Links I like

• As the post-Khmer Rouge generation of Cambodians grows up, they’re producing a flurry of films that mimic the vintage style of the 1960s – widely considered the country’s golden era. Much of the revival is owed to educated filmmaker refugees who are repatriating to Cambodia from France and the United States and opening the country’s first film institutes at local universities.
• Hundreds of Somali refugees are being forced at gunpoint to join rebels fighting in northern Yemen
• Paddington Bear is launching a campaign to to highlight the British Government's continued arrest and detention of hundreds of child asylum-seekers in prison-like conditions.
• A disabled athlete who has won five gold medals for Britain was set to be deported to Nigeria after losing his legal battle to live in the UK.
• British Muslims feel a greater sense of patriotism than their counterparts living in mainland Europe, according to a study by the Open Society Institute
• Rather than living in rows of neatly pegged white canvas UN tents set up in fields as the public might imagine it, aid officials have revealed that more than 50 per cent of the planet's 10.5 million refugees are now battling to get by in urban areas.
• The proportion of the population that is foreign-born has almost doubled in the past two decades to 11 per cent, or 6.7 million people.

ICE to Halt Detention of Asylum Seekers

Its about time, but according to an AP article, ICE plans on halting the detention of asylum seekers in the US as of January 4, if they meet certain criteria [They must establish their identities, they cannot be dangerous or a flight risk, and they must have a credible fear of persecution or torture].

The Obama administration it will stop detaining asylum seekers who have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.

To be released into the U.S., the asylum seekers will have to establish the credible fear and their identities and show they are not dangerous or a flight risk, said John Morton, Department of Human Services assistant secretary overseeing ICE.

Foreigners who arrive at a port of entry and are found to have a credible fear will automatically be considered for release into the U.S., Morton said.

Asylum seekers still will spend time in detention while they undergo interviews and their information is checked, but the administration hopes to reduce the length of their stay with a policy change, ICE said.

Their stay in the U.S. will be considered temporary until a final decision is made on their asylum claim.

Currently, foreigners who come to the U.S. without valid documents can be immediately removed from the country, without a hearing. Also, requests for release must be made in writing, ICE said.

Judge Posner Ruling on PSG based on Gang Membership

See Judge Posner's latest asylum decision for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, see Download TG13OC9G[1]. The case involves a particular social group claim by a Salvadoran based on gang membership.

(HT: ImmigrationProf)

CIR- and ASAP

Its not just that we need CIR ASAP, but that is actually the name of the bill that Congressman Luis Gutierrez introduced today (Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity). With 89 co-sponsors, (that's 40% of the votes needed to pass this bill in the House) the bill outlines the progressive side of a CIR Bill. While, we expect a bill out by Senator Schumer in early 2010, the momentum behind CIR-ASAP is unprecedented.

Here is a description of the bill.

The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) released a summary of key provisions in the bill, which includes:

• A legalization program for qualified undocumented immigrants (and their spouses and children) who would first receive a conditional nonimmigrant visa which is valid for six years, after which they could apply for legal permanent residence and eventually become U.S. citizens. The DREAM Act and AgJOBS are also included.

• Promotion of family unity through measures designed to keep U.S. families together. The bill contains several measures designed to reduce long backlogs in family and employment immigrant and nonimmigrant visa processing as well as other measures prevent families from being separated.

• Reforming the legal immigration system and creating new legal channels through the Prevent Unauthorized Migration Visa (PUM Visa) that seeks to provide for safe, humanitarian migration. A new Labor Commission would also be created to make recommendations on future legal immigration flows. The bill reforms temporary worker programs and includes measures to protect U.S. workers.

• Reforming enforcement activities by seeking to ensure due process, judicial review, and other protections during enforcement activities. Repeals the 287(g) program.

• Border security provisions which seek to enhance border security and achieve effective immigration enforcement in close collaboration with border communities.

• Improving conditions of detention provisions which seek to improve detention conditions, and to protect U.S. citizens, LPRs, and vulnerable populations.

• Improving the naturalization process and integration to encourage citizenship among immigrant communities by providing for uniform administration of the naturalization exam, creating incentives for English language acquisition programs and requiring timely response on background checks and evaluating their efficiency.

