Hearing on H.R.1932, the “Keep Our Communities Safe Act of 2011”

Statement of Human Rights First
House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement
Hearing on H.R.1932, the “Keep Our Communities Safe Act of 2011”
May 24, 2011

Human Rights First urges Congress to reject amendments to the Immigration and Nationality
Act (INA) that would broaden the scope of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)
already vast power to detain asylum seekers and other immigrants in removal proceedings and
limit the already inadequate safeguards presently in place to protect asylum seekers and other
immigrants against arbitrary or prolonged detention. While this proposed legislation couches
itself as providing for the detention of dangerous aliens and as a measure to “keep our
communities safe,” its adverse impact would be felt by a great many persons who do not
warrant that description and whose detention is unconnected to community safety. Congress
should recognize the effect that any such amendments would have on asylum seekers and
other vulnerable immigrants.

Since 1978, Human Rights First has worked to protect and promote fundamental human rights
and to ensure protection of the rights of refugees. Human Rights First operates one of the
country’s largest pro bono asylum representation programs. Our volunteer lawyers have
helped victims of political, religious, and other persecution from over 80 countries—including
Burma, China, Colombia, Congo (DRC), Iraq, and Zimbabwe—gain protection from persecution
through asylum in this country. Because of the inadequate due process protections that
currently exist in the immigration detention system, many of these refugees have been held in
U.S. immigration detention centers for months—some for years—even after they have been
found by the government to have a credible fear of persecution and when there is no reason to
believe they pose a risk of flight or danger to others.

In April 2009, Human Rights First released a report, U.S. Detention of Asylum Seekers: Seeking
Protection, Finding Prison, in which we found that between 2003 and 2009, DHS detained over
48,000 asylum seekers in jails and jail-like facilities at an estimated cost of over $300 million.

Refugees who have been forced to languish for months or years in jails and jail-like facilities

before being granted asylum in the United States include:

• A Burmese school teacher, who supports democracy and was jailed for two years by the
Burmese military regime, fled to the United States for protection and was detained by
DHS for 7 months in a Texas immigration jail before being granted asylum;

• A Baptist Chin woman, who fled Burma for political and religious reasons, was detained
by DHS for 24 months before being granted asylum, even though she had proof of her
identity and family in the United States and the U.S. government agreed that she would
be subjected to torture if returned to Burma. Her detention cost U.S. taxpayers more
than $90,000;

• An Afghan teacher who was threatened by the Taliban, in part due to his affiliations
with U.S. armed forces, spent 20 months in detention at three county jails in Illinois and
Wisconsin, despite having letters of support from U.S. government officials who knew
him because he taught at an educational institution sponsored by U.S. and NATO forces
in Afghanistan. He was eventually released on an ankle monitor and granted asylum.

• A Tibetan man, who was tortured by Chinese authorities and detained for more than a
year after putting up pro-Tibetan independence posters, was held for 11 months at a
New Jersey facility—at a cost of over $53,000—before being granted asylum;

• An Ethiopian refugee was detained at the Pearsall Detention Center in Texas after he
crossed the Mexican border in order to seek asylum in the United States. In Ethiopia, he
had been tortured and detained after he was falsely accused of taking part in an anti-
government protest. He remained in DHS detention for over 5 months and was released
only after he was granted asylum;

• A Colombian refugee, who had been jailed, beaten, and tortured for participating in a
political demonstration in Colombia, was detained by DHS in Arizona for 14 months,
including for over 8 months after an Immigration Judge had ruled that he was eligible
for asylum; and

• A Sri Lankan fisherman, who was a victim of kidnapping by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE), was detained in an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, NJ for 30
months before being released on a highly restrictive ankle bracelet. After several years,
he was eventually granted asylum.

These asylum seekers – and thousands of others like them – were held at the American
taxpayer’s expense for months and sometimes years because the system lacks basic due
process safeguards. Under current law, refugees arriving at U.S. borders or ports of entry

seeking asylum are subject upon arrival to mandatory detention under the “expedited removal”
provisions of U.S. immigration law. The initial determination to detain an asylum seeker is not
based on an individualized assessment of factors such as whether the person poses a security
threat or a risk of flight. Rather, it is a blanket determination based on whether a person
possesses valid travel documents or expresses an intention to apply for asylum upon arrival in
the United States.
If the person is found by DHS to have a “credible fear of persecution,” DHS’s Immigration &
Customs Enforcement (ICE)—which is the detaining authority—can assess whether to release
the asylum seeker on parole. But if ICE denies release, that decision cannot be appealed, even
to an immigration judge, under Department of Justice regulations that preclude immigration
judges from reviewing the detention of “arriving aliens,” a category that includes asylum
seekers who request refugee protection at U.S. airports and borders. Reforms to ICE’s own
parole procedures that went into effect in January 2010, while a welcome improvement, did
not address the lack of prompt independent court review of ICE’s detention decisions. This lack
of review is inconsistent with the treaty obligations of the United States under the 1967 U.N.
Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR).

