Visit our new website

(Washington, D.C.) Oct. 1, 2010 – After nearly 12 months of planning and work, Jesuit Refugee Service/USA is happy to announce the launch of our new website. In November 2009, JRS communications leaders from the International office, the U.S. office and the Eastern Africa office began collaborating with Omaha-based Adventure Studios to design and build the website.

This new website is designed to present information in a clear way with easy navigation, while highlighting the accompaniment, service and advocacy JRS undertakes worldwide with and on behalf of refugees and forcibly displaced people.

Supreme Court Decision Protects Right to Immigration Advice

Washington D.C. – The American Immigration Council applauds Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision on the right to counsel for noncitizens charged with committing a crime. The Court held that criminal defense lawyers must advise their noncitizen clients about the risk of deportation if they accept a guilty plea.  The Court recognized that current immigration laws impose harsh and mandatory deportation consequences onto criminal convictions, and that Congress eliminated from these laws the Attorney General’s discretionary authority to cancel removal in meritorious cases.  The Court said, “These changes to our immigration law have dramatically raised the stakes of a noncitizen’s criminal conviction.  The importance of accurate legal advice for noncitizens accused of crimes has never been more important.”

JRS Europe reports on forced migration

Jesuit Refugee Service – Europe has released a new report concerning the destitution of forced migrants across Europe.

This report describes the social and legal situation of forced migrants who came from countries outside the European Union and are living in destitution in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.  The report gives an insight into the meaning of destitution and its effects on migrants who suffer from it.

Click here to download a PDF of the report.

Please update to our new RSS adress

Our blog has a new RSS feed URL, which should provide a more stable platform and faster load times. Please subscribe to
http://jrsusa.wordpress.com/feed/
in your favorite reader.

Thailand expels 4,000 Hmong refugees

The New York Times reports that in “a quick, one-day operation, Thai soldiers with riot shields and clubs evicted more than 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers from a holding center Monday and forcibly repatriated them to Laos, where they say they face retribution from their government.”

Thailand acted despite protests from the United Nations and human rights groups. Even as the soldiers were trucking the Hmong over the Mekong River into Laos, the United States government was calling on the Thai government to stop.

The Washington Post reports that

the officer in charge of the operation said 2,100 of the camp residents had agreed to leave voluntarily and the army was trying to persuade the rest. But the Thai government has blocked media and international access to the camp and mobile telephone signals in it, making it difficult to independently confirm that information.

The migrants say they are at risk from persecution by the Laos government if they return there. Many were soldiers or family members of soldiers — the so-called “forgotten allies”– who decades ago fought in a secret army set up by the United States to combat the communist insurgents who eventually took over the country in 1975.

Read the WP story here.

Read the NYT story here.

Asylum seekers testify to life in Libya

Jesuit Refugee Service Malta released the following statement to mark International Migrants Day Dec. 18:

“Does the international community know about this, what is happening here? This is what we used to ask each other when we were in prison in Libya.” – Asad, an asylum seeker in Malta

Since May 2009, some 1409 migrants, attempting to reach a place where they could obtain protection or the possibility to live in safety and dignity, were pushed back to Libya.

These actions were widely criticized and held by many to be a violation of international law, as Libya does not have the mechanisms in place to grant protection to those who need it and there is evidence that those returned would be at risk of harm.

“International Migrants Day is a good time to ask ourselves whether we are fully aware of the possible consequences of these actions for the people concerned. We believe that many who see this as a quick solution to the pressures that Malta is facing would think differently if they knew about the treatment that migrants face there,” said JRS Malta Director, Fr. Joseph Cassar, S.J.

UN: migrants too often victims of human rights violations

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights marked International Migrants Day today by drawing attention to the plight of an estimated 200 million migrants worldwide, many of whom are exposed to violations of their basic rights and continue to be treated as commodities.

“Despite the increased efforts of the international community, including civil society, in promoting sound, equitable, humane and lawful conditions of migration, the human rights of migrants often remain out of sight,” Navi Pillay said in a statement.

U.S. revises detention policy for asylum-seekers

The U.S. said Wednesday it will stop detaining asylum seekers who have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton announced that ICE will generally release from detention arriving asylum seekers who have a credible fear of persecution or torture if certain criteria are met – part of ICE’s ongoing immigration detention reform efforts.

“ICE is committed to detention reform that ensures criminal and violent aliens remain in custody while establishing effective alternatives for non-violent, non-criminal detainees commensurate with the risk they present,” said Assistant Secretary Morton. “These new parole procedures for asylum seekers will help ICE focus both on protecting against major threats to public safety and implementing common-sense detention policies.”

JRS speaker discusses human rights and Catholic social teaching

Acclaimed refugee rights activist Katrine Camilleri, Ph.D., assistant director of Jesuit Refugee Service in Malta, visited Loyola University New Orleans on Tuesday, Nov. 17, to deliver the last lecture of the People on the Move conference. Her talk, “Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Human Rights and Catholic Social Teaching.”

Camilleri is the 2007 recipient of the U.N. Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award, which is given to individuals or organizations that have distinguished themselves in work on behalf of refugees. Camilleri’s recent work has focused on helping refugees and asylum seekers who are detained in Malta. Despite threats and arson attacks on her home and vehicle, Camilleri has been successful in influencing government policy and continues to be at the forefront of the battle to improve conditions in detention centers in Malta.

Report: Legitimate refugees being redefined as "Terrorists"

Changes to U.S. immigration law contained within the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and the 2005 REAL ID Act and intended to protect the United States from terrorism are hurting thousands of legitimate refugees who pose no threat to American security, according to a new Human Rights First report released today. The report, Denial and Delay: The Impact of the Immigration Law’s “Terrorism Bars” on Asylum Seekers and Refugees in the United States, examines this troubling issue and offers a series of recommendations to fix this serious problem.

The immigration law’s definition of ‘terrorist activity’ has been overbroad since 1990. But over the past eight years, new definitions of “terrorist organization” and of “material support” have enlarged the law’s impact, and federal immigration agencies have interpreted all of these definitions in an extremely expansive way. Thousands of men, women, and children have had their applications for asylum, permanent residence, and family reunification denied or delayed as a result. Among these individuals are peaceful advocates for democracy in countries ranging from Sudan to Zimbabwe, children who were abducted by rebel armies, doctors who provided medical care to anyone who fought with non-state forces, and those who fought against the armies of repressive governments in their home countries — even with the support of the U.S. government.

“These were not the people Congress intended to target,” said Human Rights First’s Anwen Hughes, author of the report. “In fact many of these refugees supported the same causes the United States supports, or were victimized by forces the U.S. government also opposes. But attempts to solve this problem through piecemeal “waiver” announcements are not working.”