On a side note, I would like to thank the four Representatives from Colorado who co-sponsored the bill, Representative Perlmutter, Polis, Salazar, and Degette.

2008 Raid Violated 4th Amendment Right to Privacy

Remember the case of Amalia Cerrillo in Weld County, Colorado, who helped thousands of immigrants, regardless of status pay their taxes but whose business was raided by law enforcement seeking to use tax returns to criminally prosecute undocumented immigrants with identity fraud?

Well, the The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the 2008 raid of the local tax preparer's office aimed at building identity-theft cases against hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants violated their Fourth Amendment right to privacy. From The Denver Post:

The 4-3 ruling was the latest and most devastating legal blow against Operation Numbers Game, an investigation launched by Weld County Sheriff John Cooke and District Attorney Ken Buck that aimed to use tax returns to identify and prosecute illegal immigrants.

The raid on Amalia's Tax and Translation, a business that caters to Spanish-speaking clients, led to the seizure and review of some 4,900 tax returns. Deputies said they found about 1,300 suspects in identity-theft and criminal-impersonation cases.

Prosecutors around the country have been watching the case closely, reportedly the first in the United States in which law enforcement sought to use tax returns — generally considered confidential under federal law — to take suspected illegal immigrants to criminal court.

The court majority ruled that the defendant in this case, Ramon Gutierrez, as a taxpayer "has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her tax returns and return information, even when that information is in the custody of a tax preparer."

The ruling also said that Gutierrez, who was among more than 70 people charged with criminal impersonation and identity theft, was a victim of an "exploratory search" and that police had no probable cause to search Gutierrez's tax records.

Climate Change A Reality in Kiribati

This video from the UN Development Program offers a pretty vivid reminder about why provisions for adaptation to the effects of climate change must be included in a final outcome in Copenhagen. As you can see the citizens of Kiribati will, in all likelihood, lose their homes and even their country because of rising sea levels.

More Refugees Fleeing to Israel from Egypt

Via The National:

Many once fled no farther than Egypt, but the increasingly dismal situation for refugees there has sent many running for the border.

Previously abundant resettlement programmes in Egypt have been slashed, asylum-seekers are detained and often denied access to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) or even deported.

At the same time, rumours of high wages and a sense of security in Israel have spread as far as the highlands of Eritrea and the villages of Darfur.

Last year, Israel adopted a policy of ‘hot returns’ – quickly sending illegal border crossers back to Egypt without processing refugees’ claims. The policy is now being challenged in Israel’s Supreme Court, but this year alone over 200 new arrivals were promptly deported to Egypt – a policy human rights groups and the UNHCR says is illegal under international law. Others have been held in detention centres for months.

For those that do manage to make it to Tel Aviv, work and residence permits are being restricted and earlier this year the government cracked down on illegal migrants with mass arrests.

Changing realities will not, however, necessarily dissuade people from making the journey.

“People talk. It doesn’t take long for a message to get passed back,” said Mr Kagan of Cairo’s Center for Migration and Refugee Studies. “There is a ‘the-streets-are-paved-with-gold’ phenomenon in terms of what people back home learn about destination countries. They might not learn about all the hardships.

Isreal is searching to find solutions, but has not had the best record for their treatment of refugees.

Human Trafficking in America

A friend of mine sent me this article today. The Kansas City Star:

America declared war on human trafficking nearly a decade ago. With a new law and much fanfare, the government pledged to end such human rights abuses at home and prodded the rest of the world to follow its example. But the United States is failing to find and help tens of thousands of human trafficking victims in America.

But an investigation by The Kansas City Star found that, in spite of all the rhetoric from the Bush and Obama administrations, the United States is failing to find and help tens of thousands of human trafficking victims in America.

The Star also found that the government is doing little to stop the flow of trafficking along the porous U.S.-Mexico border and that when victims are identified, many are denied assistance.

The United States also has violated its own policies by deporting countless victims who should be offered sanctuary, but sometimes end up back in the hands of traffickers.

After spending millions of taxpayer dollars, America appears to be losing the war in its own backyard.

Even some top federal anti-trafficking authorities in the Bush and Obama administrations acknowledged serious problems.

