In its complaint against Arizona’ S.B. 1070 law the DOJ defended the better judgment of a federal government that purportedly “prioritizes for arrest, detention, prosecution, and removal those aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety.”
Facts reveal no such better judgment. “Prosecutions referred by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in …(March-April 2010) is the highest recorded since the creation of the agency in 2005” reported this week Syracuse University center TRAC which monitors federal government activity.
While disappointed with the immigrant prosecution fever, another branch of the federal government, the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, heartened us.
USCIS recently granted special visas to 150 Indian metalworkers deemed victims of ‘trafficking in persons’. The reason? Exploitative working conditions by an oil rig company in the Gulf Coast and attempts supported by ICE to intimidate and privately deport non-submissive workers constitute a crime of ‘trafficking in persons’.
“Trafficking in persons…includes forced labor and involves significant violations of labor, public health, and human rights standards worldwide,” reads one of the key findings of the Trafficking in Persons 2000 Act.
To break the cycle of abuse fueled by the lack of a functional immigration system, we are certain that a greater number of undocumented immigrants facing exploitative labor conditions should seek the remedies granted by the Trafficking in Persons Act.
Another glimmer of hope came from the U.S. Supreme Court when it ruled the federal government couldn’t arbitrarily class non-citizens –legal and undocumented immigrants- as felons.
A substantial progress in handling immigration cases will take place when federal, state, and local governments actually abide by the principle stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder Attorney General: “Ambiguities in criminal statutes referenced in immigration laws should be construed in the noncitizen’s favor.”
The only standing stalwarts immigrants can still rely on for justice to be served are the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Trafficking in Persons Act.