DHS regulations set no limit on the length of time an asylum seeker may be detained while his
or her asylum proceedings are pending, and there are currently limited procedures in place to
review the detention of asylum seekers and other vulnerable immigrants, arriving aliens or
otherwise, who are facing a risk of prolonged detention while they wait for a final decision on
their cases. Asylum seekers who have suffered from prolonged detention during removal
proceedings have included refugees granted asylum who were detained further while DHS
appealed the decisions in their favor. Improving the immigration detention system so as to
make it both more cost-effective and more consistent with the human rights requires
strengthening the protections available under current law, not curtailing them.
Beyond the considerable fiscal cost, the unnecessary detention of asylum seekers takes a
lasting emotional toll on them and their families. It also makes it more difficult for asylum

Article 9(4) of the ICCPR provides that “[a]nyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be
entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that the court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of
his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.” Article 31 of the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating
to the Status of Refugees exempts refugees from being punished because of their illegal entry into or presence in
the country of refugee and also provides that states shall not restrict the movements of refugees more than is
“necessary.” By ratifying the 1967 Protocol, the United States bound itself to the substantive provisions of the
1951 Refugee Convention. The Executive Committee of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), of
which the United States is a member, has recommended that the detention of asylum seekers “be subject to
judicial or administrative review,” and UNHCR guidelines on the detention of asylum seekers make clear that there
should be “automatic review before a judicial or administrative body independent of the detaining authorities.”
UNHCR Exec. Comm., Detention of Refugees and Asylum-Seekers, Conclusion No. 44 (XXXVII), ¶ e (Oct. 13, 1986);
UNHCR, Revised Guidelines on Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the Detention of Asylum Seekers,
Guideline 5(iii) (Feb. 1999).

seekers, particularly the increasing proportion now detained in remote locations, to obtain legal
help or to assemble the evidence necessary to prove their cases in immigration court.
Human Rights First cautions Congress against expanding DHS’s detention authority, limiting
access to bond hearings by immigration judges, expanding any categories of mandatory
detention, and/or limiting judicial review. As a nation committed to the rule of law, the United
States must guarantee basic due process protections designed to prevent asylum seekers and
other immigrants from being subjected to arbitrary and prolonged detention. Efforts to strip
these basic protections run contrary to the fundamental principles of liberty and freedom that
have made this country a beacon of hope for the persecuted around the world.

Retailers slow discounts after Black Friday

Retailers scaled back discounts and shoppers were less frenzied on Saturday, a day after the mad rush for “Black Friday” bargains kicked off the holiday shopping season.The strategy of easing up on discounts makes sense considering the strong kick-off to the busiest selling season of the year and that retailers have almost a month to sell their goods before Christmas Day, analysts said.”For the retailer, the holiday season is more of a marathon than a sprint,” Moody’s analyst Scott Tuhy said. “We still have 28 shopping days to Christmas.””As retailers seek to keep momentum going, obviously you can’t do yesterday (Black Friday) day after day for 28 days,” he told Reuters.

Wall Street Strategies analyst Brian Sozzi thinks fewer discounts on Saturday are part of a plan, with retailers likely to ramp up promotions again in two days for the so-called “Cyber Monday,” which is geared toward online shoppers.Analysts and retail experts forecast this to be the best holiday season in three years, with the economy showing some signs of improving, though unemployment remains stubbornly high.Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the U.S. economy, which makes “Black Friday” and the rest of the holiday shopping season a closely watched proxy for the state of the economy as a whole.

Retail stocks have rallied on investor hopes for a better-than-expected holiday season. The Standard & Poor’s Retail index closed at its highest level in over three years on Wednesday but was off 0.36 percent on Friday.Many retailers saw longer lines on “Black Friday” this year as U.S. shoppers opened their wallets to scoop up bargains on everything from laptops to hoodies to cute collectible toys.

“The Christmas holiday shopping season has gotten off to a strong start for us. Across the country, consumers appear to be more eager to shop than the last couple of years,” J.C. Penney Co Chief Executive Mike Ullman said on Saturday.The comments echoed those from chiefs of top retailers such as electronics chain Best Buy Co and toy seller Toys R Us.At the same time, a slowing pace of discounts is good for retailer margins.

