Monthly Archives: May 2018

human rights, Immigrants, Justice and Peace, Protected Status

End of Hondurans’ protected status endangers 57,000 immigrants, advocates say

by Maria Benvento
NCR

 

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People hold a Honduran flag while sitting on the border fence between Mexico and the United States, April 29, in Tijuana, Mexico. (CNS/Jorge Duenes, Reuters)

 

May 9, 2018: Catholic groups who are tracking the current situation in Honduras said the Trump administration’s May 4 decision to terminate the country’s temporary protected status and send back 57,000 immigrants disregards extremely dangerous conditions in the Central American country.

“You could not look at those conditions and make that judgment call. That’s not what was primary in their decision, in my opinion,” said Jean Stokan, justice coordinator of the Institute Justice Team for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. “There’s absolutely no conditions to go back … it’s a furnace of violence.”

When Honduras’ status last came up for review six months earlier, advocates for its extension cited gang violence, displacement, lack of housing and jobs, disease outbreaks and subsequent natural disasters that have made the country unsafe and impeded recovery from the hurricane that prompted its designation.

Since then, conditions have worsened after a highly contested November election led to widespread civil unrest; dozens of protesters were killed, hundreds were injured and thousands were jailed after demonstrations were met with violence from military police, said Stokan.

Stokan most recently visited Honduras in late January as part of an ecumenical delegation to observe and accompany the protesters and faith leaders who had been threatened, such as Jesuit Fr. Ismael “Melo” Moreno Coto. She witnessed militarization and instability and heard about extreme gang violence from Sisters of Mercy in the country.

Lawrence Couch, director of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who also have sisters and affiliates in the country, was part of the same delegation. Couch said he saw “chaos and unrest” and “widespread discontent” in the country. “It was in this context that President [Donald] Trump has chosen to send back 57,000 Hondurans.”

Hondurans have been covered under temporary protected status, which grants them work authorization and protection from deportation, since early 1999, shortly after Hurricane Mitch devastated the country in October 1998. The hurricane left one fifth of the population homeless, killed over 5,600 and destroyed infrastructure.

By law, the Department of Homeland Security is required to review conditions and renew a country’s temporary protected status in six-, 12- or 18-month increments as many times as necessary if dangerous conditions persist.

“The disruption of living conditions in Honduras from Hurricane Mitch … has decreased to a degree that it should no longer be regarded as substantial,” said a May 4 statement from Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. “Thus, as required under the applicable statute, the current TPS designation must be terminated.”

But many advocates said the opposite was true. “As CLINIC laid out along with 640 different interfaith organizations, we believe that under the law the secretary was compelled to extend TPS for Honduras for 18 months,” said Lisa Parisio, an advocacy attorney for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, or CLINIC.

“The TPS program is designed to protect people from being returned to harm,” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious said in a May 8 statement. “That is precisely what Hondurans will face if they are forced to return.”

A May 4 statement from Alianza Americas, a network of immigrant organizations, pointed out that this January, the State Department warned that Honduras was unsafe for travel due to “violent crime and gang activity.” The determination that Hondurans can return “runs counter to both the haunting realities in Honduras and to Americans’ purported values of decency, compassion and humanity.”

Advocates who urged extension also noted effects on the approximately 53,000 U.S. citizen children of Honduran protected status holders, who could be separated from parents who don’t want to bring them to a dangerous country, and noted that status holders have jobs, businesses and homes that tie them to U.S. communities.

To be eligible for temporary protected status, immigrants must have continuously resided in the U.S. since their country was designated as protected. That means any Honduran immigrants who are covered by the status have been living in the U.S. since Jan. 5, 1999 — over 19 years.

These deep U.S. roots could put temporary protected status holders in even more danger when they are required to return to Honduras Jan. 5, 2020, Parisio said. Returners with few connections in Honduras, who are perceived to have “American wealth” and U.S. relatives, “would be prime targets for those looking to extort and do harm to them.”

Expelling the status holders could also further destabilize Honduras because one in six Hondurans depend on remittances sent from the U.S., Parisio added, resulting in “more people coming to the U.S. border seeking safety.”

Exacerbating problems in Honduras, then refusing to help those who flee from them, is a pattern in U.S. policy, said Stokan.

