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May 4, 2007
Guantánamo Chief Backs Off Limits On 'Habeas Corpus' Visits
Miami Herald, May 4, 2007
By CAROL ROSENBERG
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The commander of the Guantánamo prison camps said Thursday he no longer supports limiting terror suspects to only three meetings with their lawyers, explaining that a controversial proposal to limit such visits here evolved out of a turbulent time.
The Justice Department, in a filing with the federal circuit court of appeals, has argued that visits by civilian lawyers and attorney-client mail have caused "intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo.''
It proposes limiting each detainee to three visits with a civilian attorney. That effort has roiled America's legal establishment, drawing condemnation from newspaper editorials, the American Bar Association and other legal groups.
A hearing is scheduled later this month at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
But in an interview with The Miami Herald and Saudi Press Agency on Wednesday evening, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, the commander, was supportive of the ongoing meetings between detainees and lawyers, known as habeas corpus counsel. He said they contributed to an image of transparency at the prison camps on this remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
''I have no issue with habeas visits,'' he said. "The detainees ought to have an opportunity to visit with lawyers to discuss their cases.''
He called handling the visits ''a lot of work'' for his sailor-soldier guard force. "But it's good work.''
Harris said Thursday in a statement that the court filing was written this summer -- after a particularly violent period in the camps -- and some other limits are no longer necessary.
''The filing in August was made in the shadow of a riot in Camp 4, a mass . . . suicide attempt on that same day, and the suicides of three detainees less than a month later,'' said Harris.
"We have since been able to adopt procedures to better monitor the detainees and better facilitate attorney visits. Therefore, we would have no objection to the court ordering more than the number of visits that were suggested back in August.''
The Deparment of Justice declined to comment Thursday night.
This is only the latest struggle between the legal establishment and the Bush administration over the appropriate role of attorneys seeking to file civilian lawsuits on behalf of Guantánamo captives.
In January, an assistant secretary of defense stirred up a maelstrom in the legal community by calling on U.S. corporations to boycott law firms whose attorneys represent Guantánamo captives. The Pentagon distanced itself from the remarks, and Charles ''Cully'' Stimson, a reserve Navy lawyer, resigned his job.
Since 2004, dozens of private lawyers from across the nation have had one-on-one visits with captives who are often shackled to the floor, behind the razor wire under military escort and strict rules established between the Pentagon and the U.S. District Court in Washington.
Now that Congress has stripped the district court of jurisdiction over Guantánamo habeas corpus petitions, the Justice Department has proposed new stricter rules in the circuit court of appeals -- the bench now left with limited power to review Guantánamo cases.
The restrictions would not apply to lawyers representing Guantánamo captives facing trial by Military Commissions.
may 5, 2007
Democrat Returns to Help Block Voter ID Bill
Associated Press, May, 5, 2007
AUSTIN-- Sen. Mario Gallegos of Houston, who's been away from the Capitol most of the legislative session after a liver transplant, showed up in the Senate on Thursday to join a bloc of Democrats opposing the voter ID bill.
Under Senate rules, two-thirds of the chamber, or 21 senators, must agree to bring a bill up for debate. With Gallegos present, the 11 Democrats have enough power to block it.
Gallegos said he planned to attend every day for the rest of the session to help stop the bill. The five-month session will end May 28. He said he felt up to being at the Senate for the rest of the month.
Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the Senate's presiding officer, had warned he may call the voter bill up for debate as soon as Thursday and gave Gallegos a 24-hour warning, as he'd requested. The proposal never came up Thursday.
The House already passed the measure, which would require voters to show photo identification or two other forms of identification at the polling place. Now, voters need to show only a voter registration card. If he or she doesn't have the registration card, another form of identification is needed to match the name to voting rolls.
Dewhurst supports the identification bill and said he would take his first opportunity to pass it. Opponents say the measure would suppress the vote and hurt minorities and senior citizens.
april 10, 2007
Bush Makes Push To Resolve Status Of Illegal Workers
Washington Post, April 9, 2007
By MICHAEL A. FLETCHER
YUMA, Ariz., April 9 -- President Bush outlined the latest version of his plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws Monday, renewing his support for a guest-worker program for those with low skills and issuing a vague call for a resolution of the legal status of the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the country.
