Human Rights at Home Blog

Event 6/1: Congressional Black Caucus Institute, ACLU and SPLC side event during the 2nd session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent

On Thursday June 1, 2023, at 6:15pm ET, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center are jointly hosting a side event during the 2nd session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.  The U.S. has long promoted human rights abroad, but largely fails to incorporate its own international human rights commitments into domestic law or policy. This side event will explore why and how NHRIs are essential to fulfillment of human rights of people of African Descent, obstacles caused by the lack of a U.S. NHRI, and best options for the U.S. to move toward joining its allies and UN member peers in creating an NHRI.

To join this side event via zoom, register at https://splcenter-org.zoom.us/j/6105889743.

U.S. Anti-Black Immigration Policies are The Afterlife of Slavery

By: Gabrielle Thomas¹ and Denisse Córdova Montes

In 1808, the U.S. abolished the transatlantic slave trade, but today, the semiotics of the slave ship continues through forced movements and separations of migrants and refugees. Slave codes sustained through immigration laws and policies of both political parties endlessly reignite the generational trauma of forced removal. At a thematic hearing at the 186^th Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR), the Human Rights Clinic at University of Miami School of Law (HRC), alongside Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA), RFK Human Rights (RFK), and University of Pennsylvania Transnational Legal Clinic (UPenn TLC), provided testimony of systemic racism committed by ICE officials against Haitian immigrants. At the hearing, we argued that the U.S. government’s treatment of Black migrants is discriminatory and in violation of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The U.S. government responded with an evasive claim of racially equitable practices within their immigration system.

Black Immigrants Face a Double Jeopardy of Being Both Black and Immigrants

The U.S. government’s lack of transparency about its racist practices, despite public and frequent documentation of the disproportionate negative treatment of Black immigrants, remains of the upmost concern.  Black immigrants face a double jeopardy of being both Black and immigrant. They are stopped, questioned, arrested, and deported at disproportionate and higher rates. Black persons, more generally, are five times more likely to be stopped without cause than a white person. The racism of the militarized criminal justice system spills over into their immigration system creating a prison-to-deportation pipeline. In our hearing with the IACHR, Daniel Tse of HBA and RFK highlighted that, “though [Black migrants] are less than 6% of the undocumented population, they make up more than 20% of the immigrant population facing detention and deportation on criminal grounds.” Furthermore, “76% of [Black migrants] are deported because of contact with the police and the criminal legal system.”

Haitian Immigrants Face Heightened Discrimination in the Immigration System and are Deported to Conditions Tantamount to Torture

Haitian migrants, in particular, face heightened police harassment, heightened state monitoring, heightened unjust immigration enforcement, and harsher prosecution. Once arrested and put into ICE custody, Haitian migrants must pay higher bonds for release than other migrants in detention. These migrants also serve longer sentences in ICE custody and face a heightened risk of deportation. For black migrants, speaking out results in retaliatory violence from ICE officers and retaliatory transfers to distant facilities and unfamiliar lands.

Recently, our clinic documented conditions tantamount to torture in Haitian prisons, where recently deported individuals were detained upon arrival in Haiti. Once deported to Haiti, migrants were detained indefinitely, inflicted with severe pain and suffering, and faced heightened persecution, extortion, and harassment for being and sounding “American”. Many of these Haitians know no other home than America where their family reside. James – a man previously deported to Haiti – faced crippling discrimination as a “deep” – slang for deported individual – and encountered violations of his rights to work, health, family, food, and security while encountering gang kidnapping and brutality. Despite the horrors James faced, when questioned about the conditions he endured after deportation, James expressed his need to simply see his children. Before the U.S. deported James, he provided for his two daughters and remained a devoted father. He stressed that one of his daughters turns sixteen this year, but “they took [my] kids away,” and he is down in Haiti struggling

The U.S. Has a Long History of Anti-Black U.S. Immigration Policies

Forced movement and separation of Black migrants did not start with Trump era politics nor did they cease with the emancipation proclamation. The practice of ruthlessly ejecting Black persons from the U.S. started before the Civil War. Since the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1807, the U.S. has implemented anti-black immigration policies to prevent the unfavorable freed Black persons from coming into this country. The liberation of Haitians from French occupation nearly two thousand miles away, fueled Thomas Jefferson to pass a bill in 1803, prohibiting any “Negro and mulatto” migrants. During this total ban on Black migrants in the country, in the 1857 Dred Scott Dred Scott v. Sanford case, Mr. Scott and Mrs. Scott argued that after their perilous journey from chattel slavery to safety, they have a right to stay free and citizens. This 11-year struggle reaffirmed 1803 race-based restrictions on migration ending with the Supreme Court ruling that Mr. and Mrs. Scott, were not citizens and as, “a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves, whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore did not have standing to sue in federal court.”

Forced Movement and Separation of Black Families Should Come to an End

The widespread emancipation of Black peoples throughout the Americas in the late nineteenth century further ignited racist and xenophobic sentiments. The Calvin Coolidge Administration implemented the Immigration Act of 1924 which turned away Black migrants with a nationality-based quota system that favored European countries. The U.S. executive branch continued to implement excessive anti-Black immigration policies under the Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations.

Today, the disproportionate treatment of Haitian migrants continues. Like the Immigration Act of 1924 with nationality-based quota system that preferred European countries, the Biden administration expelled nearly 20,000 Haitians the same year he extended protections to as many as 180,000 Ukrainian migrants. In 2021, confirming that U.S. border policies still operate to create a racial double-standard, the U.S. government decided to exempt Ukrainians from the Title 42 Policy that led to Homeland Security riding on horses into crowds of Haitian refugees with whips on December 6, 2021 exhibiting  modern-day “Slave Patrol”.