“If sales are building up (slowly) but it’s selling at better margins, that’s fine. That’s better than having a lot of sales and having unusually high discounts to get those sales,” Tuhy said.The National Retail Federation has said up to 138 million people could hit stores this weekend. The industry trade group forecast a 2.3 percent increase in sales during November and December, up from a 0.4 percent rise in 2009.For shoppers like Chris and Kristen Hellinger, who were waiting for a Best Buy in Jersey City, N.J., to open on Saturday, the day after the day after Thanksgiving was a more relaxing time to shop.(Reuters)

 

United States and Mexico border wall a costly failure film says

Washington’s plan to build a fence on the border with Mexico has cost $3 billion and has not deterred illegal immigrants or drug traffickers from entering the country, according to a new U.S. documentary.”The Fence” hopes to show Americans, who were divided when construction of the wall was approved in 2006, that the venture is a failure as conceived and a blemish upon the United States internationally.It argues that illegals and smugglers can easily climb over, dig under and even drive over the wall, which is only a few feet (meters) high in parts, has no razor wire, and abruptly ends in the desert.

“One of the most confounding and little-known realities of the fence is that it only covers about one third of the 2,000-mile (3,218-km) border,” said Rory Kennedy, the director and narrator.Kennedy, who is a daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, spent weeks traveling along the border from California to Texas as the fence was being built in 2009. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Up to 500 people die every year crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, according to U.S. immigration experts and the Mexican government, a sharp jump from a decade ago. Tougher border security and the fence’s construction have forced migrants to take more dangerous, remote routes into the United States.Some 650 miles of the 670-mile wall called for under the Secure Fence Act and signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush in October 2006 have been built. It contains 120,000 tons of metal and materials, ranging from railroad ties to concrete and chain link fencing.

“COMPLETE THE DANGED FENCE”

Lined in parts with stadium-style lights, cameras and roads to allow U.S. agents to patrol, the fence was partly a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. It also aims to stop terrorists from crossing over from Mexico.”This was put up to illustrate to Joe whoever up in Dubuque (Iowa) or someplace that they see a picture of this and … they think ‘oh yeah, that’ll stop them’,” Arizona ranch owner Bill Odle said in the film. “Well of course it doesn’t.”

But it remains a magnet for Republicans keen to show their get-tough credentials in the run-up to the November U.S. elections. Arizona Republican John McCain, facing his toughest re-election battle in years for the Senate, demanded that the government in May to “complete the danged fence.”Despite calls for a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexican border, the terrain, which ranges from swamps to deserts, makes that idea almost impossible and financially prohibitive.

U.S. law enforcement uses helicopters, unmanned planes and agents in watchtowers and in vehicles to monitor the area stretching from the Tijuana-San Diego crossing in California to the Matamoros-Brownsville crossing in Texas around the clock.U.S. Border Patrol agents say the wall and virtual fencing cut the number of people caught trying to cross into the United States by a quarter in the fiscal year 2009.

Immigration experts counter that the deep U.S. recession in 2008-2009 and the resulting lack of jobs in the world’s biggest economy was a bigger factor behind the drop.Even with a sluggish economy, 300,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States every year between 2007 and 2009, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.But critics, both in the United States and Mexico, where there was an outcry when the plan was approved, also are questioning the wisdom of spending billions on the fence during hard economic times.

Future U.S. administrations are likely to spend $6.5 billion on maintenance of the fence over the next 20 years, the United States Government Accountability Office says, although researchers at the U.S. Congress say it could be more.The documentary airs on Thursday on U.S. cable television channel HBO.(Reuters)

Number of illegal immigrants in US drops to 11.1 million, first decline in 20 years

WASHINGTON The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has dropped for the first time in 20 years as substantially fewer undocumented workers from Mexico, Latin America and elsewhere are crossing the border in search of jobs, an independent research group says.The analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center suggests the nation’s economic downturn and increased border enforcement have reduced the number of illegal immigrants, who make up roughly 4 percent of the U.S. population.The findings come amid bitter debate over Arizona’s strict new immigration law – now being challenged in federal court after lawmakers passed it earlier this year.