Speaking at the dedication of a state-of-the-art Border Patrol station here, a few miles from the U.S.-Mexican border, Bush called on Congress to pass the type of comprehensive immigration legislation that he has been pushing with little success since his earliest days as president. Bush said the overhaul should combine increased border security and added pressure on employers who hire illegal immigrants with a legal avenue for large numbers of guest workers to come into the country, while resolving the status of undocumented workers already here.
"Congress can pass a comprehensive bill, and I can sign it into law this year," Bush said, without offering a detailed proposal.
Since becoming president, Bush has viewed immigration as an issue on which he could make his mark as a "compassionate conservative" while extending the reach of the Republican Party to the fast-growing ranks of Latino voters, who tend to lean Democratic. But the swirling politics surrounding the emotional issue have left Bush groping for a viable path toward a solution, even as his political capital continues to be drained by the war in Iraq.
Saying that "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande River," Bush spoke of the hardworking immigrants who risk their lives to sneak across the southern border to provide for their families and contribute to the national fabric in the same way immigrants have for generations. In passing any new legislation, he said, Congress should honor "our proud history as a nation of immigrants."
Bush came under pressure from many Republicans who wanted him to do more to stop illegal immigration before last fall's midterm elections. While the pressure caused the president to support an "enforcement only" measure as a first step toward revamping immigration policy, the strategy did not necessarily help some of the staunchest advocates of border-security policies.
Here in Arizona, a state keenly affected by illegal immigration, Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), who favors a guest-worker program, had a convincing reelection victory. Meanwhile, then-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R), who had raised the specter of mass deportations of illegal immigrants, lost his reelection bid to Democrat Harry E. Mitchell, who favors a more balanced approach.
Some advocates say Bush is aware of those lessons and of the future implications for the GOP among Hispanic voters. "He wants a legacy on immigration, to be sure," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. "But politically, if the Republicans repeat their 30 percent 2006 Latino performance, they can't win the White House and take back the Congress. Period."
Even as he has talked repeatedly about the need for comprehensive changes, including in a televised address from the Oval Office, Bush has slid to the right on the issue. He deployed thousands of National Guard troops to help patrol parts of the border with Mexico and signed into law a bill to build a wall along about a third of the 2,100-mile frontier.
Now Bush appears poised to embrace a more punitive overhaul plan than he has talked about in the past. Under the proposal, written with GOP senators, undocumented workers could apply for three-year work visas, renewable at a cost of $3,500 each time. To become legal permanent residents, they would have to return to their home countries, apply for reentry at a U.S. embassy or consulate, and pay a $10,000 fine.
The proposal, which White House aides have called just one of many ideas the president will consider, has drawn strong rebukes from immigration activists and business groups. After details of the White House plan were leaked to the media last week, thousands of protesters in Los Angeles took to the streets.
"The administration's initial proposal is a step back, in our view, from the president's address to the nation last year," said Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
During his visit to Arizona, Bush attempted to highlight improvements in border security in recent years. He toured areas of the state's border with Mexico where illegal immigrants once could overwhelm the Border Patrol simply by rushing across. The deployment of National Guard troops, increases in the number of Border Patrol agents and improvements in technology have deterred such bold tactics, he said.
Last year, Border Patrol agents apprehended an average of 400 people a day attempting to sneak into the country in the Yuma sector of the border. Bush said that figure is now down to 140.
april 9, 2007
DNA to Exonerate Man for 1982 Gang Rape
Associated Press, April 9, 2007
By JEFF CARLTON
The jury that convicted him of rape never heard about the other James Giles, the one who lived across the street from the victim.
It sent James Curtis Giles, now 53, to prison for 10 years for the 1982 gang rape of a Dallas woman that he has long maintained he did not commit. On Monday, more than a decade after his release from prison, he was expected to become the 13th Dallas County man on track to be exonerated with the help of DNA evidence.
The Dallas County District Attorney's office and Giles' lawyer both planned to present evidence they say proves his innocence.
"He is overjoyed to finally have this day," said Vanessa Potkin, Giles' lawyer and a staff attorney with the Innocence Project. "It's been a long journey for him. He says he has to laugh to keep from crying."