“The current system is not yet picking up all the victims of human trafficking crimes,” Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, told The Star two weeks ago. “It has been a growing problem and in a world of growing problems, it’s time for the nations of the world to take it on.”

America’s failure to live up to its own high standards isn’t for lack of will or good intentions or even money. The Star’s investigation pointed to problems that are more systemic: an uncoordinated, inconsistent approach to finding victims; politically charged arguments over how to define trafficking; and a continuing disbelief among some in local law enforcement that it even exists.

Climate Refugees in Pictures

Two news stories popped up today highlighting the documentation of climate refugees:

The Examiner has a slide show that highlights different country's "climate refugees"

Via ABC:

As developed and developing nations try and work out a climate deal in Copenhagen, award-winning filmmaker Michael Nash will be screening his new documentary film, "Climate Refugees", a project that took him and his film crew around the world for nearly three years documenting the plight of the people who have been forced to migrate, and giving a haunting picture of the future.

They also talked to scientists, aids groups and politicians from both spectrums of the aisle, including Sen John Kerry, D-Mass., and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. "Climate Refugees" will premiere at next year's Sundance Film Festival.

P Visas only Granted to "Culturally Unique"

Apparently the the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services only allows visas to cultural groups that are "culturally unique." What does this mean? The Wall Street Journal:

When Jordan Peimer booked an Argentine band that fuses Jewish Klezmer music with tango, he thought he had the perfect act to headline his "Fiesta Hanukkah" concert.

That was before the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services weighed in with some cultural commentary of its own. The band couldn't travel to the U.S., the agency ruled, because it didn't satisfy a "culturally unique" requirement for a performer visa called P-3.

"The evidence repeatedly suggests the group performs a hybrid or fusion style of music...[which] cannot be considered culturally unique to one particular country, nation, society, class, ethnicity, religion, tribe or other group of persons," read the denial. It was signed by caseworker CSC4672/WS24533.

In fact, immigration law gives an anonymous group of government bureaucrats a lot of cultural clout: They can decide which foreign ballerinas, musicians and artists qualify as "outstanding," or special enough to deserve a visa to enter the U.S.

• Los Angeles concert promoter Grand Performances booked an Indian music ensemble called Jaipur Kawa Brass Band for a summer gig. U.S. consular authorities approved visas for six members of the band, but rejected two, including the band's only competent English speaker. No explanation was given.
  

• The U.S. sponsor for the all-male Brazilian hip-hop company Grupo de Rua applied for a P-1 visa, and submitted articles about the dance company's performances in Tokyo, Berlin, Paris and the Edinburgh Art Festival. Immigration officer number AA0089 requested "evidence the group had achieved international recognition and acclaim."

Artists who wish to visit the U.S. for a performance typically need a P-1 visa; a P-3 visa, issued to entertainers participating in a culturally unique program; or an O-1 visa, for individuals with extraordinary ability in the arts, education or sciences. Once a visa is approved, artists visit a local U.S. consular office to get it stamped in their passport.

Immigration authorities say that in weeding out applicants they deem marginal, they are simply carrying out the intent of Congress in creating the visa categories. The P category is meant to promote the exchange of culture and the arts. The O category is sometimes called the "genius visa. "

Each year, more than 20,000 O and P petitions arrive at the offices of Citizenship and Immigration Services in St. Albans, Vt., and in Laguna Niguel, Calif., where 28 adjudicators review them. The artists' requests represent a small fraction of the visa caseload. The California office alone receives more than 1.3 million visa applications each year.

Supreme Court to Look at Fragmented Immigration Policy

In the absence of Federal Immigration Reform, many states and municipalities have over the years passed laws attempting to "fix" their own local problems, but this has resulted in a patchwork of laws that have no uniformity nationally. Via a New York Times Editorial:

The Supreme Court is now weighing whether to consider a challenge to Arizona’s immigration law. Before deciding, the justices have asked the solicitor general, Elena Kagan, to provide the views of the Obama administration. This is a chance for the court to weigh in against the improper splintering of national immigration policy, and Ms. Kagan should urge the court to seize that opportunity.