The Obama administration contends the state law usurps federal authority and promotes racial profiling, while Arizona says states are justified to step in if federal enforcement falls substantially short.The study released Wednesday estimates that 11.1 million illegal immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2009. That represents a decrease of roughly 1 million, or 8 percent, from a peak of 12 million in 2007, before Arizona intervened with its new enforcement measures.The study, based on an analysis of 2009 census data, puts the number of illegal immigrants about where it was in 2005.

The 11.1 million is slightly higher than the Homeland Security Department’s own estimate of 10.8 million. The government uses a different census survey that makes some year-to-year comparisons difficult.Much of the recent decrease comes from a sharp drop-off in illegal immigrants attempting to cross the border into the U.S., particularly those from the Caribbean, Central America and South America. An increase in unauthorized immigrants leaving the U.S., by deportation or for economic reasons, also may have played a factor.States in the Southeast and Southwest saw some of the biggest declines in the number of illegal immigrants from 2008 to 2009, including Florida, Nevada and Virginia. Arizona saw a decrease, but it was too small to be statistically significant.It’s hard to figure out how much of the decline to attribute to the bad economy and how much to immigration enforcement, said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at Pew who co-wrote the analysis.

“They’re certainly acting together,” he said. Passel said illegal immigrants now find it more expensive and dangerous to cross into the U.S. and also have less incentive to do given the languishing job market in construction and other low-wage industries.”While people are arguing the government is not stopping illegal immigration, our data suggests the flow of undocumented immigrants sneaking into the country has dropped dramatically,” Passel said.He declined to predict how long the decline in illegal immigration may last, other than to say it could take a while before unemployment in the U.S. substantially improves.The estimates by Pew will add to the political back-and-forth on immigration reform.Boosted by immigration and high fertility among Latinos, minorities now make up roughly half the children born in the U.S., part of a historic trend in which they are projected to become the new U.S. majority by mid-century. Roughly one in four counties currently have more minority children than white children or are nearing that point.

Still, the Census Bureau has made clear that projected minority growth – particularly among Hispanics – could change substantially depending on immigration policies and the economy. President Barack Obama, who is challenging the Arizona law, has pledged to push an overhaul of federal immigration law but has declined to set a timeline.Following the passage of Arizona’s immigration law – which is now largely on hold as it’s reviewed by the courts – more than a dozen states were considering similar legislation or issued legal opinions aimed at strengthening immigration enforcement. They include Florida, Virginia, South Carolina and Utah.

Other Pew findings:- The states with the highest percentage of illegal immigrants were California (6.9 percent), Nevada (6.8 percent), Texas (6.5 percent) and Arizona (5.8 percent). The numbers are expected to play an important factor in whether those states lose or gain fewer U.S. House seats than expected after the 2010 census.-Illegal immigrants make up about 28 percent of the foreign-born population in the U.S., down from 31 percent in 2007.-The unemployment rate for illegal immigrants in March 2009 was 10.4 percent – higher than that of U.S.-born workers or legal immigrants, who had unemployment of 9.2 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively.The Pew analysis is based on census data through March 2009. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, the estimate on illegal immigrants is derived largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population. It is a method that has been used by the government and Pew for many years and is generally accepted.(AP)

Ireland activists groups planing to buy ship for new Gaza aid flotilla

Pro-Palestinian groups in Ireland launched a fundraising drive Monday to buy a ship for a second attempt to breach Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza.The Irish Ship to Gaza campaign aims to send between 30 and 50 Irish people, including public figures, journalists and activists, to join a flotilla taking aid to people in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.”Preparations are well under way internationally for the Second Freedom Flotilla, which is being assembled by the same groups that organized the Freedom Flotilla in late May,” organizers said in a statement.Between 10 and 15 ships are expected to take part, cargo ships as well as passenger vessels.

Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists in a melee after they boarded a vessel in the previous flotilla, which also included Irish activists. Israel and the United Nations are holding separate investigations into the incident.In response to Western criticism, including from its biggest ally the United States, Israel has since eased a land blockade of Gaza where 1.5 million Palestinians live, allowing some civilian goods through, while continuing to enforce its naval embargo of the coastal territory.

Israeli leaders have said their troops, on boarding the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, opened fire in self-defense after being set upon by activists wielding cudgels and knives.Turkey, once Israel’s close strategic ally, called the bloodshed Israeli “state terrorism,” withdrew its ambassador from Israel and canceled joint military exercises.(Reuters)

Bill in California would help farmworkers form unions

SACRAMENTO, Calif. The temperature was nearly 100 degrees as 17-year-old Maria Vasquez Jimenez pruned grapes for nine hours at a vineyard near Stockton in California’s Central Valley.By the end of the day, the pregnant teen was dead from heat stroke, and her death set off renewed calls among union advocates for greater protections for farmworkers. But in the two years since, efforts to unionize workers have largely been unsuccessful.

