May 18, 2007

Jorge Bustamante/United Nations, MacArthur Park riot, CRLA, Peter Schey, NILC, ACLU...

And Teresa Watanabe too! From her report "Human rights expert examines migrant issues in L.A." comes this:

In the first broad international scrutiny of U.S. treatment of migrants, a United Nations human rights expert [Jorge A. Bustamante, U.N. "special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants"] took testimony about worker abuse, government raids, family separations and other issues as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Los Angeles on Thursday... [it was] undertaken at the invitation of the U.S. government.

"There is concern in the United Nations human rights community about rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States," said Bustamante, who will present his report to the world body in the next year.

..."The way the local police physically abused marchers [at the MacArthur Park riot] represents right there a violation of human rights," he said... Bustamante, a University of Notre Dame sociology professor who splits his time between his native Mexico and the United States... ...But Bustamante said he was concerned that the U.S. was not in actual compliance with some of its laws...

...At the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, immigration attorney Peter A. Schey told Bustamante that new migrant protections passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2000 still have not been implemented because of bureaucratic delays. Those protections would offer visas for migrant crime victims who cooperate with law enforcement in the investigation.

Watanabe forgot to mention that Schey has at least three links to the Mexican government, including collaborating with them on a project related to those visas.

Bustamante also met with the National Immigration Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, who took the U.S. to task for detention centers. He also met with Jeffrey Ponting, "an attorney with the California Rural Legal Assistance program", as well as histrionic community activists.

Posted to Immigration2007a at May 18, 2007 08:17 PM