At issue is a problematic ruling last year by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The ruling upheld Arizona’s state-based employer sanctions law, which provides for the suspension or revocation of business licenses when firms are found to have knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

The state’s approach may not sound unreasonable. But like the more extreme Hazleton, Pa., ordinance struck down by a federal judge in 2007, the Arizona scheme has a crucial legal flaw. It usurps the federal government’s right to set immigration policy.

Arizona has broad authority to regulate companies doing business within the state. But that authority does not include the right to penalize firms for immigration violations that have not been determined by the federal government nor to impose penalties vastly harsher than Congress intended when it created the current employer sanctions system more than 20 years ago.

When the Hazleton decision was handed down, then-Senator Barack Obama hailed it as a “victory for all Americans” that underscored the need for national immigration reform. In that same spirit, President Obama should now want the Supreme Court to grab the Arizona case to vindicate the nation’s interest in having uniform immigration policies, and to stop the spread of local laws that can make achieving real worthwhile national reform harder.

The Arizona statute was signed into law by Arizona’s former governor, Janet Napolitano, who now leads the Department of Homeland Security. But that awkward fact should not prevent the administration from taking a principled stance in favor of Supreme Court review.

How to engage people to care...

Nick Kristof takes on the age old question of how to keep people engaged about the world's humanitarian problems:

Anyone who writes about global poverty, genocide or disease wrestles with the question of how to connect better with readers. I’ve increasingly felt that we do a pretty wretched job at this, and I finally put all my thoughts down on paper in this Outside article. The bottom line is that we increasingly have evidence from research in social psychology about what makes readers care — and the answers have to do with story-telling and a sense of success. Guilt-tripping people doesn’t work, nor does jumping and down about millions of people dying. From those of you who work on these kinds of causes, I’d welcome your thoughts on the Outside article or on how we can do a better job connecting with readers on these issues.

Who Benefits from Detaining Young People in the UK?

Who benefits from detaining young people in the UK?

From the Guardian:

Clearly not the children who, according to every study ever written on this issue, suffer acutely from being taken from their homes on the orders of the UK Border Agency and placed in a confined space for an indeterminate period.

Many argue that society benefits because it is protected from the asylum seekers and their families. Sambrook wonders how that can be when there is no evidence that asylum seekers are likely to abscond.

So who benefits? Clearly the private companies that run so much of this operation have a lot to gain. G4S, the company that operates Tinlsey House, one of three detention centres where last month 10-year-old Adeoti Ogunsola tried to strangle herself after being forcibly redetained, recently reported rising profits and growth in government business which had offset weakness in commercial sectors.

As Sambrook reports: "Last year G4S handed chief executive Nick Buckles a £1.4m pay package. That's £3,835 every day. He owns £4m in G4S shares, tipped by the Daily Telegraph recently as, 'a solid buy for these uncertain times'."

Someone else who may reasonably be said to benefit from this policy is Christopher Hyman, the chief executive of Serco, who also earns in the region of £3,000 a day. His company runs the notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre where children have been detained far beyond the 28-day with charge maximum allowed for terror suspects. "Traumatised child inmates, who must carry ID cards at all times, refer to Yarl's Wood as 'prison' and 'the camp'," says Sambrook.

Among the indirect beneficiaries she also identifies John Reid, the former home secretary, who is paid £50,000 a year as a consultant to G4S for, among other things, hosting government and security industry breakfasts.

Net Migration to the UK Drops by 1/3

From the Guardian:

Net migration – the number of people who come to live in Britain minus the number who move abroad – fell by more than a third to 163,000 last year, its lowest level since Poland joined the European Union.

The Office for National Statistics said the fall from 233,000 in 2007 was mainly driven by a rise in emigration to a 17-year high: 427,000 people left Britain to live abroad, up from 341,000 the previous year. The increase was mainly due to the number of Poles returning home.

Immigration reached 590,000, with the largest single group comprising 85,000 British citizens returning to live in the UK. That total compares with 574,000 in 2007 and 596,000 in 2006.

Asylum figures show a further fall in the number of fresh claims for refugee status between July and September this year to 5,055 – a decline of 24% compared with the same period in 2008.

Refugee welfare groups said the fall in asylum numbers was not necessarily a matter of celebration but raised fears that the tightening up of Britain's borders was denying sanctuary to those who needed protection.

