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NDPA RESOURCES: Bill Frelick at Human Rights Watch With Tons of Helpful Links For Refugee/Human Rights Advocates!

Bill Frelick
Bill Frelick
Director
Refugee and Migrant Rights Division
Human Rights Watch
Friends of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Division
April 2020 Newsletter

 

Dear Friends,

 

First, I hope all of you are in good health and will stay that way. Around the world, all eyes are on the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The pandemic is challenging families, communities, health care systems, and governments. There is no doubting the severity of the public health crisis we are facing, not only for each of you, but in many ways, especially, for the refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants we serve.

 

You can find Human Rights Watch’s work on the coronavirus here.

 

Going forward, I will be doing advocacy work relating to COVID-19 and migrants, and am looking at doing a global project focused on alternatives to immigration detention. Nadia Hardman, see below for intro, is collaborating with our Lebanon researcher on a project on Coronavirus-related discriminatory restrictions on Syrian refugees in Lebanon. She will also be working with our Asia Division on COVID19-related discriminatory restrictions on IDPs in Rakhine state, Myanmar, and on Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. As the #stayhome hashtag circulates on twitter, we will demonstrate how difficult it is for refugee and migrants living in crowded and confined spaces with limited access to basic hygiene and sanitation, to conform to social distancing and other public health recommendations. In this time of crisis, no one should be left behind.

 

We have two major updates to share with you outside of our COVID-19 response. As you can see up top, we have a new name: The Refugee and Migrant Rights Division. In fact, although we previously were only called Refugee Rights, we have worked on migrant rights all along. I’m happy to report that Human Rights Watch has taken a decision to make the rights of migrants a cross-divisional priority for the organization and so our colleagues throughout the organization will be devoting additional resources to this work, which is critically important, now more than ever.

 

I also want to introduce you to our new Refugee and Migrant Rights researcher, Nadia Hardman. Nadia comes to us from the International Rescue Committee, where she was a senior protection officer for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Before that, she worked with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq, based in Mosul, with the Norwegian Refugee Council. Nadia has worked with refugee and IDP populations in Myanmar, Thailand, and Palestine and was a Program Lawyer for the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute working on rule of law issues in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Egypt, and Tajikistan. She is a qualified UK lawyer with a Masters in Human Rights from University College London. She speaks fluent French and Italian and will be based in our Beirut office.

 

Nadia recently returned from Turkey where she and Gerry Simpson were researching pushbacks from the Greek border. She and Gerry wrote Greece: Violence Against Asylum Seekers at Border: Detained, Assaulted, Stripped, Summarily Deported and produced this compelling video while there. In introducing the report, Nadia said, “The European Union is hiding behind a shield of Greek security force abuse instead of helping Greece protect asylum seekers and relocate them safely throughout the EU. The EU should protect people in need rather than support forces who beat, rob, strip, and dump asylum seekers and migrants back across the river.”

 

Simultaneously with Gerry and Nadia’s work in Turkey, I was on the island of Lesbos in Greece documenting vigilante violence against refugees and migrants and the humanitarian NGOs who serve them. While there, I wrote Gunshots, summary trials, deportations: the reality for refugees in the EU-Turkey stand-off for Euro News and this accompanying video(with apologies for my thumb in the lens). Just before the full threat of Coronavirus seized everyone’s attention, I spent time in the severely overcrowded and unsanitary Moria camp where I recorded this video on the mob violence that was causing humanitarian organizations to suspend their operations and deepening anxiety and lack of adequate services in the camp. As bad as things were for the 20,000 or so people living in the Moria camp, built to accommodate fewer than 3,000, things appeared even worse for new arrivals who were not allowed to lodge asylum claims and who the Greek government was threatening to send directly back to Turkey or their home countries. I did this video about the first arrivals who were being kept on a naval vessel docked at the Mytilene harbor. The PBS Newshour did a piece on Moria camp/Lesbos, which includes my take on the situation there.I went on TRT and discussed the EU announcement that they were prepared to pay migrants in Greece US$2,225 if they volunteered to go back to their home countries.

 

 

Of course, our work on the rest of the world continues. I particularly wanted to draw your attention to the landmark report from our US Program colleagues, Alison Parker and Elizabeth Kennedy, Deported to Danger: United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse, a report that identified 138 cases of Salvadorans who had been killed since 2013 after being deported from the United States.

