Advo­cacy Links on Resumed Removals | Chal­leng­ing the Removals | Press on the Removals | Under­stand­ing the Ille­gal Immi­gra­tion Reform & Respon­si­bil­ity Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 | Manda­tory Deten­tion | Leg­isla­tive Ini­tia­tives | Treat­ment and Prison Con­di­tions for Crim­i­nal Depor­tees | Addi­tional Arti­cles and Reports

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Advo­cacy Links on Resumed Removals

• Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tional Rights (CCR)
• Alter­na­tive Chance
• Uni­ver­sity of Miami School of Law — Stop­ping Depor­ta­tions to Haiti
• Boston Col­lege Post-Deportation Project
• Deten­tion Watch Network

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Chal­leng­ing the Removals:

Request to Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights for Pre­cau­tion­ary Mea­sures, Jan­u­ary 6, 2011
Sum­mary of the Request, Jan­u­ary 6, 2011
Let­ter in Sup­port of the Request from 80 groups and nearly 200 experts, Jan­u­ary 10, 2011
Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (IACHR)‘s Grant of the Request, Feb­ru­ary 4, 2011
Sub­mis­sion to Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights (IACHR), March 26, 2011
Selected Com­ments oppos­ing Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforcement’s pro­posed pol­icy, March 2011
State­ment After For­mal ICE Issuance of Pol­icy, April 6, 2011

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Press on the Removals:

“Hait­ian depor­ta­tions show double-talk from Obama Admin­is­tra­tion,” New York Daily News, April 27, 2011
“Depor­tees in Haiti face bleak prospects in Haiti,” Los Ange­les Times, April 24, 2011
“Depor­ta­tions to Haiti: Still a Death Sen­tence,” Huff­Post World, by Vince War­ren, Car­o­line Bet­tinger Lopez, and Sunita Patel, April 8, 2011
“Halt Hait­ian Depor­ta­tions — Our Opin­ion: Inhu­mane pol­icy makes no sense,” Miami Her­ald edi­to­r­ial, April  18, 2011
“Stop these inhu­mane depor­ta­tions to Haiti now,” by Mark Dow, Guardian, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2011
“‘Now not the time’ to resume depor­ta­tions of Haitians, U.S. agency told,” U.S, Catholic, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2011
“Con­tinue to sus­pend depor­ta­tions to Haiti,” by Michelle Kar­shan, Sun-Sentinel op-ed, Jan­u­ary 19, 2011

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Ille­gal Immi­gra­tion Reform and Immi­grant Respon­si­bil­ity Act (IIRIRA) of 1996

• Ille­gal Immi­gra­tion Reform and Immi­grant Respon­si­bil­ity Act – see Pub. L. 104–208
• Sum­mary of the 1996 Immi­gra­tion Bill
• Grounds of Deporta­bil­ity and Inad­mis­si­bil­ity Related to Crimes
• Bur­den of Proof to Over­come Aggra­vated Felony Bar

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Legal Chal­lenges to Manda­tory Deportation

• Gov­ern­ing Human Rights Doc­u­ments
  • Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights
  • Inter­na­tional Covenant on Civil and Polit­i­cal Rights
  • Con­ven­tion on the Elim­i­na­tion of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
  • Amer­i­can Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights and Duties of Man

• Vio­la­tions of the Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture and Other Cruel, Inhu­man or Degrad­ing Treat­ment or Pun­ish­ment (CAT)
  • Con­ven­tion Against Torture