Unions claim that’s because employers have illegally interfered with union elections, and their Democratic supporters pushed a bill through the California Legislature last week that will automatically declare a union victory if employer misconduct is shown. The bill is awaiting action by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Between 307,000 and 450,000 people work on California farms, depending on the season, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. But fewer than 16,000 full-time farmworkers belong to a union, and a tally by the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board found 40 percent of agricultural labor elections between 2000 and 2007 resulted in a vote against representation.Critics say the bill passed last week is simply an effort by its sponsor, the United Farm Workers, and other unions to boost their anemic numbers by – in the words of the California Farm Bureau Federation – “foisting union representation” on employees.

Nearly one out of every five union workers in the U.S. lives in California, although union membership among agriculture and forestry workers is low.Under a system established in 1975, the union election process begins when a majority of a farm’s employees sign authorization cards indicating their desire to put unionization to a secret-ballot vote. Workers submit those cards to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which calls for an election.

The bill passed last week, SB1474, would not change that. However, it stipulates that in cases of proven employer misconduct, the authorization cards would be considered evidence of workers’ desire to organize, and a union would be authorized.”This bill is about simple parity and basic equality and something positive for some of the hardest-working people in our state,” said its author, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.

While the current system allows tainted election results to be thrown out, union advocates say there’s nothing to keep employers from interfering in subsequent elections. And, since many farmworkers don’t speak English and rely on their jobs to support extended families, they are particularly vulnerable to intimidation by anti-union employers.”Given the long history of illegal conduct by some growers, this bill has incredible significance for farm workers and will even the playing field in terms of available remedies that the (agriculture board) has at its disposal,” said Mark Schacht, deputy director of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

The bill’s opponents, including the farm bureau and the California Chamber of Commerce, say the agricultural board thoroughly investigates all reports of employer misconduct and there’s no evidence large numbers of farmworkers are being blocked from joining unions.

“There is an option right now to pursue claims of unfair labor practice, and the unions have not availed themselves of that to a significant extent,” said Rich Matteis, administrator for the farm bureau.The Irvine-based Western Growers Association issued a statement Friday predicting the bill would result in unions bullying the agriculture board into setting aside results from valid secret-ballot elections.

The United Farm Workers said that won’t happen but acknowledged union membership was likely to grow if it became law.”We certainly hope this will lead to a system where farmworkers have the right to participate in a fair election and choose to join a union if that’s what they want,” said Merlyn Calderon, UFW’s national vice president.

First, however, Schwarzenegger would have to sign the bill – an outcome that is far from guaranteed.The Republican governor has vetoed four broader bills intended to offer alternatives to secret ballots, a system he has described as crucial to maintaining the integrity of the election process.(AP)

UNITED STATES admits human rights shortcomings in UN report

WASHINGTON The Obama administration has told the United Nations that America’s human rights record is less than perfect but stressed that the U.S. political system has built-in safeguards that promote improvements.In its first-ever report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on conditions in the United States, the State Department said Monday that some Americans, notably minorities, are still victims of discrimination. Despite success in reforming such inequities as slavery and the denial of women’s right to vote, the department said, considerable progress is still needed.”Although we have made great strides, work remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all,” it said.

The report noted that although the U.S. now has an African-American president and that women and Hispanics have won greater social and economic success, large segments of American society suffer from unfair policies and practices.High unemployment rates, hate crime, poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care and discriminatory hiring practices are among the challenges the report identified as affecting blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, Native Americans and gays and lesbians in the United States.

The report, which drew on meetings that U.S. officials held with various groups around the country since January, also cited concerns from civil rights activists and citizens related to immigration and racial profiling by law enforcement agencies.The 29-page report was submitted to the Human Rights Council on Friday but was not published until Monday. Members of the council, which the United States joined only last year, are required to submit reviews of their rights records. The report was the first “Universal Periodic Review” produced by the U.S.

In one of his first moves to reach out to the international community, President Barack Obama decided that the U.S. should run for a seat on the council. The Bush administration had shunned the panel for years over its alleged disproportionate criticism of Israel and membership that includes repressive regimes.The report’s findings were cautiously welcomed by human rights activists but will likely draw fire from conservatives who opposed joining the council. They said the U.S. should not be judged by countries with poor human rights records.