Assistant Dallas County District Attorney Lisa Smith said her office's investigation into the 25-year-old case found that a co-defendant's statements implicating another man were never presented at trial nor provided to Giles' lawyer.
The case turned on a case of mistaken identity, she said.
In statements to police after his arrest, Stanley Bryant, who pleaded guilty to the rape, implicated two others in the crime: a James Giles and a Michael Brown.
DNA evidence later linked Brown and Bryant to the crime, Smith and Potkin said. Brown was never tried and died in prison after being convicted of another gang rape.
Police eventually arrested Giles, who lived 25 miles away and did not match the description given by the rape victim, Potkin said. Giles was about 10 years older and had gold teeth. He also had an alibi; he and his wife told police he was asleep in bed.
Investigators ignored another man with a similar name: James Earl Giles lived across the street from the victim and had previously been arrested with Brown on other charges, the attorneys said. He died in prison in 2000 while serving time for robbery and assault.
Dallas County prosecutors also recently interviewed the victim and a witness, Smith said. She said the victim acknowledged some doubt as to whether James Curtis Giles was among the rapists. The witness identified the other man, James Earl Giles, in a photo lineup, Smith said.
"It is persuasive that the victim is now acknowledging some doubt," Smith said.
The judge who hears the case Monday will make a recommendation to a criminal appeals court in Austin on whether to grant James Curtis Giles' writ of habeus corpus. If the appeals court grants the writ, Giles' conviction will be vacated.
The DNA evidence that linked Brown to the crime was one factor that helped convince the district attorney's office to investigate Giles' claim of innocence, especially because of Brown's "overwhelming connection" to the other James Giles, Potkin said.
"DNA evidence alone didn't exonerate our client, but it has played an instrumental role," Potkin said.
Giles has had to register as a sex offender since his release. He is married and lives in Lufkin with his wife, working for an accounting business, Potkin said.
Next week after the hearing, he is scheduled to appear at the state Capitol in Austin with Barry Scheck, the co-director of the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions. They are scheduled to speak at Senate hearings regarding three reform bills designed to reduce wrongful convictions in Texas, said Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for the Innocence Project.
If Giles wins his case, he would become the 13th Dallas County man since 2001 exonerated by DNA evidence, the most of any county in the nation. It would be the third exoneration since District Attorney Craig Watkins took office on Jan. 1 pledging to free anyone wrongfully convicted.
Texas leads the nation with 27 DNA exonerations, one more than Illinois, according to Innocence Project figures. There have been 198 exonerations nationwide.
Guantanamo Hunger Strike Expands
Associated Press, April 9, 2007
By MICHAEL MELIA
A long-running hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay gained several participants in recent weeks amid complaints over conditions at a new unit of the prison, but a spokesman at the U.S. military base said Monday that the protest appeared to be losing steam.
All were being force-fed through tubes inserted into their noses, said Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a Guantanamo spokesman. The strike, which began in 2005, has had as many as a dozen participants in recent months but reached 17 in the days before the trial in March of David Hicks, the Australian detainee whose case marked the first U.S. war crimes conviction since World War II. Hicks pleaded guilty to supporting terrorism and was sentenced to nine more months in prison.
Durand suggested the prisoners were trying to gain the attention of dozens of reporters covering the trial at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba, where about 385 men are imprisoned on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.
"As soon as the media left, the number of hunger strikers has been steadily dropping," Durand said.
Lawyers and human rights advocates said the detainees were striking over conditions at Camp 6, a new unit where detainees are confined in solid-wall cells most of the day and have little contact with other prisoners or exposure to natural light.
"The reports about the conditions at Camp 6 are deeply disturbing, and holding people indefinitely without legal process or access to family is an invitation to disaster," said Hina Shamsi, a lawyer with Human Rights First.
Isa al-Murbati of Bahrain, one of about 160 prisoners in Camp 6, told his attorney during a meeting in January that about 20 prisoners had gone on strike to protest conditions in the unit, which opened in December.
Many prisoners in Camp 6 were previously held in areas where they could congregate freely with other detainees or communicate with each other through the walls of their steel mesh cells.