“It isn’t just that people are fleeing poverty or they’re fleeing violence, or even that they’re fleeing political chaos,” she said. “How did U.S. policies contribute to those very conditions of why there is violence?”

 “Of course we need borders. Of course we need to prevent criminals from coming in, but we’re talking about families that are fleeing a country that’s on fire.”
—Jean Stokan

Stokan pointed out that the U.S. recognized Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s government after a coup in which he took power in 2009, and again recognized the election results in 2017 despite suspicious circumstances.

Also concerning for Stokan are Trump’s disparaging comments about migrants who come to the U.S. seeking refuge, including a mostly Honduran caravan that recently traveled to the U.S. border to seek asylum.

“This is not about protecting U.S. people from some threat,” Stokan said. “Of course we need borders. Of course we need to prevent criminals from coming in, but we’re talking about families that are fleeing a country that’s on fire.”

This kind of rhetoric and action from Trump and his administration contributes to suspicions that temporary protected status decisions are being made on the basis of anti-immigrant sentiment rather than an analysis of country conditions.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it that I can tell besides this anti-immigrant posture,” said Couch.

Honduras had received 18-month extensions each time its status came up for review under both Democratic and Republic administrations until the Trump administration disrupted that pattern six months ago. Then-acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke declined to make a renewal decision, resulting in an automatic 6-month extension.

Some advocates theorized that Duke recognized dangerous county conditions but was pressured by the Trump administration to end the status.

The Trump administration has also terminated the status for Nicaragua, Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti and Nepal, affecting about 310,540 people, while only extending it for 7,070 migrants from South Sudan and Syria. Decisions for 1,250 Somalian and Yemeni migrants are expected this July.

In many of its press releases announcing cancellations, although not in the most recent, the administration has called on Congress to legislate a pathway to legal status for temporary protected status holders, a call that advocates echo even as they doubt its sincerity.

“It’s fine to say that; weigh in and help make that happen,” said Stokan. She suggests advocates take a three-pronged approach to supporting temporary protected status holders: promoting legislative solutions, addressing root causes of migrants, and helping recipients regularize their status through other means if possible.

Advocates also called for a return to more welcoming values.

“To show a total disregard for the welfare of these people after they’ve been in our country for so long is unforgiveable,” Couch said. “We were built on welcoming people, trusting people.” To suddenly think of foreigners as evil or detrimental people who must be expelled is “not who we are as a people and we have to get beyond this current administration and get back to our values.”

[Maria Benevento is an NCR Bertelsen intern. Her email address is mbenevento@ncronline.org.]

Source: https://www.ncronline.org/news/justice/end-hondurans-protected-status-endangers-57000-immigrants-advocates-say

 

 

Climate Change, Environment, Kenya, refugees, Somalia

Deadly flash floods hit east African countries already in dire need

by Samuel Okiror
The Guardian – Global Development
May 8 2018

In Kenya, Rwanda and Somalia death toll reaches 300, with hundreds of thousands more people displaced, adding to crisis in region stricken by drought…

East Africa - Kenya-Rwanda-Somalia Flash Flooding
Floodwaters in the coastal Tana Delta region of Kenya. Torrential rains have caused severe flooding across 32 of the country’s 47 counties. Photograph: Andrew Kasuku/AFP/Getty Images

Heavy rains and severe flash floods have left more than 300 people dead and displaced thousands of others across parts of east Africa, with Kenya and Rwanda being the worst hit.

“We are concerned about the flooding that has displaced so many people in Somalia, Kenya and Rwanda,” said Farhan Aziz Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary general in a statement to the Guardian.

“Our hearts go out to all the people who have been harmed by the rains and flash floods,” he said.

In Kenya ongoing torrential rains have damaged infrastructure, preventing or limiting humanitarian access to many of the affected areas and cutting off people’s access to markets in several places.

“Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that heavy rainfall in Kenya has caused severe flooding in at least 32 counties, out of 47, across the country. An estimated 100 people have lost their lives and 260,000 others have been displaced,” said Haq.

Euloge Ishimwe, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said it is a “double jeopardy” for the affected communities, as many of them are already struggling to recover from the devastating drought in 2017, after which more than 2.6 million Kenyans were in urgent need of food aid.