The administration sought to rebuff such criticism in the report, saying its participation in the review was not an acknowledgment “of commonality with states that systematically abuse human rights.” It also said the report did not reflect “doubt in the ability of the American political system to deliver progress for its citizens.”At the same time, it said that the U.S. welcomed “observations and recommendations” from council members “that can help us on that road to a more perfect union.”

The American Civil Liberties Union praised the administration for engaging with the council but said the report neglected to address key areas where the U.S. has not met its human rights obligations. Those areas include inhumane prison conditions, racial disparities in death penalty cases, and abuses in the immigration detention system.”It is time for the U.S. to match its human rights rhetoric with concrete domestic policies and actions and create a human rights culture and infrastructure that promote American values of equality and justice for all,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s human rights program.(AP)

Mosque flap tests limits of NYC tolerance

The word tolerance comes from the Latin “tolerare” – to bear. In our dictionaries, we define it as, among other things, the “freedom from bigotry or prejudice.”Its meanings are almost as numerous as the people who express them, as recent entries in the visitor comment book at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles suggest.It means “to respect other races even if u hate them,” says one commenter, signed only as G. “Acceptance,” says another, Alejandra, adding, “To me, tolerance is tinged with the negative aspect of `putting up with’ someone or something, but not fully embracing it.”

As rancor swirls around the issue of whether a mosque and Islamic cultural center should be built two blocks from the New York site where the destroyed Twin Towers stood, Americans are being forced to examine just how tolerant they are – or are not.The issue has always been with us. Against the backdrop of Puritan rigidity and the infamous Salem witch trials, the Founding Fathers made sure the concept of tolerance was woven into the very fabric of the young American republic.In 1790, in a letter welcoming newly elected President George Washington to Newport, R.I., on behalf of “the children of the stock of Abraham,” Moses Seixas reflected this view. “Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens,” he wrote, he saw the hand of God in the establishment of a government “which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

In reply, Washington assured the Jewish leader that the birth of the United States meant a new birth of freedom and respect.”It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights,” he wrote. This would be a country, he pledged, where “every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

If Washington’s promise remains part of the nation’s creed today, it’s still true that disputes like that involving the New York mosque test the limits of that tolerance.”We were never as tolerant as we thought we were,” says the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “I think that the rock on which tolerance is built is often more like sandstone than it is granite. It is easy to erode at any times when problems in the culture develop.”

Despite the current imbroglio over the Manhattan mosque, the Rev. Patrick McCollum says he believes Americans are becoming more tolerant. His proof: The fact that his house hasn’t been firebombed in a while.”There were people actually killed and such for having beliefs different than the dominant belief system,” says the San Francisco man, a Wiccan minister in the “sacred path” tradition. “And that doesn’t happen as much anymore.”

McCollum, 60, has been involved in a seven-year federal court battle over California’s policy of employing as state chaplains only Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and adherents to Native American religions. He attributes both his struggle and the Manhattan mosque fight to what he calls the “dominant religious lens factor.”

Even so, he interprets the latter as a sign of growth.”I think that the intolerance that we’re experiencing right now is that for the first time in a long period of time, since almost the founding of our country, we’ve actually begun to ALLOW pluralism to surface in our country,” says McCollum. “So we’ve started to uphold the ideals that our country was founded on … and the people who’ve been in the dominant position begin to feel like they’re under attack.”

Although not declaring his outright support for the mosque planners’ real estate choice, President Barack Obama has defended their constitutional right to be there.

Not everyone was satisfied with his words.”I think to reason in that manner is to shortchange American identity; it’s not to apprehend fully the robustness of American identity,” says Brad Stetson, co-author of the book “The Truth About Tolerance: Pluralism, Diversity And The Culture Wars.”

America’s “penchant for toleration,” as Stetson puts it, is “beyond question.” But he says that tolerance has always been “circumscribed by some understanding of what was best for the commonweal, the health of the social body.””It’s not necessarily intolerant to say no,” says Stetson, who also lectures at Chapman University and California State University, Long Beach. “Governing bodies at various levels of a deeply pluralistic society like ours have a duty to consider the range of public sensibilities … a given decision affects, and not merely reflexively grant the naked exercise of rights upon request.”

Lynn can understand why some people are so upset about the Islamic center plans. “I’m not saying that everybody who is against building this mosque is some kind of a bigot,” he says. But is building the mosque really the equivalent of, as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested, putting a Nazi sign “next to the Holocaust Museum” in Washington, D.C.?