In Camp 6, detainees cannot easily talk to each other and are allowed a maximum of two hours a day of recreation in a fenced-in area inside a concrete courtyard. To allow time for all prisoners, sometimes a detainee's allotted time may only be at night.
"The fundamental issue is that people who have been kept in general population areas for years were now being held in isolation cells, without any explanation," said al-Murbati's attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan.
Durand dismissed complaints about Camp 6 that detainees have made through their lawyers as "pure propaganda," arguing the $38 million facility that opened in December offers more living space than the metal-mesh cages.
The hunger strike reached a peak participation of 131 in 2005, but the number declined to just a handful after the military adopted more aggressive force-feeding methods, including a restraint chair. Now most detainees abandon the hunger strike before the start of force-feeding.
Physicians for Human Rights has called on the United States to halt the "brutal and inhumane force-feeding tactics."
U.S. officials have said the measures are "safe and humane" and have been used in American civilian prisons.
april 5, 2007
Two Big Victories Boost Ohio's Election Protection Movement
The Free Press, April 5, 2007
By BOB FITRAKIS and HARVEY WASSERMAN
In a victory for election protection activists, Ohio's powerful GOP Chair Bob Bennett will be forced to face a public hearing on his removal as Chair of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) Board of Elections. And in a second triumph, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has agreed, as part of a legal settlement, to take possession of the ballots and other key documents from the disputed 2004 election that gave George W. Bush a second term in the White House.
Brunner has requested the resignations of the entire scandal-plagued Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, which Bennett has chaired. Two Democratic members and one Republican have complied with her request. The BOE's executive director, Michael Vu, previously resigned amidst a cloud of scandal resulting from a mishandled primary election and more than $12 million in budgetary overruns. Two BOE workers have been given 18-month prison sentences for felony convictions stemming from what a government prosecutor called the "rigging" of an officially mandated recount for the 2004 presidential election.
Bennett has issued a legal challenge against his removal. But on Wednesday, April 4, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge John Connor ruled Bennett has to comply with Brunner's call for a public hearing on the matter. The hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 9.
A long-time GOP power broker, Bennett is a close personal confidante of White House advisor Karl Rove. He has been Rove's point man in Ohio's most populous county, which includes the Democratic voter rich city of Cleveland. A wide array of irregularities there were pivotal in giving Bush his narrow margin of official victory in 2004.
Bennett asked the court to rule that the Ohio statute seeking his removal was unconstitutionally vague. But Judge Connor ruled that the law was "clear and unequivocal."
This is Bennett's third major setback in three days. On Monday, April 2, Brunner put the Cuyahoga BOE under state administrative oversight because it lacked a quorum to conduct business. With the resignations of the other three board members, Bennett stood alone as the sole board member.
On Tuesday, April 3, Brunner suspended Bennett, citing the fact that as BOE chair he had allegedly "instructed" former Executive Director Vu to award a contract to a consultant without Board approval.
"Bennett instructed Vu to award a second contract to David Hopcraft in the amount of $14,750 on or about February 26, 2007, for public relations services to be paid for by public dollars by the Board of Elections," Brunner wrote in her suspension statement.
The statement adds that: "The Dayton Daily News on March 26, 2007 reported Mr. Hopcraft to be a 'GOP spokesperson.' According to Board policy, no contract for services may be awarded without Board approval if it exceeds $15,000. The extension of Hopcraft's contract for just under $15,000, without Board approval, violates Board policy," Brunner's statement says.
Brunner's order suspends all of Bennett's powers. It orders Bennett not to attend any Cuyahoga County BOE meetings or to be present at the BOE offices. The suspension is indefinite, pending the results of the removal hearing and any subsequent legal appeals.
On March 21, Bennett lashed out following the convictions of two Cuyahoga County BOE workers charged with "rigging" the 2004 presidential recount. Bennett said, in part: "… the public deserves to know that the big shots, the lawyers and the special political interests are not going to grind up the people who are doing the public's work at this Board."
Steve Hertzberg of the nonprofit Election Science Institute, which conducted an investigation of major problems that marred the 2006 Cuyahoga County primary election, responded to Bennett's attack by stating, "It is an insult to the intelligence of the Cuyahoga community that Mr. Bennett attempts to lay blame elsewhere while he attempts to maintain his lucrative position on the CCBOE. Not only should this man resign immediately, he should apologize for the myriad of mistakes and the damage he had done to the reputation of Ohio and its citizens.