The top three countries from where asylum seekers came were Afghanistan (790), Iran (540) and Zimbabwe (525).

A total of 7,110 people were held in immigration detention between July and September this year – more than half of them asylum seekers. They included 315 children, 240 of them under 11. Of those detained, 365 had been held for more than 12 months.

The UK needs a Gender Sensitive Asylum System

We need a Gender Sensitive Asylum System:

Last week the government launched its strategy to end violence against women and girls. This rightly refers to the progress made by the police, Crown Prosecution Service and courts in dealing with violence against women and girls. For example, if you report a rape nowadays you can ask for a female police officer to be present at your interview and you get supported by a specially trained officer throughout the police investigation and at any subsequent trial. Contrast this treatment with that in the asylum system. Rani, who escaped Sri Lanka after her husband was murdered and she was raped by soldiers, told me that at her asylum interview:

I was happy with a lady interviewer but not a male translator ... Because he was a man I felt ashamed. If it was a woman I would have said more.

A gender-sensitive system should prevent this taking place. This week we at Asylum Aid have launched Every Single Woman, a new campaign under the Charter of Rights of Women Seeking Asylum, which highlights that the criminal justice system has at least 26 laws or policies on working with women victims of crime while the UK Border Agency has just two.

Cecilia had the misfortune to spend time in both prison and an asylum detention centre. When I asked her the difference between them, her answer shocked me:

I'd prefer, rather than going in a detention centre ... to be in prison for the rest of my life.

She talked about male staff at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, appearing unannounced, entering her room and searching through her possessions, including her underwear. Having herself experienced rape in Cameroon, this was particularly frightening. In prison, a search was always undertaken by a female prison officer and always after she had been warned that this would take place. In fact, UK prison policy is that there should be at least 60% female staff in a women's prison because "women who have been abused by men may feel safer in a predominantly female environment". No such policy exists in detention centres for women. At Tinsley House, near Gatwick Airport, there is room for 116 men and five women. With such a disproportionate number of males to females, women can feel intimidated, scared and isolated. Quite often a woman can be the only female detainee surrounded by 116 men. Women would never be placed in a men's prison in this way.

If a young woman is homeless and pregnant in the UK she is eligible for housing benefit, income support and one-off maternity grants worth £690. But not if she is a refused asylum seeker. Rahel is from Ethiopia and found herself without any support after her asylum claim was refused. For the first three months of her pregnancy she slept at Victoria Station in a sleeping bag given to her by the Red Cross. Only when she became so ill that she had to be hospitalised was she offered basic accommodation and vouchers to pay for food.

When Governments Dont Communicate with Each Other

There are few people in the Inambari River area who support a Brazilian and Peruvian government sponsored hydroelectric dam. The funny thing is that this dam imposes on another project (the Inter-Oceanic Highway) The Economist reports:

Inambari is one of up to six proposed hydroelectricity schemes on Peru’s jungle rivers, costing around $16 billion, contained in an agreement signed in April by the president, Alan García, and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Inambari dam would be the first to be built. It would generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity—twice the output of Peru’s largest existing hydroelectric plant, and almost half its current electricity consumption. Most of the power would be exported to Brazil to start with, but the proportions would slowly reverse and after 30 years Peru would own the $4 billion project.

The dam would create a lake of up to 450 square kms (175 square miles), flooding some 60 villages, as well as roads and forest. Egasur, a Brazilian-owned consortium promoting the scheme, says that people displaced by the dam would be rehoused in better conditions.

Peru’s environment minister, Antonio Brack, has dropped his earlier opposition to the scheme. He says it offers benefits, including fish farming. The government claims local politicians are whipping up dissent ahead of local elections next year.

But for whatever reason, opposition is growing. Locals are keener on another big project, the paving of the grandly named Inter-Oceanic Highway linking Pacific ports in southern Peru to the Brazilian city of Rio Branco, from where a highway goes on to São Paulo, 3,600 kms (2,250 miles) from Cusco. The two governments agreed in 2005 to asphalt the road. Work is proceeding rapidly and both presidents would like it to be finished before they leave office in 2011. Inconveniently, the Inambari dam would flood 120 kms of the highway, on which upgrading work has already begun. It seems that in both Peru and Brazil the ministries of transport and of energy don’t talk to each other.