Yes, says 88-year-old Abe Rosenblum.In 1943, Rosenblum was taken from his home in the Carpathian Mountains and “drafted” into the Hungarian labor force. When the Nazis occupied the area, he and the other Jews were sent to a ghetto, then loaded into boxcars, and eventually wound up in Mauthausen, a notorious concentration camp not far from Adolf Hitler’s hometown of Linz, Austria.

By the time the Russians liberated him from another subcamp in 1945, the 6-foot-1 Rosenblum weighed just 85 pounds. His father, grandparents and five sisters all perished. Only he and his oldest brother, who had emigrated to Chicago in 1939, survived. Rosenblum eventually joined him, settling in the suburb of Skokie, Ill.

In 1977, Rosenblum and the many other Holocaust survivors who settled in Skokie were horrified when Frank Collin and his National Socialist Party of America announced plans to march there. Although the courts eventually upheld Collin’s right to parade, the march was called off after Chicago, Collin’s original target, agreed to grant him a permit to rally there.

Years later, when arriving for the dedication of the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Rosenblum looked out his bus window and saw a single protester standing in the rain, holding a Nazi flag and wearing a swastika arm band. It made him physically ill.

“We already lived through all these atrocities, and these guys come over here and still want to?” he says in heavily accented English, his respiration quickening. “They didn’t have enough? … This is not free speech. This is antagonizing.”Rosenblum does not believe that Islam is an inherently violent religion. But he says Muslims have no more business building a mosque so close to ground zero than an order of Carmelite nuns had to establish a convent outside the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

His voice rising, he asks why another New York site can’t be found. “You have to build it there, where people suffered? … It hurts me even to talk about it. Because I know what these people feel, those people who lost their loved ones.”Lynn wonders who is speaking for the Muslim-Americans who died in the 9/11 attacks. “There was the same terror for Muslims as … for Jews or Christians or atheists that morning.”

Eighteen-year-old Ceara Sturgis has been oblivious to the storm clouds emanating from New York. But she’s had a busy week.On Wednesday, she started classes at Mississippi State University. The day before, she filed a federal lawsuit against her high school in Wesson, Miss.

Sturgis claims she was discriminated against when her name and photo were left out of the senior yearbook. School officials said Sturgis, who is lesbian and generally dresses in gender-neutral or “masculine” clothes, violated a policy that allowed only boys to wear tuxedos for their senior portraits.When Sturgis tried on the scoop-necked drape, she felt so uncomfortable that it brought her to tears. She changed into a tux and submitted that photo.

Sturgis – a National Honor Society member who was involved in numerous school sports and clubs – had been told the photo wouldn’t be included in the yearbook. But the omission of her name seemed an attempt to deny her very existence.”I’d been going there 13 years, and that was my senior year, and that was the last memory I was going to have,” she says. “And, like, 40 years down the road, when people look at that, I’m not going to be in there. My friends aren’t going to see me in there. And that just, it really hurt my feelings.”

Ironically, it took what Sturgis sees as an act of intolerance to show her just how much support she has. A Facebook page dedicated to her has nearly 3,000 friends.”Most of them are not from Mississippi,” she says with a chuckle. “I really think it’s just the small, closed-minded towns that are doing this.”

If Americans are conflicted, they can be forgiven, says tolerance museum director Liebe Geft. She admits to finding the word “problematic” herself.Geft – whose paternal grandmother and namesake was among Lithuanian Jews rounded up by their neighbors ahead of the Nazi invasion, taken out to the woods and shot – would like visitors to define tolerance “in a much more active way, putting respect into practice.”

“It’s not a mandate to accept everything,” says Geft, who grew up in Zimbabwe and has lived on four continents. “There are limits to what a civil society should tolerate. And when the human rights and dignities of others are being trampled and denied, that’s not acceptable in a country that advocates rights and freedoms and dignity for all.”But, as the visitor comments reveal, intolerance is in the eye of the beholder.

In the museum’s “Tolerancenter” are four polling stations that allow visitors to weigh in on the provocative topic du jour. On Wednesday, Geft posed the question: Is it appropriate to erect a Mosque and Islamic Community Center close to the 9/11 site?”The results, as of Friday: 37 percent answered “yes,” 62 percent said “no.”

Avalanche Mud trap 500 Citizens of China, 5 Killed

China still not escape the bad weather disasters that befall their region lately. Mud landslides that occurred in Sichuan Province is reported to have killed five people and trapping 500 others.This disaster is preceded by heavy rain that lashed since Thursday, August 12th at midnight local time in Mianzhu. This region is known as an area suffering the most severe damage when an earthquake occurred in 2008 ago.