"Shame on you, Mr. Bennett," Hertzberg concluded.
In another decisive action, which may stand as a major landmark, Brunner has agreed to take responsibility for the preservation of the ballots from Ohio's 2004 presidential election.
The ballots were subject to destruction in early September 2006, as the law protecting them was about to expire. However, a suit involving the King-LincolnBronzeville Neighborhood Association, among others, was filed in federal court. The suit alleges a wide range of civil rights violations against inner city and other Ohio voters in the conduct of the 2004 Ohio election. It also asked that then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell be prevented from ordering the disposal of the ballots and other election materials, which he was poised to do.
The suit gained widespread national attention, including news stories and editorial comment in the New York Times. On September 11, 2006, Federal Judge Algernon Marbley issued an order preserving the ballots pending the outcome of what has become known as the King-Lincoln lawsuit.
Blackwell left the office of Secretary of State earlier this year, in the wake of his unsuccessful run as the GOP's 2006 nominee for Governor of Ohio. By and large, the materials have been stored by Ohio's 88 counties.
As the new Secretary of State, Brunner has now agreed to a joint motion as defendant in the King-Lincoln suit. The motion effectively transfers the custody of "…all ballots from the 2004 presidential election, on paper or in any other format, including electronic data,…" from the counties to Ohio Secretary of State's office.
Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's office is representing Brunner.
In a Memorandum in Support of the Joint Motion, the parties state: "To lessen the burden on the respective boards of elections and to provide a central repository for records, the parties are jointly requesting that an order be entered in this matter requiring the 88 county boards of elections to transfer to the custody of the Secretary of State all ballots from the 2004 presidential election…."
Voting rights activists have urged the state to preserve all the records and open them to interested parties following the Florida 2000 election model, which created a centralized accessible repository following the controversial 2000 election in the Sunshine State.
Brunner is now widely expected to do the same for the documents that defined the disputed presidential election of 2004. Scrutinized over the coming years, they could finally reveal what really put George W. Bush back in the White House for a second term.
They may also illuminate Bob Bennett's role in making that happen.
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Bob Fitrakis is one of the attorneys representing the King Lincoln Bronzeville Association and Harvey Wasserman is one of the plaintiffs. They are co-authors with Steve Rosenfeld of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO? from the New Press. Photo by Adele Eisner.
April 3, 2007
Florida Governor Is Hoping to Restore Felon Voting Rights
New York Times, April 3, 2007
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
MIAMI, April 2 — Hinting that a remarkable turnaround in state policy was near, Gov. Charlie Crist said Monday that he hoped to persuade members of the Florida cabinet this week to end the practice of stripping convicted felons of their right to vote.
Florida is the most populous of three states whose constitutions require withdrawal of voting rights from all convicted felons, and it has the nation’s largest number of disenfranchised former offenders. The other two states are Kentucky and Virginia.
Felons in Florida who have served their prison and probation time can apply to have their voting rights reinstated, but the process can be time consuming and complex. Only a few hundred have their rights restored each year in Florida, where the American Civil Liberties Union says 950,000 remain disenfranchised.
Mr. Crist, a Republican, said that to win the support of some cabinet members, he might require former felons to pay whatever restitution they owe to victims before regaining their rights. Some civil rights groups, including the A.C.L.U., oppose such a compromise, but Mr. Crist said he had little choice.
“I want to do the doable,” he told reporters in Tallahassee. “I’m pushing as hard as I can to get as much as I can, but there’s a point beyond which I cannot go.”
Only a constitutional amendment could formally end the ban, but under state law, the governor and cabinet — who also make up the state clemency board — could grant blanket clemency to everyone who completes their sentence. Mr. Crist needs two of the three cabinet members to sign off on the plan.
Alex Sink, a Democrat who is the state’s chief financial officer, has said she supported modifying the ban. But Charles Bronson, the state’s agriculture secretary, and William McCollum, its attorney general, Republicans, have opposed it.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush was adamantly against ending the ban, even though it contributed to problems in the 2000 presidential election. An unknown number of legal voters were removed from the rolls leading up to the election, after a company working for the state mistakenly identified the voters as felons. At the same time, some counties allowed felons to vote or turned away legitimate voters as suspected felons.