• CAT Claim Case His­tory for Hait­ian Depor­tees
  • “Hait­ian Jean,” Peti­tioner v. AG of the United States, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 18183 (3^rd Cir., Aug. 30, 2010) (denied) (risk of phys­i­cal abuse by prison guards because of his men­tal ill­ness and his polit­i­cal beliefs).
  • Lysaire v. AG US, 368 Fed. Appx. 329 (3^rd Cir., March 5, 2010) (denied) (men­tal illness).
  • Mat­ter of BB, Deci­sion of the BIA (Feb­ru­ary 2, 2010) (“Accord­ingly, we find that he has suf­fi­ciently estab­lished that an inabil­ity to have access to insulin and other med­ica­tions, which will trig­ger psy­chotic symp­toms, in com­bi­na­tion with his lack of famil­ial resources and the pres­ence of tat­toos, will more likely than not result in the respon­dent being per­se­cuted by other inmates or secu­rity guards, who will either pun­ish the respon­dent for his behav­ior or acqui­esce in the other inmates’ behavior”).
  • Cherichel v. Holder, 591 F.3d 1002 (8^th Cir., Jan­u­ary 12, 2010) (denied) (insuf­fi­cient spe­cific intent).
  • Louis v. AG, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 14114 (3^rd Cir., June 29, 2009) (denied) (diag­nos­tic latent Tuber­cu­lo­sis; Rastafarian).
  • X v. Y, Deci­sion of the Board of Immi­gra­tion Appeals (March 10, 2009) (“Given the respondent’s his­tory of men­tal ill­ness and insulin-dependency, when com­bined with the harsh prison con­di­tions present in Haiti and the lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in any prior motions pre­sented by the respondent”).
  • Thomas v. AG, 308 Fed. Appx. 587 (3^rd Cir., Jan­u­ary 22, 2009) (denied) (lack of spe­cific intent).
  • Cas­tel v. AG, 295 Fed. Appx. 492 (3^rd Cir., Oct.7, 2008) (denied) (diabetic).
  • Mary Holper, Case of Respon­dents Who Fear Impris­on­ment as Crim­i­nal Depor­tees in Haiti: Updates in the Law since Mat­ter of J-E-(Boston Col­lege Immi­gra­tion and Asy­lum Project, Octo­ber 2, 2008).
  • Dale­grand v. AG, 288 Fed. Appx. 838 (3^rd Cir., July 28, 2008) (denied) (schizophrenia).
  • Jean-Pierre v. U.S. Attor­ney Gen­eral, 500 F.3d 1315 (11th Cir. 2007) (granted) (undis­puted evi­dence seems to show that the peti­tioner likely will be sin­gled out for crawl-space con­fine­ment, kalot marassa, and beat­ings with metal rods as a result of AIDS-related men­tal illness).
  • Pierre v. Gon­za­les, 502 F.3d 109 (2d Cir., Sept. 11, 2007) (denied) (“notwith­stand­ing Pierre’s med­ical con­di­tion [dia­betes], Pierre has not adduced the evi­dence that he will likely be sub­jected to torture”).
  • Lavira v. Attor­ney Gen­eral  – (3rd Cir. Feb. 2007; remanded for fur­ther proceedings)
  • Fran­cois v. Gon­za­les – (3rd Cir. May 2006)
  • Auguste v. Ridge – (3rd Cir. Jan. 2005)
    • Thomas P. O’Connor, August v. Ridge: Func­tional Inap­plic­a­bil­ity of the United Nations Con­ven­tion against Tor­ture in the United States, 14 Tul. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 237 (2005) (The “spe­cific intent” require­ment and the “more likely than not” bur­den of proof are con­sis­tent with the Convention’s imple­ment­ing legislation.”)
  • In re J-E – (Board of Immi­gra­tion Appeals, Mar. 22, 2002): Though it is main­tained by Hait­ian crim­i­nal depor­tee advo­cates that the treat­ment of crim­i­nal depor­tees in Haiti is more egre­gious than pur­ported in this opin­ion, In re J-E con­tin­ues to be fol­lowed by immi­gra­tion judges in deny­ing Hait­ian depor­tees with­hold­ing. See the Advi­sories by Alter­na­tive Chance for cur­rent infor­ma­tion about the treat­ment of Hait­ian deportees.

