On the Job! Migrant children

(On the Job! pays occasional notice to interesting intlaw job notices)

The decade-old Detained Immigrant and Refugee Children's Initiative of the Florence Project is seeking a staff attorney. (hat tip)

The staff attorney, who must be fluent in Spanish, will advocate for unaccompanied immigrant minors who are in removal proceedings and in U.S. immigration custody, in contract shelters or foster care in Phoenix. The position is based in Phoenix.
The staff attorney will be part of a 5-member team that gives "know your rights" presentations at shelters, conducts intake and pre-court counseling sessions, and affords representation at various legal forums. The position includes extensive client contact with children from diverse backgrounds, including indigenous children and children who have suffered abuse, abandonment, neglect or other emotional and physical trauma.

Application details here.

On July 30

On this day in ...
... 1900 (110 years ago today), in response to anti-Japanese ferment in British Columbia, Japan forbade its people to immigrate to Canada. The provincial legislature nonetheless passed a statute further restricting Japanese immigration, in contravention of the Commercial Treaty of 1894,

which guaranteed Japanese the 'full liberty to enter, travel, and reside in any part of the Dominion of Canada.'

(credit for circa 1900 photo of Japanese emigrants ready to disembark) Canada's federal government stepped in and put an end to this and other subnational efforts to block immigration. (Sounds a bit like the current federal-state showdown on immigration (and see post above) to the United States, yes?)

(Prior July 30 posts are here, here, and here.)

Raising Arizona

If the polls are to be believed, a significant majority of Americans support Arizona's harsh new immigration law, signed by Gov. Brewer three weeks ago today. The significant minority of Americans opposed to the law has pushed back fairly powerfully, including through criticism from governors of other border states (California, New Mexico, and Texas) and boycotts by several cities, including most recently, Los Angeles. Perhaps even more striking has been the strong opposition to the law from outside our borders, from Mexican President Felipe Calderon (who stated that the law infringes basic human rights) to the Mexico-based World Boxing Council (which called the law shameful, inhuman, and discriminatory) to Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza of the Organization of American States (who called the law discriminatory) to the Union of South American Nations (which expressed concern over the law's racist consequences that undermine respect for human rights), much of it leveraging the language of human rights.
The most comprehensive international human rights critique of the law, however, was offered by a group of six independent United Nations experts -- an unusually large team of human rights superheroes -- on Tuesday. Their statement, which also addresses the bill banning ethnic studies courses in Arizona schools that Brewer signed the into law the following day, raises interesting questions about the role of international human rights law in protecting immigrants' rights. Most obviously, if laws that violate human rights are consistent with a country's social norms, as the poll results suggest in the case of Arizona's law, will international pressure help to shift those social norms or will it simply entrench anti-immigrant attitudes and opposition to "foreign meddling" in domestic affairs?
In her own rather confused way, Governor Brewer presents another interesting question about the application of international human rights law in federal systems of government. Her response to the UN experts statement places the responsibility for enforcement of international human rights law squarely on the federal government, arguing that "[i]f the Arizona law violates the international standards, then so does the federal law upon which it is based." Though perhaps not the most compelling argument, it does give rise to questions about whether the federal government should be responsible for challenging state laws that violate international human rights law. While sub-state actors may in some cases be more effective enforcers of international norms, central governments still have an important role to play in keeping rogue sub-state actors in line.
Finally, the statement takes a step towards enforcement of positive rights, a move that highlights the predominance of negative rights in the human rights discourse. At first read, I questioned the existence of binding legal authority to support the claim that "[s]tates are obligated to not only eradicate racial discrimination, but also to promote a social and political environment conducive to respect for ethnic and cultural diversity.” But there it is, clear as day, in the text of Article 7 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination:

States Parties undertake to adopt immediate and effective measures, particularly in the fields of teaching, education, culture and information, with a view to combating prejudices which lead to racial discrimination and to promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among nations and racial or ethnical groups. . .

A good reminder that the "spirit" of human rights treaties is sometimes spelled out right there in the text, and that we shouldn't allow the enforcement of negative rights, though unquestionably important, to overshadow legally binding claims to positive rights. (For those interested in further readings on Article 7, here's an excellent short piece by IntLawGrrl Stephanie Farrior.)

Rejecting the Comfort of the Familiar

I love this time of year. It's not only about the Great Awakening Springtime inevitably brings-- although I love that too! This is graduation season. It's a time when the students we have nurtured, prodded, exasperated and overwhelmed finally take what they've learned and set out on their own path. Last week, I was asked to keynote at a very special ceremony meant to honor and support students who were taking their first tentative steps in the international arena.
The ceremony took place at my home institution, The University of the Pacific, and was held to honor candidates for some of the most prestigious international fellowships--like the Fulbright and Rhodes.

I was asked to share my own experience of having completed a Fulbright and to reflect on how that experience impacted my career. After I got over the shock of recognizing I was one of "those" people -- one with a career long enough to reflect back on -- I began to consider what I would say. How did I get here? How did we get here? What possess those of us enthralled with international law to forge ahead in a world so vastly different from what we are used to?

I told those students that a successful internationalist must reject three things: the comfortable, the predictable and the familiar. There is nothing particularly comfortable or familiar about plopping yourself into a culture you hardly understand and attempting to make a worthy contribution. And when we undertake to do so, nothing is preordained; nothing is predictable. Every aspiring internationalist should have that experience. We should feel what it is like to barely speak the language, to not understand the inside jokes, to feel excluded and lonely and a stranger. We should experience getting lost and finding our way. We should feel the dawning sense of our connectedness despite language and other cultural barriers. There is something about following that path that breeds a certain openness to whatever may happen. Too many of us in the United States lack that openness.