“I believe in my heart that everybody deserves a second chance,” Mr. Crist said. “And I’m hopeful that maybe later this week we’ll have an opportunity to restore civil rights for Floridians and give them that right to vote.”
Howard Simon, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Florida, said he thought Mr. Crist was focused on persuading Mr. Bronson to soften his stance. He said Mr. Bronson wanted a list of exceptions, of violent criminals who would not be eligible for voting rights. Mr. Crist said he would not grant automatic restoration to murderers and sex criminals.
Terence McElroy, a spokesman for Mr. Bronson, said Monday: “Commissioner Bronson continues to believe that people who commit violent felonies ought to be treated differently than others who do not.”
Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCollum, said he believed that “violent habitual offenders should not receive automatic restoration.”
Mr. Simon said it made no sense to require former offenders to pay restitution to regain their civil rights.
“How can they be expected to pay it if the state keeps putting barriers in the way of allowing them to be re-employed?” he said. “You can put people on a payment plan, but get them back to work first.”
Christine Jordan Sexton contributed reporting from Tallahassee, Fla., and Terry Aguayo from Miami.
Capozzi a Free Man After 22 Years
Buffalo News, April 3, 2007
By MICHAEL BEEBE
Anthony J. Capozzi walked into the fresh air outside the Marcy Correctional Facility early today, a free man for the first time in 22 years after his wrongful conviction as the Delaware Park Rapist.
Capozzi was released to the embrace of family members at 5:30 a.m., according to Norman P. Effman, an attorney who has been assisting Capozzi family lawyer Thomas C. D'Agostino in what would have been Capozzi's sixth parole hearing.
"The order has been complied with, he's out," Effman said, deferring any further comment.
It took only a few minutes in court Monday, but when it was done, Capozzi was clear of rape and sodomy charges for the first time since he was arrested Sept. 13, 1985, on charges that he was the Delaware Park Rapist.
Erie County Judge Shirley Troutman signed orders setting aside Capozzi's convictions and dismissed the charges in the interest of justice, based on DNA tests from recentlydiscovered rape kit slides stored in Erie County Medical Center.
Those DNA tests showed that authorities were 100 percent certain that Capozzi did not commit the rapes. The same tests showed with almost absolute certainty that the DNA belonged to Altemio C. Sanchez, the man charged as the Bike Path Killer.
Neither Capozzi, 50, nor any member of his family was present for the ultimate verdict in Troutman's court, but spectators erupted in a brief round of applause that Capozzi's nearly 22 years of wrongful custody was finally coming to an end.
Attorney Thomas C. D'Agostino, who never doubted Capozzi's innocence over the past two decades, said both he and the Capozzi family were ecstatic that Capozzi will be home by week's end.
Before his conviction, Capozzi suffered from schizophrenia that apparently worsened in prison, and he is currently a patient of the state Office of Mental Health.
Troutman's order to release Capozzi will be served immediately on that agency and the state Department of Corrections.
The judge said it was essential that the criminal justice system act as promptly as possible to free Capozzi from custody now that the newly discovered evidence showed he was innocent.
"As far as I'm concerned," D'Agostino said in reaction to Troutman's order, "I have a big load off of my shoulders."
Asked what he will do when he first sees his client as a free man, D'Agostino beamed: "I'll probably give him a big hug."
D'Agostino's motions to erase Capozzi's conviction and free him from prison were supported by Assistant District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III.
Sedita outlined Capozzi's recent path to freedom in a time line he submitted to the court, starting with the March 1 discovery that specimens from past sexual assault victims were found to be stored in a file drawer in ECMC.
After a subpoena and search warrant were issued for the slides prepared from the Delaware Park rape victims, tests by a forensic serologist showed that the sperm on those slides all but matched that of Sanchez.
The DNA tests showed that with one of the rape victims, the probability that it was a random individual, not Sanchez, were 1 in 254 billion. For the other victim, it was an even slimmer probability, 1 in 1.78 quadrillion.