 

We have been actively engaged in fighting the various Trump administration initiatives to eviscerate the right to seek asylum in the United States and to bring refugee resettlement to a virtual standstill. We are currently working on the asylum cooperative agreements that the United States has concluded with El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala after much arm twisting, as well as the Remain in Mexico program that has stranded thousands of asylum seekers just across the US southern border. See the links below for publications relating to this work.

 

For those with a taste for longer range thinking about what is needed to fix the US asylum system, please check out my What’s Wrong with Temporary Protected Status and How to Fix It: Exploring a Complementary Protection Regime in the Journal of Migration and Human Security and, Central American Women Fleeing Domestic Violence Deserve Refugee Status in The Hill, in which I argue that gender should be recognized comparably as a protected ground for asylum as race, nationality or religion. And for those looking for ideas on how to reform the international refugee regime, please check It is Time to Change the Definition of Refugee: Climate Change is an Existential Threat to Humanity Should Be Included in Legislation on Asylum Seeking, which I did for Al-Jazeera.

 

Below my signature is a selection of some more of our work during the past several months to defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants around the world.

 

We realize that many of the people on this mailing list are themselves engaged in non-profit humanitarian and human rights work relating to refugees and displaced people, and are not in a position to help us financially. However, if you think this work is worthwhile and you are able to contribute to enable us to continue to conduct research and effective advocacy on these and other important issues, we ask our friends to consider contributing to support Human Rights Watch’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Division. You can do so simply by clicking the Donate button at the end of my signature.

 

Follow @Nadia_Hardman and @BillFrelick on Twitter for updates on human rights issues concerning migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

 

With best regards,

 

Bill Frelick

Director

Refugee and Migrant Rights Division

Human Rights Watch

1275 K Street, NW

Suite 1100

Washington, DC 20005

 

Tel: 202-612-4344

Mobile: 240-593-1747

Skype: bill.frelick

Fax: 202-612-4333

Follow on Twitter: BillFrelick

Web: www.hrw.org

 

Global

December 24, 2019 Refugees All Over the World Pressured to Go Back Home in 2019

 

Europe/Central Asia

March 17, 2020 Greece: Violence Against Asylum Seekers at Border

March 16, 2020 Greek Vessel Takes Syrians, Afghans to Closed Camp

March 12, 2020 US: COVID-19 Threatens People Behind Bars

March 10, 2020 Greece/EU: Allow New Arrivals to Claim Asylum

March 6, 2020 Interview: What’s Happening to Refugees in Greece

March 6, 2020 Gunshots, Summary Trials, Deportations

March 4, 2020 Greece/EU: Urgently Relocate Lone Children

March 4, 2020 Greece/EU: Respect Rights, Ease Suffering at Borders

February 18, 2020 EU Turns Its Back on Migrants in Distress

February 12, 2020 Italy: Halt Abusive Migration Cooperation with Libya

January 31, 2020 Italy: Revoke Abusive Anti-Asylum Decrees

January 20, 2020 Britain Cannot Turn Its Back on Lone Children Now

January 9, 2020 Kazakhstan: Improper Prosecution of Asylum Seekers from China

December 18, 2019 Greece: Unaccompanied Children at Risk

December 17, 2019 Rohingya Children Need an Advocate in Brussels

December 4, 2019 France Drops Plan to Give Boats to Libya

December 4, 2019 Greece: Camp Conditions Endanger Women, Girls

November 8, 2019 EU: Address Croatia Border Pushbacks

October 29, 2019 Greece: Asylum Overhaul Threatens Rights

October 24, 2019 Turkey: Syrians Being Deported to Danger

October 19, 2019 Bosnia Should Immediately Close Inhumane Migrant Camp

October 3, 2019 EU Governments Face Crucial Decision on Shared Sea Rescue Responsibility

September 5, 2019 Italy’s New Government Should Undo Its Worst Migration Policies

September 5, 2019 Subject to Whim: The Treatment of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the French Hautes-Alpes

 

Asia/Pacific

February 13, 2020 Christians Abducted, Attacked in Bangladesh Refugee Camp

January 29, 2020 A Step Forward for 10,000 Rohingya Refugee Children

January 28, 2020 It Is Time to Change the Definition of Refugee

January 14, 2020 Australia: National Security Laws Chill Free Speech

January 14, 2020 Myanmar: Seeking International Justice for Rohingya

December 16, 2019 “I’m Happy, But I Am Also Broken for Those Left Behind”: Life After Manus and Nauru