Shift in Young People's Morals and Values

Many people think that the morals and values of young people have declined over the past decade or two. But a new survey seems to indicate that this is actually not the case at all. More American teens today say they would make responsible decisions on everything from cheating on tests to cyberbullying, smoking and sex than teens did 20 years ago.

Via San Francisco Chronicle:

Girl Scouts of the USA just released the findings of a nationwide random sample of schools and 3,263 girls and boys from the third through twelfth grades, asking the same questions as a 1989 survey, with some updates for relevance.

The 2009 survey, conducted with Harris Interactive (formerly Louis Harris Inc., the same firm that worked on the 1989 study) shows a marked shift in values and civic involvement among teens and tweens. This study focuses on self-reported attitudes and beliefs. And we all know that attitudes don't always translate into behaviors. But knowing and caring about good behavior is a step in the right direction.

he findings on views about diversity and civic engagement are striking. Among 7th- to 12th-graders, nearly six in 10 (59 percent) say that being around people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds is important to them. This appears to be particularly important to girls (63 percent versus 55 percent of boys) and youth from diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds.

Youth are more accepting of gay relationships. Fifty-nine percent of teenagers agree with the statement, "Gay and lesbian relationships are OK, if that is a person's choice." Only 31 percent agreed in 1989. And when asked whether they would continue a friendship with a gay or lesbian friend, 48% said they would, compared to just 12% in 1989.

Compared to 20 years ago, youth today are more likely to say they intend to vote in the future (84 percent vs. 77 percent), as well as give to charity (76 percent vs. 63 percent). Some 79 percent say they will volunteer in their communities. And here's some good news -- youth exhibit a strong sense of community and global responsibility in their attitudes toward environmental stewardship. Fully 78% of 7th- to 12th-graders -- girls and boys across all age groups -- agree that everyone has a responsibility to take care of the environment.

Nearly two out of three young people (62 percent) surveyed in 2009, say they would not cheat on a test compared to about half in 1989. And only 18 percent say they believe smoking is acceptable if a person finds it enjoyable. In 1989, more than a quarter of those surveyed thought smoking was acceptable.

Some might think that these statistics actually show a moral decline (accepting gay marriage etc.) but, it simply demonstrates a shift in morality and values towards a more accepting community and tolerance for diversity, which is great news for the future.

Immigrants Help Local Economies

Via change.org:

A new report, Immigrants and the Economy," released by the Fiscal Policy Institute concludes that immigrants in the United States, regardless of immigration status, contribute to the economy in proportion to their population.

While focusing on just fiscal issues such as taxes and budgets in 25 metro cities, the research found that immigrants, regardless of legal status, make up 20 percent of the population and are responsible for 20 percent of economic output in 25 cities combined.

Countering claims of job losses among native workers, the fiscal study also concludes that both native and immigrant workers struggle at the bottom end of the wage specturum, throwing the cause-and-effect scenario out the window.

Also, check out another report released by the Migration Policy Institute on the economic benefits of illegal immigration, which concludes that the overall impact of illegal immigration is positively small and that enforcement-only policies quite expensive.

From the report:

The most striking finding in the analysis of 25 metro ar¬eas is how closely immigrant share of economic output matches immigrant share of the population. From the Pittsburgh metro area, where immigrants make up 3 percent of the population and 4 percent of economic output, to the Miami metro area, where immigrants represent 37 percent of all residents and 38 percent of economic out¬put, immigrants are playing a consistently proportionate role in local economies.

Happy HIV/AIDS Awareness Day - Thank you President Obama for Removing HIV Exclusion

As a part of HIV/Aids Awareness Day and in case anyone did not follow- On October 30, 2009, President Obama lifted the archaic policy of banning HIV positive individuals from entering the US.

Via New York Times:

At a White House ceremony, Mr. Obama announced that a rule canceling the ban would be published on Monday and would take effect after a routine 60-day waiting period. The president had promised to end the ban before the end of the year.

“If we want to be a global leader in combating H.I.V./AIDS, we need to act like it,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat.”

The United States is one of only about a dozen countries that bar people who have H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

President George W. Bush started the process last year when he signed legislation, passed by Congress in July 2008, that repealed the statute on which the ban was based. But the ban remained in effect.