While these results break landslide mud transport and communications lines that connect the region. The government itself has sent rescue teams to evacuate the survivors was due to landslides. Similarly Xinhua reported on Friday (13/08/2010).This latest disaster to be a slap to China, after more than a thousand people were killed in the city in Gansu province Zhouqu mud when landslides swept a village last week. This disaster also occurred after heavy rains hit the area.

Some Companies using criminal records or bad credit reports for job screening tactics challenged as illegal

WASHINGTON Companies using criminal records or bad credit reports to screen out job applicants might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws as the government steps up scrutiny of hiring policies that can hurt blacks and Hispanics.A blanket refusal to hire workers based on criminal records or credit problems can be illegal if it has a disparate impact on racial minorities, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agency enforces the nation’s employment discrimination laws.”Our sense is that the problem is snowballing because of the technology allowing these checks to be done with a fair amount of ease,” said Carol Miaskoff, assistant legal counsel at the EEOC.

With millions of adults having criminal records – anything from underage drinking to homicide – a growing number of job seekers are having a rough time finding work. And more companies are trying to screen out people with bankruptcies, court judgments or other credit problems just as those numbers have swollen during the recession.Just ask Adrienne Hudson, a single mother who says she was fired from her new job as a bus driver at First Transit in Oakland, Calif., when the company found out she had been convicted seven years earlier for welfare fraud.

Hudson, 44, is fighting back with a lawsuit alleging the company’s hiring practice discriminates against black and Latino job seekers, who have arrest and conviction rates far greater than whites. A spokesman for First Transit said the company does not comment on pending litigation.”People make mistakes,” said Hudson, who is black, “but when they correct their mistake, they should not be punished again outside of the court system.”

Justice Department statistics show that 38 percent of the U.S. prison population is black, compared with about 12 percent of the general population. In 2008, African-Americans were about six times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. The incarceration rate for Latinos was 2.3 times higher than whites.If criminal histories are taken into account, the EEOC says employers must also consider the nature of the job, the seriousness of the offense and how long ago it occurred. For example, it may make sense to disqualify a bank employee with a past conviction for embezzlement, but not necessarily for a DUI.

Most companies tend to be more nuanced when they look at credit reports, weeding out those applicants with bad credit only if they seek senior positions or jobs dealing with money. But if the screening process weeds out more black and Hispanic applicants than whites, an employer needs to show how the credit information is related to the job.

About 73 percent of major employers report that they always check on applicants’ criminal records, while 19 percent do so for select job candidates, according to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.The same survey found that almost half of major companies conduct credit checks for some job candidates, such as those who would be in a position of financial trust. Another 13 percent perform credit checks for all potential workers.

Last fall, the EEOC sent a strong message to employers when it filed a class-action lawsuit against Freeman Companies, a Dallas-based events planning firm, alleging the company discriminated against blacks, Hispanics and males by rejecting job seekers based on credit history and criminal records. Freeman has denied the charges.The growth of online databases and a multimillion dollar background check industry have made it easy for employers to find out reams of information about potential hires. Companies see the checks as another way to weed out unsavory candidates, keep a safe work environment and prevent negligent hiring claims.

“Past indiscretions may be an indicator of future behavior, especially in the criminal context,” said Pamela Devata, a Chicago employment lawyer who has represented companies trying to comply with EEOC’s requirements.Devata said employers nationwide have seen the EEOC become more active in investigating employer hiring practices. The scrutiny has caused many companies to reevaluate their screening process and move to a case-by-case standard.

Ariela Migdal, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Women’s Rights Project in New York, said a person might have a blemish that has nothing to do with the job he or she is seeking. And records sometimes are inaccurate or not updated to reflect that someone arrested later had charges dropped or a conviction overturned or expunged, she said.”Somebody with an old conviction that has been rehabilitated doesn’t have any greater likelihood of committing a crime, so its irrational to use that against them,” Migdal said.

Ron Heintzman, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said he’s seen dozens of job candidates disqualified “for reasons that were just ridiculous.” His union, with 13,000 members in First Transit, is paying for the lawsuit that Hudson filed last month against the company which operates bus service in Oakland and several other major cities.

In Hudson’s case, she was fired after just two days on the job as a bus driver because of a 7-year-old felony welfare fraud conviction. The conviction was later dismissed under California law, but her lawsuit, filed in federal court last month, claims the company has a policy to deny employment no matter how old the conviction, the applicant’s prior work history or whether it is related to the job.

(This version CORRECTS name of American Civil Liberties Union.)(AP)