A few weeks ago, Arizona adopted a draconian law targeting those who are different (we've posted about that here). Essentially, their difference is seen as proof of their criminality. They don't speak our language, so they must be illegal. Their hair and skin are different, so they must be aliens. The students at the Pacific ceremony will soon enough experience that sense of being foreign and alien. They are headed to such diverse countries as India and Fiji, and most of them will not blend in. But they of course will not be made into criminals by virtue of that difference.

I am so proud of these students. They are rejecting what is comfortable, predictable and familiar in favor of forging new paths to understanding. They will learn much, and they will hopefully bring back with them an increased sense of tolerance and empathy. We sorely need them.

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

I recognize that Arizona has become a widening entry point for illegal immigration from the South. The wave has brought with it rising violence and drug smuggling.
But a solution that degrades innocent people, or that makes anyone with broken English a suspect, is not a solution. A solution that fails to distinguish between a young child coming over the border in search of his mother and a drug smuggler is not a solution. . .
Abominations such as apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane. They start here. They start with generalizing unwanted characteristics across an entire segment of a population. They start with trying to solve a problem by asserting superior force over a population. They start with stripping people of rights and dignity - such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty - that you yourself enjoy. Not because it is right, but because you can. And because somehow, you think this is going to solve a problem.
However, when you strip a man or a woman of their basic human rights, you strip them of their dignity in the eyes of their family and their community, and even in their own eyes. An immigrant who is charged with the crime of trespassing for simply being in a community without his papers on him is being told he is committing a crime by simply being. He or she feels degraded and feels they are of less worth than others of a different color skin. These are the seeds of resentment, hostilities and in extreme cases, conflict.

-- Bishop Desmond Tutu, in an editorial in last week's Huffington Post, discussing Arizona's harsh new immigration law (prior post) -- a fitting reflection on this Cinco de Mayo.

Coming to America

Given the harsh immigration law enacted in Arizona last week, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the toll that our border enforcement policy levies on migrants journeying from Central America to the United States. On Wednesday, Amnesty International released a report, Invisible Victims: Migrants on the Move in Mexico, that documents the serious human rights violations suffered by migrants traveling through the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Veracruz en route to the United States. At the margins of society, these Central American migrants are kidnapped, threatened, and assaulted by criminal gangs, other migrants, and corrupt officials, yet these crimes are rarely acknowledged, let alone prosecuted.
It is a challenge to gather reliable data on these abuses, but human rights organizations, academics, and shelters have conducted surveys that suggest that these migrant populations suffer high levels of violence and other wrongdoing, including arbitrary detention, extortion, beatings, robbery, sexual assault, and even murder. Some highlights:

• A report published last year by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission estimated that between September 2008 and February 2009 nearly 10,000 migrants were kidnapped by criminal gangs, often in collusion with the police. The study suggested that the vast majority of these migrants were threatened with guns and knives and received death threats against them and their relatives.
• Women and girl migrants are particular risk of sexual violence. Local and international NGOs and health professionals working with migrant women suggest that as many as six in ten migrant women and girls are raped -- many at the hands of state officials.
• Many migrants are killed or disappear in Mexico. Very few of these deaths are investigated by state law enforcement and attorney generals, and federal and state authorities do not systematically gather data collection on these abuses. As a result, the families of these migrants often do not know the fate of their loved ones who've journeyed northwards.

As the Mexican government plays an increasing role in protecting its nationals in the United States, it's sadly ironic that it fails to uphold its international commitments to protect migrants within its borders. But while the Mexican authorities must make greater efforts to prevent human rights abuses against migrants, the U.S. government also bears responsibility for immigration laws and policies that push migrants to embark on these risky journeys in the first place. A more humane immigration system would enable migrants to travel lawfully and safely to the United States, respecting their dignity as human beings. In the words of a Mexican man who provides shelter and food to migrants in need,

The train carries hundreds of lives, human beings who have suffered. They leave their homes because of the extreme poverty of where they come from, the journey north is a nightmare for them but they do it for the families they have left behind.

On February 8

On this day in ...
... 1924 (85 years ago), "the gas chamber was used for the first time to execute a prisoner found guilty of a capital offense." The condemned man was Gee Jon, 29, who'd immigrated from China to Nevada, where he was convicted of murdering a rival gang member. The state's legislature,"[p]erhaps inspired by the use of poisonous gases during World War I," had authorized use of the method, in the "chamber" depicted at right. (photo credit) Since 1924, states have executed 11 persons by gas; the last was in Arizona in 1999.
... 1963, President John F. Kennedy imposed restrictions on travel to and from Cuba, thus expanding an embargo begun the previous year. Decades later, easing tense relations with the United States' island neighbor to the south is an item on the agenda of President Barack Obama.

On August 8

On this day in ...

... 1988 (10 years ago today), Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (left), then U.N. Secretary-General, said he planned the next day to announce a truce in the 8-year-old war between Iran and Iraq, after Iran announced on this day its acceptance of "Iraq's compromise proposal for a cease-fire." It's estimated that "as many as 750,000 Iranian soldiers and perhaps a third that number of Iraqi troops died on the battlefield."

... 1935, in Kansas City, Missouri, Jane Dee Hull (below right) was born. She "moved to Arizona in 1962 after hearing a Barry Goldwater speech," was elected a state legislator in 1978 and then Arizona's Secretary of State. From the latter post she assumed the post of Governor of Arizona -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor swore in the Republican Hull on September 8, 1997 -- when the incumbent was forced to resign after a federal fraud conviction. Hull, who served until 2003, was the 2d of 3 women to govern Arizona. The other 2, both Democrats, are Rose Mofford (who served 1987-1991) and Hull's successor, current Governor Janet Napolitano.