December 3, 2019 “Are We Not Human?”: Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh

December 2, 2019 Bangladesh: Rohingya Children Denied Education

November 26, 2019 Bangladesh Turning Refugee Camps into Open-Air Prisons

November 13, 2019 Papua New Guinea: Detainees Denied Lawyers, Family Access

November 12, 2019 South Korea Deports Two From North to Likely Abuse

September 30, 2019 Bangladesh: Halt Plans to Fence-In Rohingya Refugees

September 13, 2019 Bangladesh: Internet Blackout on Rohingya Refugees

September 7, 2019 Bangladesh: Clampdown on Rohingya Refugees

September 2, 2019 “Where His Blood Fell”: A Rohingya Widow’s Call for Justice

August 22, 2019 Myanmar: Crimes Against Rohingya Go Unpunished

August 20, 2019 Myanmar/Bangladesh: Halt Rohingya Returns

 

Middle East/Africa

March 5, 2020 Interview: Libya’s Chaos Explained

December 20, 2019 Winter Looms For Lebanon’s Syrian Refugees

December 12, 2019 Tanzania: Burundians Pressured into Leaving

November 27, 2019 Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Refugees’ Movements Restricted

November 7, 2019 “Repatriation” of Syrians in Turkey Needs EU Action

October 29, 2019 Tanzania: Asylum Seekers Coerced into Going Home

September 19, 2019 Tanzania: Protect Burundians Facing Abuse

September 11, 2019 Justice, Delayed in Libya

August 15, 2019 Ethiopians Abused on Gulf Migration Route

 

Americas

March 3, 2020 Children Sent to Mexico Under Trump Face Abuses, Trauma

February 12, 2020 US: ‘Remain in Mexico’ Program Harming Children

February 10, 2020 The US Deported Them, Ignoring Their Pleas. Then They Were Killed.

February 7, 2020 US Congress Investigates Policy Harming Asylum Seekers

February 5, 2020 Deported to Danger: United States Deportation Policies Expose Salvadorans to Death and Abuse

February 5, 2020 US: Deported Salvadorans Abused, Killed

January 29, 2020 Q&A: Trump Administration’s “Remain in Mexico” Program

January 29, 2020 US: Returns to Mexico Threaten Rights, Security

January 14, 2020 US: Punitive Policies Undercut Rights

December 9, 2019 Utah Governor to Trump: ‘Allow Us to Accept More Refugees’

December 6, 2019 Brazil Grants Asylum to 21,000 Venezuelans in a Single Day

November 25, 2019 US Should Cease Returning Asylum Seekers to Mexico

November 18, 2019 America Should Not Lag Behind on Protecting Children

November 16, 2019 US to Refugees: Poor Asylum Seekers Need Not Apply

October 18, 2019 Cuban Man Dies in US Immigration Custody

October 14, 2019 US Columbus Day Holiday Celebrates a Shameful Past

September 27, 2019 US Refugee Action Has Worldwide Impact

September 25, 2019 US Move Puts More Asylum Seekers at Risk

September 3, 2019 US: Suit Over Indefinite Detention of Children

August 31, 2019 The Long Journey to the US Border

August 21, 2019 US: New Rules Allow Indefinite Detention of Children

 

 

*********************************

Thanks to my good friend and tireless human rights warrior Debi Sanders for sending this my way.

Check out Bill’s latest op-ed over at The Hill here:

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/491789-essential-travel-in-a-time-of-pandemic#.XpSOvUVLrMI.twitter

 

PWS

 

04-16-20

Related posts:

