions.
The new Georgia law is expected to be challenged in court, labor experts have said.
Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su told the AP on Thursday that she is not sure if the department will challenge the laws, given the National Labor Relations Board's responsibilities, but she stressed that "there are federal standards beneath which no worker should have to live and work."
In terms of joining a union, "that choice belongs to the worker, free from intervention, either by the employer or by politicians, free from retaliation and threats," Su said. "And what we are seeing is that workers who were thought to be too vulnerable to assert that right are doing it, and they're doing it here in the South."
The U.S. labor chief also slammed "unacceptable" union-busting efforts by companies and suggested that protecting the right to unionize is part of President Joe Biden's "promise to center workers in the economy."
"He has said he's the most pro-worker, pro-union president in history, and we are going to make good on that promise. And that includes making sure that workers have the right to join a union," Su said of the president.
Biden's commitment to workers and unionizing rights has caught the attention of GOP leaders. The governors' joint statement nodded to the UAW's January endorsement of the president, who is seeking reelection in November, and South Carolina's leader attacked the administration earlier this year.
During his January State of the State speech, McMaster declared that "we will not let our state's economy suffer or become collateral damage as labor unions seek to consume new jobs and conscript new dues-paying members. And we will not allow the Biden administration's pro-union policies to chip away at South Carolina's sovereign interests. We will fight. All the way to the gates of hell. And we will win."
News From the Statesreported Friday that "of all the foreign-owned automakers in South Carolina, BMW would be the most likely mark in the near term if enough of its workers show interest. The massive plant near Greer—the manufacturer's only U.S. production facility—employs some 11,000 people, twice the number of workers at Volkswagen in Tennessee and Mercedes in Alabama. It has operated in the Upstate for nearly 30 years and is in the process of adding electric vehicle lines."
However, a UAW spokesperson told the outlet that they don't yet have the numbers for the BMW and Volvo facilities in the state, and Marick Masters, a Wayne State University professor who studies the union, said: "I don't think they're writing anybody off but they know the history of unionization. And I would say South Carolina is a very inhospitable place for unions."
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