The afterlife of the slave ship lives in policies that dehumanize Black migrants by disproportionately persecuting them and knowingly sending them to their torture and death.  Newly obtained documents revealed that high-ranking ICE officials directly involved in the mass deportation of Black migrants felt disdain for Africa, disregard for Black migrants, and hostility towards immigrant rights activists. Who gets to be human in crisis?  All migrants have a right to be treated with dignity. The disproportionate treatment of Black migrants and Haitians must come to an end and the U.S. should stop deportations to Haiti.

¹Gabrielle Thomas is a rising 3L student at the University of Miami School of Law. She served as a Human Rights Clinic law intern as a 2L.

Event 5/30-6/2: Second Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent

From May 30 – June 2, 2023, the second session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent will be held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

The session will open on Tuesday May 30, 2023 at 10 a.m. ET with a cultural performance, followed by a high-level segment, and a general debate. The thematic discussions will start on Tuesday afternoon and continue until Thursday afternoon, focusing on human rights concerns of people of African descent on issues, respectively: reparatory justice, Pan-Africanism, transnational migration, structural racism and data, health, well-being, and intergenerational trauma.

On Friday, the members of the Permanent Forum will present the preliminary conclusions and recommendations of the session. The session will close on Friday afternoon with a cultural performance.

Discussions on these thematic issues are aimed at contributing to the process of elaborating a UN Declaration on the promotion, protection, and full respect of the human rights of people of African descent. Dozens of side events are also expected to take place in person or virtually to expand the discussions beyond the plenary session.

The event is open to the public and can also be viewed via livestream here.

IACHR Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights to Meet with Indigenous Tribes

This week, May 22-26, 2023, the IACHR Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA) is visiting and meeting with three Indigenous tribes from Alaska and leaders from four Indigenous communities in Louisiana for site visits and in-depth discussions about the impacts of the climate crisis on the social, economic, environmental, and cultural experiences of the Tribes. During these visits, the legal justice coalition involved will be spotlighting the human rights impacts of the climate crisis on Indigenous culture and livelihoods, the forced displacement of their communities and the role of the US government in addressing these issues. 

This meeting is the result of an October 2022 IACHR hearing, where five tribes—four from Louisiana, one from Alaska—participated in a hearing about threats to tribal sovereignty and determination posed by climate change. As a result of the tribes’ testimonies, REDESCA asked the State Department for an in-loco visit to the United States to visit the tribes and understand how the climate crisis is impacting not only community infrastructure, but also how tribes have experienced economic, cultural, and social discrimination when trying to address climate change impacts. During the tour, members of the tribes will not only show the stark impacts of climate change and its effects on land, bodies of water, homes, and infrastructure, but will also discuss the institutional and systemic racism of both the U.S., Alaska, and Louisiana governments in providing inadequate resources for repair and recovery in the face of massive storms, catastrophic land collapse, soil erosion, rising waters, thawing permafrost, and decreasing arctic sea ice, among other impacts. REDESCA’s visit will provide a tool for the Tribe’s ongoing organizing and advocacy in ensuring that the State and Federal governments meet their obligations in protecting and upholding the rights of the Tribes.  

You can read more about the IACHR hearing here: https://www.uusc.org/tribes-leadership-brings-climate-crisis-to-international-forum/

Event 5/25: Launch of the National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Strategies for Action

On Thursday, May 25, 2023, from 11 A.M. to 1:15 P.M. ET, the White House Gender Policy Council will release the National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Strategies for Action. This first-ever National Plan advances an unprecedented and comprehensive approach to preventing and addressing sexual violence, intimate partner violence, stalking, and other forms of gender-based violence (referred to collectively as GBV). 

The White House Gender Policy Council will be hosting a launch event that will include two roundtable discussions. During the first roundtable, leaders from key federal agencies will highlight the role of their agencies in strengthening ongoing federal action and interagency collaboration to advance the goals of the National Plan through a whole-of-government approach. During the second roundtable, survivors, advocates, and other leaders from civil society, including community-based organizations and private sector organizations, will discuss the importance of mobilizing a whole of society approach to prevent and address GBV.

The event will be livestreamed. Register here.

UN Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice in the Context of Law Enforcement ends visit to U.S.

The UN Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement ended a 12-day visit to the United States of America on May 5, 2023, calling on the U.S. Government to boost efforts to promote accountability for past and future violations.

During the visit (April 24 to May 5, 2023), the Mechanism visited Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York City and met with representatives of civil society and victims, as well as federal, State and local officials including from law enforcement, city administrations, judicial actors, police unions and affinity groups. 

In it's press release dated May 5, 2023, the Mechanism stated that it was

pleased to learn about various promising initiatives, including at the State level, that authorities have developed to combat racial discrimination affecting people of African descent. However, the Mechanism feels an urgency, and a moral responsibility, to echo the harrowing pain of victims and their resounding calls for accountability and support, which it heard throughout its journey.  

"We saw some promising initiatives centering the voices of victims and survivors, as well as law enforcement initiatives that could be replicated throughout the United States. We welcome the reparatory measures taken so far, including executive orders signed in 2021 and 2022, as well as individual reparation initiatives by way of civilian settlement for damages,” said Tracie Keesee, an expert member of the Mechanism. “But we strongly believe that more robust action, including on part of federal authorities, is needed to result in strong accountability measures for past and future violations.”

 “This includes boosting oversight mechanisms with compelling power; the allocation of appropriate resources; and the provision of robust and holistic reparation, support and rehabilitation to victims, including access to justice and health, including mental health services,” Keesee said.

 For more, visit https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/05/usa-whole-government-leadership-needed-address-legacy-slavery-and-redefine. 

The Mechanism has shared its preliminary findings with the government and will draft a full report to be published in the coming months and presented to the Human Rights Council at its 54^th session (September-October 2023).