  1. NOLAN’S LATEST IN THE HILL: “Undocumented immigrants shouldn’t replace legal ones”
  2. JUSTICE PREVAILS AGAIN IN IMMIGRATION COURTS EVEN IN THE “POST-A-B-“ ERA — Outstanding Analysis By Judge Eileen Trujillo Of The U.S. Immigration Court In Denver, CO, Recognizes “Women In Mexico” As PSG, Finds Nexus, Grants Asylum, Distinguishes A-B-
  3. JULIAN CASTRO: A Democrat With A Sane & Sound Immigration Plan!
  4. 🏴‍☠️☠️⚰️🆘NO JUSTICE @ JUSTICE! — OUTRAGE OF PROGRESSIVE EXPERTS CONTINUES TO GROW AS GARLAND FAILS TO VACATE SESSIONS/BARR RACIST, MISOGYNIST, ANTI-IMMIGRANT, UNETHICAL, BIASED PRECEDENTS — “Garland’s Star Chambers” Careen Further Out Of Control As AG Dithers While Lives Of Vulnerable Refugee Women Hang in Balance & Pro Bono Advocates Are Forced To Exhaust Resources Fighting Trump DOJ’s Misdeeds That Biden Has Failed To Fix, Despite Promises — “Unforced Errors,” Lack Of Competent Progressive Leadership Continue To Plague Flawed Immigration Agenda @ Justice, Offend Dem Supporters! — Expert Professors Karen Musalo & Stephen Legomsky Call For Immediate Vacating Of Repulsive Matter of A-B- Abomination Before More Lives Of Women Of Color Are Lost!

Michael Paarlberg @ THE GUARDIAN: HOW WACKO & COUNTERPRODUCTIVE IS TRUMP/SESSIONS “GONZO” IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT? — Who Screws Their Friends & Productive Residents While Empowering Multinational Gangs? — “[MS-13] can’t really be described accurately as a single gang but is rather a network of gangs with little centralized authority and a franchised name, whose street value only increases with each press conference by Trump and Sessions. . . . There aren’t many beneficiaries of Trump’s immigration policy, but there’s at least one: MS-13 couldn’t have asked for a better president than Trump.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/02/trump-immigration-bogeymen-ms-13-chain-migration?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Paarlberg writes:

“In 1968, a British Conservative politician, Enoch Powell, made what became known as his “Rivers of Blood” speech. In it, he sounded an alarm about what he imagined to be an unchecked immigrant invasion of the United Kingdom, at a time when the country’s immigrant population had only grown from 5 to 6% in the previous decade.

Crime was low, less than one homicide per 100,000 residents, a tenth the rate of the US. Quoting a constituent, he foresaw the day when “the black man will have the whip hand over the white man”. In subsequent decades, immigration slowly inched upwards, but the scenario Powell envisioned failed to materialize.

Half a century later, we Americans live in a Powellesque moment in which politicians’ hysterical rhetoric surrounding immigration is completely at odds with the facts. President Trump, giving his own Rivers of Blood speech on Tuesday, painted a grim picture of a wave of hardened criminal immigrants, exploiting diversity visas and “chain migration”, running around the country murdering people left and right.

In reality, illegal immigration to the US is down, not up. Trump would like to take credit for this with his tough talk about walls, rapists, and “bad hombres” from Mexico, but the number of unauthorized immigrants in the country has been falling for the past decade, due not to xenophobic bluster but the Great Recession.

Net migration from Mexico is currently negative: more Mexicans are leaving the US than coming in, and have been doing so since the end of the Bush administration. In coming decades, most new immigrants to the US will not be from Latin America at all, but from China and India.

Violent crime, too, is down, way down: FBI statistics show violent crimes are just half of what they were in the early 90s. Trump would have you believe that immigrants are responsible for “tremendous amounts of crime”, but research shows immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans.

In fact, it started in Los Angeles in the 1980s, was originally made up of adolescent stoners who listened to heavy metal, and only grew into a much larger and more vicious, officially designated “transnational gang” thanks to mass criminal deportations by the Clinton administration to poor countries that were ill-equipped to deal with the influx.

It can’t really be described accurately as a single gang but is rather a network of gangs with little centralized authority and a franchised name, whose street value only increases with each press conference by Trump and Sessions. And for all the hype, MS-13 is a relatively small player here. Its estimated US membership has remained constant for the past decade at around 10,000, or less than 1% of the 1.4 million gang members in the US: far smaller than the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, or Aryan Brotherhood.

Even the face tattoo image is out of date; MS cliques have been discouraging members from getting them after belatedly realizing it makes them easy to identify by police.

As for the origins of this nonexistent immigrant crime wave, Trump blames “chain migration”, the more menacing nativist buzzword for family reunification, the principle on which our immigration laws are founded.