It was enacted in 1987 at a time of widespread fear that H.I.V. could be transmitted by physical or respiratory contact. The ban was further strengthened by Congress in 1993 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina.

Because of the restriction, no major international conference on the AIDS epidemic has been held in the United States since 1990. Public health officials here have long said there was no scientific or medical basis for the ban.

According to the organization, Immigration Equality, the 11 other countries that ban HIV-positive travellers and immigrants are: Armenia, Brunei, Iraq, Libya, Moldova, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Sudan.

See my old posts here and here.

Women's Shelter for Muslim Women in Baltimore

I liked this story on NPR:

As families come together over the holidays, the victims of domestic abuse are often sequestered in shelters — a situation that's especially difficult for Muslim women, because few facilities meet their cultural and religious needs.

The women are here for many reasons. It's a sanctuary and an escape. It's also a place where they can live and pray without having their faith questioned.

"My biggest problem was that if you send a Muslim woman to be counseled in a shelter that's run by Christians, then what the people say is the reason why you're being beat is because of that religion. We do not want Islam to be the focal point of domestic violence," Hanif said.

Indeed, domestic violence knows no religion, but not all shelters are sensitive to Muslims, Hanif said.

"There may be situations — such as, there would be men that were there, or there wasn't any place for them to pray, or maybe there was an issue with the food," Hanif explained.

At Muslima Anisah, people take their shoes off at the door. There's no pork in the kitchen. A section at the front of the house is reserved for prayers.

"This is the prayer area; we pray five times a day," Hanif said, showing off the area.

Hanif is a nurse by trade, not a social worker. Running a battered women's shelter wasn't part of her plan. But over the years, she treated dozens of abused Muslim women at a health clinic.

One memory stayed with her: a woman who came in with a broken jaw.

"One of the Muslim women, her jaw was wired, and I remember her saying that now she could lose some weight because she had to suck her food through a straw," Hanif recalled. "We didn't inquire about it. We laughed with her. I remember we didn't do anything about it."

Now, it has been 12 years since Hanif set up this home in a residential neighborhood in Baltimore. She lives there even though she has three grown children.

Hanif is African-American, but most of the women she takes care of are immigrants.

"They have nowhere to go. Society doesn't want them. Their family doesn't want them, and the man who beat them doesn't want them," Hanif said.

Hanif said American women can turn to their community for help; they know the legal system better, and they know their rights. Most of the immigrants, including the Kurdish woman, speak little English and have even fewer resources.

Trafficking of Men in the US

Via CNN:

Thirty Thai men who were "tricked into a life of forced labor" after being promised lucrative jobs in the United States are just one symptom of the problem of modern-day slavery, CNN reported Monday.

According to the State Department, there are as many as 200,000 forced laborers in the US, with some 17,500 arriving every year.

"This is a hidden crime," Louis C. de Baca, the State Department's ambassador for human trafficking, told CNN. "The very nature of this crime masks it from us."

CNN reported on the case of 30 Thai men, who were promised jobs picking tobacco on North Carolina by a company called Million Express Manpower. The company required the men to pay the equivalent of $11,000 for the necessary visa and transportation.

But when they arrived in the US, they discovered there were no jobs waiting, and their passports were seized. The men "realized they were trapped," reports CNN's Sean Callebs.

The case of the 30 Thai men is somewhat unusual, as human trafficking often focuses on women and children. The Guardian recently reported on the problem of women and teenage girls being trafficked to the United States for sex and servitude:

In one recent incident a 16-year-old Mexican girl was found to have been trafficked across the US border. Doctors noticed the heavily pregnant girl showed clear signs of physical abuse when she was brought into a hospital in Dayton to give birth. The police were called but the couple who had brought her had already fled. When the girl's story emerged, it became clear she had been kept against her will in the nearby city of Springfield and used for labour and sex. "I thought slavery ended a few centuries ago. But here it is alive and well," said Springfield's sheriff, Gene Kelly.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently launched a 14-city pilot project, "Hidden in Plain Sight," to combat human trafficking. The project involves setting up billboards across the city with an 800 number that victims of human trafficking can call to get help.