• CAT Law Arti­cles
  • Mary Holper, Specific Intent and the Pur­pose­ful Nar­row­ing of Vic­tim Pro­tec­tion Under the Con­ven­tion Against Torture, 88 Or. L. Rev. 777 (2009)
    • In 2002 in In re J-E-, 23 I. & N. Dec. 291, 300 (B.I.A. 2002), the BIA required the proof of Hait­ian gov­ern­ment spe­cific intent in the pre­cise pur­pose of caus­ing severe pain or suf­fer­ing. In In re J-E, spe­cific intent has been defined as “pur­pose­ful”. This case switched the focus on the alleged tor­turer. The author explains why such under­stand­ing of spe­cific intent con­sti­tutes an insur­mount­able obsta­cle. The author then sug­gests a revi­sion of the def­i­n­i­tion of spe­cific intent (more con­sis­tent with the pur­pose of arti­cle 3 CAT): know­ing that severe pain or suf­fer­ing is fore­see­able OR knowl­edge of fore­see­able consequences.
  • Deb­o­rah Anker, Grounds for Asy­lum, With­hold­ing, and CAT Pro­tec­tion: Cur­rent Issues and Recent Devel­op­ments in 40th Annual Immi­gra­tion & Nat­u­ral­iza­tion Insti­tute 339–349,  (Prac­tis­ing Law Insti­tute, 2007) (sum­ma­riz­ing the lex lata on the def­i­n­i­tion of tor­ture, the gov­ern­ment acqui­es­cence def­i­n­i­tion and the need of spe­cific intent _ see p.4–7 of the document)
  • Henry Mas­cia, A Recon­sid­er­a­tion of Hait­ian Claims for With­hold­ing of Removal under the Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture, 19 Pace Int’l L. Rev. 287 (2007) (describ­ing the adop­tion of the FARRA, the con­di­tions in Hait­ian Jails, and how the “inten­tion­ally inflicted require­ment has been inter­preted in Re J-E and its dis­sents, by the 3^rd Cir­cuit Court and by other courts: cri­te­rion of pur­pose of caus­ing severe pain or suf­fer­ing).
  • CRS Report for Con­gress, The U.N. Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture: Overview of U.S. Imple­men­ta­tion Pol­icy Con­cern­ing the Removal of Aliens (April 4, 2006)

• Vio­la­tions of Amer­i­can Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights and Duties of Man
  • Human Rights Watch Ami­cus Brief to Inter-American Com­mis­sion in sup­port of Wayne Smith and Hugo Armendariz
  • Cen­ter for Jus­tice and Inter­na­tional Law Ami­cus Brief to the Inter-American Com­mis­sion In sup­port of Wayne Smith and Hugo Armendariz
  • Ami­cus Briefs Chal­leng­ing the Valid­ity of Manda­tory Depor­ta­tion Laws These ami­cus briefs chal­lenge the legal­ity of clas­si­fy­ing crimes that are nei­ther aggra­vated nor felonies as aggra­vated felonies for pur­poses of manda­tory depor­ta­tion. The briefs fur­ther chal­lenge the prac­tice of manda­tory depor­ta­tion and refoulement.

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Leg­isla­tive Initiatives

• CRS Report for Con­gress, The U.N. Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture: Overview of U.S. Imple­men­ta­tion Pol­icy Con­cern­ing the Removal of Aliens (April 4, 2006)
• Hait­ian Pro­tec­tion Act of 2007 — HR 522
• Bills Sup­port­ing Best Inter­ests of the Child in Decid­ing to Deport Non-citizen
  • House Res­o­lu­tion 1176
  • House Res­o­lu­tion 213

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Treat­ment and Deten­tion Con­di­tions of Crim­i­nal Depor­tees in Haiti

• Death Watch in Haiti’s Jails–The Domin­ion, August 13, 2009
• Ille­gal Deten­tion and Inhu­mane Treat­ment Await Crim­i­nal Depor­tees in Haiti: Treat­ment of Crim­i­nal Depor­tees Arriv­ing in Haiti — ALTERNATIVE CHANCE/CHANS ALTENATIV — April 7, 2009
• March 28, 2008 Alter­na­tive Chance/Michelle Kar­shan response to 2007 US State Dept Report issued March 11, 2008
• UN Refugee Agency: Infor­ma­tion on Con­di­tions in Hait­ian Pris­ons and Treat­ment of Crim­i­nal Deportees
• Advi­sory By Michelle Kar­shan of Alter­na­tive Chance regard­ing treat­ment of depor­tees in Haiti, May 2007
• Alter­na­tive Chance: Defend­ing the Rights of Women Crim­i­nal Depor­tees Sent to Haiti from the United States, May 8, 2007
• Pol­icy Brief­ing Regard­ing Hait­ian Pris­ons, May 2007
• Inter-American Com­mis­sion on Human Rights on Haiti’s Deten­tion Cen­ters -(press release) June 21, 2007
• Haiti prison pop­u­la­tion rises; US aid inef­fec­tive, audit says — Bloomberg, May 3, 2007

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Addi­tional Arti­cles and Reports