“The livelihoods and resilience of the affected communities had already been weakened… With the flooding, we are worried that these communities will be further rendered more vulnerable.”

The extreme weather has compounded a cholera outbreak in the country as well as an epidemic of the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, and is increasing the risk of large-scale outbreaks.

The number of cholera cases reported since the beginning of 2018 stands at 2,943, with 55 deaths, according to the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Unocha).

In a statement, Unocha said education and health facilities have been damaged in the flooding, and the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) said roads and train lines had been destroyed. Extensive damages and losses have been reported to fields and livestock, with at least 8,700 hectares (21,5000) acres of farmland destroyed and more than 19,000 animals killed.

Continue Reading: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/08/deadly-flash-floods-east-africa-dire-need-kenya-rwanda-somalia

 

Action, Women and Children

Reaching the Borders for Refugee Women and Children

By Sisters Denise Curry, Therese (Tracy) Dill, Mary Alice McCabe, SNDdeN

During more than 200 years as a Congregation, we, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have been and are a strong presence in service to immigrants and refugees around the world. In the United States, with an increasing persecution of immigrants living in this country and the denial of entry to asylum seekers, our Sisters search for new ways to help peoples suffering under inhumane US immigration policies. The CARA Pro Bono Volunteer Project, established by the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) with 3 other immigrant advocacy organizations provides a new opportunity to serve immigrant peoples.

 

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Sisters Denise Curry, Mary Alice McCabe and Tracy Dill, SNDdeN discuss plans for more Sisters to assist the refugees in the detention center.

In 2017, three of us, Sisters Denise Curry, Mary Alice McCabe and Therese (Tracy) Dill spent a week as CARA Project volunteers in Dilley, Texas at a “Family Residential Center,” under US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This privately-owned facility DilleyGWhouses 2,400 refugee women and children. It is a detention center, filled to capacity with mothers and their children, fleeing from persecution in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. These mothers make this dangerous flight toward the US border in a
desperate attempt to protect their children from violence and even death. In fact, these innocent women and children entering the USA find themselves in a prison which treats them like criminals and terrorists.

 

VOLUNTEER SERVICE
The CARA Project offers sensitive and compassionate legal assistance to these families. Spanish-speaking mothers prepare for interviews with ICE asylum officers in which they tell their distressing stories of persecution from either gang-related or domestic violence. As volunteers, we found a number of ways to help at the center. As interpreters in
Spanish, we gave in-take talks for helping the women to understand the steps and to feel relaxed and safe in this asylum process. Meeting with each woman individually, we listened to her story and assisted her in preparing for her interview with an ICE asylum officer. We also assisted with the office work that needs to be done in order for the CARA lawyers and paralegals to provide legal services for the women.

To serve the increasing numbers of asylum seekers at Dilley, the Project needs more volunteers: lawyers, paralegals and interpreters. Volunteers meet hundreds of mothers and children, thin, exhausted, and frightened, who have been walking and hiding for weeks. The women and children remain in detention in Dilley until ICE determines their fate. In the interview, the ICE asylum officer listens to the woman’s experience and decides whether or not the persecution in her country of origin is “credible” enough under US immigration law to allow her to seek asylum and stay in the US. The woman must tell her story of having been terrorized and traumatized, in a convincing manner. She must show that she has fled for her life and that return to her country would mean death. The stories are very disturbing: gangs kill family members, kidnap children, force men and teenage boys into gang “membership,” extort monthly payments from well-off and poor alike, abuse and rape girls. In domestic violence cases, women are beaten, treated as property, held captive, and receive death threats.

Stories-in-Central-America-Plate

 

We-are-HumanFUTURE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
A positive evaluation from the asylum officer is required for a mother and her children to be released from detention and sent on to their destination in the USA.

A negative evaluation will send the mother and children into the deportation cycle, which in most cases, means a “death sentence.” CARA lawyers always appeal negative evaluations and do everything to give these women and children a chance at a new life.

A week with these mothers and children is an experience that shakes one’s heart and soul in a unique way. We meet brave women from both cultures: Central American women struggling against all odd sto protect their families, and North American women, volunteers, pro bono lawyers and our own Sisters committed to social justice and basic human rights for immigrant families. At this time, more Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur are preparing for volunteer service at this detention center in Texas during the current year 2018.