“Chain migration” is actually a conservative idea: the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was passed in 1965, was sold to immigration restrictionists as a law which would preserve mostly white immigration while doing away with the overtly racist, eugenics-inspired quota laws it replaced. Because by 1965, most immigrants to the US were from Europe, it was assumed that giving preference to family members of current immigrants would restrict immigration from other parts of the world.

After all, it is a policy which upholds the family as a unit. Families, conservatives argued, were preferable to single men. They encourage stable employment, homeownership, participation in the community, and provide a source of private, non-state welfare for needy relatives. Families are what keeps people out of trouble, the kind Trump imagines immigrants are getting into, and which may actually happen if he succeeds in taking away this base of support.

It wouldn’t be the first time US immigration policy had the opposite of its intended effect, from Johnson’s 1965 immigration law to Clinton’s criminal deportations. Similarly, Trump’s recent decision to revoke TPS protection for over 200,000 legal immigrants from Haiti and El Salvador will only increase the number of unauthorized immigrants and lead to more unauthorized immigration in the future: mass deportations mean a loss of cash remittances from those immigrants to countries whose economies are heavily dependent on them, which will only worsen unemployment and send more migrants north.

Breaking up families also creates the conditions of insecurity under which predatory gangs thrive. In Central America, deportations from the US give gangs a new vulnerable population to recruit from. In the US, the loss of family networks and raids which push migrants into the shadows give them a new vulnerable population to extort. There aren’t many beneficiaries of Trump’s immigration policy, but there’s at least one: MS-13 couldn’t have asked for a better president than Trump.”

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Pretty much what I’ve been saying all along! With their toxic mixture of ignorance, arrogance, incompetence, bias, White Nationalism, and racism, Trump, Sessions, Miller, and their sycophantic followers have been destroying American communities, weakening and dissolving American society, and empowering our enemies, foreign and domestic! Other than that, they’re a great bunch of guys.

The only folks happier than MS-13 about the Trump/Sessions regime and their “sell-out” of America and American values are Vladi Putin and his Oligarchs.

PWS

02-02-18

Related posts:

  1. JAMELLE BOUIE @ SLATE: TRUMP, SESSIONS, MILLER & THE GOP RESTRICTIONISTS HAVE PUT GOOD OL’ 1920S RACISM AT THE FOREFRONT OF THEIR WHITE NATIONALIST IMMIGRATION AGENDA! –“What good does it do to bring in somebody who’s illiterate in their own country, has no skills, and is going to struggle in our country and not be successful? . . . That is not what a good nation should do, and we need to get away from it.” — J. “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions, Attorney General of the United States of America & Unapologetic White Nationalist With A Long History Of Racism!
  2. VICTORY DANCE! — ICE’S HOMAN SAYS CLIMATE OF FEAR HAS STEMMED BORDER CROSSINGS & PROVES UNRESTRAINED, ARBITRARY IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT WORKS! — “There’s no population that’s off the table,” he said. “If you’re in the country illegally, we’re looking for you and we’re looking to apprehend you.” — America Won’t Be Truly Safe Until The Last Cook, Gardner, Construction Worker, Nanny, Janitor, Tree Cutter, Mechanic, Handyman, Carpenter, Home Health Aide, Computer Programmer, Healthcare Worker, Lettuce Picker, Cow Milker, Landscaper, Lawnmower, Bricklayer, Roofer, Window Washer, Waiter, Sandwich Artist, Teacher, Minister, Coach, Student, Parent, Clerk, Fisherman, Farmer, Maid, Chicken Plucker, Meat Processor, Etc., Without Docs Is Removed And US Citizens Take Over All These Jobs!
  3. MLK DAY 2018 — DR. KING’S DREAM OF AN AMERICA CELEBRATING EQUALITY & RACIAL HARMONY IS UNDER VICIOUS ATTACK BY TRUMP, PENCE, SESSIONS, AND A HOST OF OTHERS IN TODAY’S WHITE NATIONALIST ENABLING GOP — Who Is Going To Fight To Reclaim The Dream, & Who Is Going To “Go Along To Get Along” With The 21st Century Version Of Jim Crow?
  4. COURTSIDE HISTORY: HOW THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ RACISM ERASED A PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER! — ALSO MY: “FRIDAY ESSAY — FROM MONTICELLO TO TRUMP, MILLER, SESSIONS, AND THE GOP WHITE NATIONALISTS”