• The Results of the Recent U.S. Deci­sion to Resume Depor­ta­tions to Haiti: Depor­ta­tions, Deten­tion and Death — Feb­ru­ary 23, 2011
• Chron­i­cle of a Death Fore­told (The Huff­in­g­ton Post) — Feb­ru­ary 17, 2011
• Inter­na­tional Human Rights Com­mis­sion Sum­mons U.S. to Stop Depor­ta­tions to Haiti Fol­low­ing First Depor­tee Death — Feb­ru­ary 4, 2011
• ACLU and Congresswoman-Elect Fred­er­ica Wil­son Call on Obama Admin­is­tra­tion to Avert “Human Rights Dis­as­ter,” Halt Depor­ta­tion of Hait­ian Nation­als (ACLU) — Decem­ber 29, 2010
• ICE Should Not Resume Depor­ta­tions to Haiti (Huff­in­g­ton Post) — Decem­ber 28, 2010
• Protests Sur­round Planned Depor­ta­tions To Haiti (CBS Miami) — Decem­ber 20, 2010
• Depor­ta­tions loom as dead­line for Haitians nears (Asso­ci­ated Press) — Decem­ber 20, 2010
• Haitians in U.S. Brace for Depor­ta­tions to Resume (New York Times) — Decem­ber 19, 2010
• Being Deported to Post-Earthquake Haiti? (Alter­na­tive Chance) — Decem­ber 16, 2010
• CCR Sends Let­ter to Obama Rais­ing Con­cerns Over Imme­di­ate Plans to Resume Depor­ta­tions to Haiti Amid Spi­ral­ing Cholera Out­break (CCR) — Decem­ber 16, 2010
• Rights Groups Denounce U.S. Government’s Deci­sion to Resume Some Depor­ta­tions to Haiti Amid Spi­ral­ing Cholera Out­break and Wors­en­ing Human­i­tar­ian Sit­u­a­tion (IJDH, CCR, Alter­na­tive Chance) — Decem­ber 13, 2010
• Report Assails Haiti Offi­cers in Prison Killings (The New York Times) — Octo­ber 21, 2010
• The chaos of Haiti’s post-quake prison sys­tem (ACA) — August 10, 2010
• Child Inmates Crowded Into Haiti’s Dan­ger­ous Post-Quake Pris­ons (Truthout) — August 6, 2010
• All in the Fam­ily? (Int­Law­Gr­rls) — August 6, 2010
• Health Care for Pris­on­ers in Haiti (Annal of Inter­nal Medecine) — August 2, 2010
• The Post-Earthquake Prison Mas­sacre Hait­ian Offi­cials Want You to For­get (Change.org) — May 24, 2010
• Escape Attempt Led to Killings of Unarmed Inmates (The New York Times) — May 22, 2010
• In Haiti, Men­tal Health Sys­tem Is in Col­lapse (The New York Times) — March 19, 2010
• Haiti jail reveals chaos behind quake break­out (BBC News) — March 17, 2010
• Quake Pro­vides Look Into Haiti’s Pris­ons (CBS News) — March 6, 2010
• Hell is a Hait­ian Prison (Ottawa Cit­i­zen) — June 5, 2009
• UN Human Rights Coun­cil Inde­pen­dent Expert Report on Haiti (United Nations: French) — March 26, 2009
• Hell­ish con­di­tions pre­vail in Haiti jails (AFP) — July 12, 2007
• Forced Apart: Fam­i­lies Sep­a­rated and Immi­grants Harmed by United States Depor­ta­tion Poli­cies (Human Rights Watch) — July 1, 2007
• Study: Miami Judges Far Less Likely to Grant Asy­lum (The Asso­ci­ated Press) — June 2, 2007
• Miami Judges Tougher on Asy­lum Cases (Miami Her­ald) — June 1, 2007
• Miami Immi­gra­tion Judges Less Likely to Grant Asy­lum to Refugees (Haitiwebs.com) — May 31, 2007
• New Life is No Life for U.S. Ex-cons in Haiti Crim­i­nal Depor­ta­tion is a Sore Point With the Impov­er­ished Caribbean Nation, Where For­mer Inmates Are Often Blamed for Ris­ing Crime (Chicago Tri­bune) — May 5, 2007
• Audit of USAID/Haiti’s Jus­tice Pro­gram (USAID) — April 24, 2007
• Influx of depor­tees stirs anger in Haiti (The Boston Globe) — March 11, 2007

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Advo­cacy Links on Resumed Removals | Chal­leng­ing the Removals | Press on the Removals | Under­stand­ing the Ille­gal Immi­gra­tion Reform & Respon­si­bil­ity Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 | Manda­tory Deten­tion | Leg­isla­tive Ini­tia­tives | Treat­ment and Prison Con­di­tions for Crim­i­nal Depor­tees | Addi­tional Arti­cles and Reports