When I testified this month before the Special Joint Committee on Immigration Reform, a committee of 14 Republicans convened to draft legislative proposals for the upcoming legislative session, I reminded them about the continued obligation of Georgia under international human rights law to protect and preserve the human dignity of all people regardless of immigration status.
Yesterday, I joined Lisa Valentine in front of the Douglasville Municipal Courthouse to announce a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the ACLU of Georgia on her behalf.
This was the same courthouse that Mrs. Valentine attempted to enter in December 2008 to accompany her nephew to his traffic hearing, only to be arrested and jailed for standing up for her right to wear a head covering according to her practice of her Muslim faith. "When we started out for the courthouse that morning, I had no idea I was in for the most humiliating and shocking day of my life," said Mrs. Valentine.
This past February, I was at a hearing in the Georgia House Defense & Veterans Affairs Committee to testify against a measure that would have had the effect of keeping the prison at Guantánamo Bay open by urging Congress to prohibit the transfer of Guantánamo detainees to the United States. I read a statement to the committee issued by prominent experts on national security and counterterrorism detailing how keeping Gitmo open endangers U.S. national security. In response, one of the committee members, Rep. Burke Day, stated that not only would he not vote against the measure, but that he would further amend it to clarify that the men held at Guantánamo be subjected to "waterboarding, skate boarding, surf boarding, whatever." The fact that a state legislator would make light of torture was shocking enough. I was further taken aback that no legislator present for the hearing that day expressed outrage over the remarks.
Jessica Colotl, the 21-year-old exemplary Kennesaw State college student who fell victim to the Cobb sheriff’s abuse of the 287(g) power, which delegates some federal immigration enforcement authority to certain state and local agencies, is out on bond and hopes to restart her education soon.
This past Wednesday, Jessica Colotl was released from the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama and allowed to reunite with her family back in Cobb County, Georgia. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has granted Jessica deferred action on her deportation case.
Jessica is a 21-year-old smart hard working student at Kennesaw State who has worked nights in order to pay her tuition. She hopes to become a lawyer after graduating in the fall.
The United States has long participated in programs abroad that prevent the recruitment of child soldiers.But the added strain of fulfilling enlistment quotas necessary to carry out sustained U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without reinstituting a draft, however, has contributed to a rise in aggressive recruitment tactics and misconduct by recruiters here at home. Such abuse by recruiters, including coercion, deception, and false promises, nullify the voluntariness of youths’ enlistment, and are in contravention of the United States' international human rights obligations.
The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to accept Sheriff Neil Warren's recommendation on the re-signing of the 287(g) Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They should reconsider this decision.
I have been watching with interest and apprehension the movement reverberating in my birthplace over the past few weeks. The cries of “Azadi” by the people who have poured out in the tens of thousands into the streets to demand greater freedom have defied the distance between us.