Although the statute of limitations has expired to charge Sanchez with those crimes, Sedita said prosecutors might be able to use the evidence against him at trial. Sanchez is charged with murdering three women, Linda Yalem, Majane Mazur and Joan Diver.
The test results showed absolutely that the semen was not from Capozzi, authorities said.
To be certain that the correct slides were tested, investigators from the district attorney's office last week contacted the two Delaware Park rape victims, Sedita said. Mouth swabs for DNA samples were obtained, and those samples matched the ECMC slides.
Dennis Delano, a Buffalo detective assigned to the Bike Path task force who recently looked into the Delaware Park rapes, was so convinced of Capozzi's innocence that he was prepared to testify for him at a parole hearing this week.
"I feel good, real good," Delano said as he emerged from the courtroom. "I'm just happy for the Capozzi family."
That parole hearing, scheduled for today, is a moot issue now that Capozzi's convictions have been erased.
Norman P. Effman, an attorney considered an expert in parole hearings who was working on Capozzi's most recent parole attempt, said Capozzi was also a victim of a blanket executive order on sexual offenses from former Gov. George E. Pataki.
Capozzi, despite a clean disciplinary record in prison, had been turned down for parole in five previous hearings because he refused to admit that he committed the rapes, or show remorse for his actions.
Effman said Pataki's order mandated that all those convicted of sexual offenses had to attend remedial classes in prison. Capozzi was dismissed from each class, he said, because to complete it, he had to admit his guilt and express his remorse.
Without completing the course, Effman said, Capozzi could not be granted any time off his sentence. So he faced the possibility of serving his full 35-year sentence, Effman said.
D'Agostino said long hours of talking to Capozzi had convinced him that he had nothing to do with the Delaware Park rapes.
"He was so emphatic," D'Agostino said. "It was not just that he was not guilty. It was more that "I didn't do those things to those women.'‚"
The defense lawyer, assisted at the trial by attorney Robert J. Schreck who also attended Monday's hearing, said there were a number of other things that pointed to his client's innocence.
The rape victims described a man who weighed 160 pounds; Capozzi weighed between 200 and 220 pounds. The victims never mentioned a prominent 3-inch scar on Capozzi's face. They said the rapist wore shorts, and Capozzi's father testified that his son, embarrassed by his leg hair, never wore shorts.
Delano also found recently that the rapist's method of operation matched those alleged to be used by Sanchez. And he doubted that Capozzi lacked possessed the mental capability to give the detailed instructions that the Delaware Park rapist gave his victims.
But Capozzi, who bore a strong resemblance at the time to Sanchez, was identified by three women in court as their attacker, and although he was acquitted of one rape, a jury found him guilty of the other two.
U.N. Chief Seeks to Delay Sanctions Against Sudan
Washington Post, April 3, 2007
By COLUM LYNCH
UNITED NATIONS, April 2 -- U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on Monday urged the United States and Britain to delay plans to press for sanctions against Sudan, saying he needs more time to persuade Khartoum to allow more U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur.
The remarks came hours after the United Nations announced that five Senegalese peacekeepers were killed in Darfur -- the largest single loss of life for the 7,000-strong African Union mission since it deployed troops there in 2004. The U.N. said that 16 African Union peacekeepers have now died in Darfur.
Ban also announced a new round of negotiations in Africa and New York aimed at persuading Khartoum to permit a joint U.N.-African Union force of more than 20,000 troops into Darfur to halt the ongoing slaughter of civilians. After months of negotiations, Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir last month reneged on an agreement to allow 2,200 heavily armed U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur.
U.S. and British officials said they intend to push ahead with plans for sanctions. Andrew Natsios, President Bush's envoy for Sudan, told Ban in a closed-door meeting Monday that the 15-nation Security Council must punish Khartoum for its defiance of U.N. resolutions demanding that it allow more peacekeepers into Darfur.
Natsios suggested that a failure to act quickly could push Congress to adopt harsher measures. According to one official, Natsios cited bills that would support the right of states to divest their financial holdings in companies that do business with Sudan and ban those firms from tapping U.S. capital markets.
The Bush administration has previously opposed such measures on the grounds that they could interfere with the president's ability to conduct foreign policy and could drive potential foreign investors from U.S. markets. The proposals have also faced stiff opposition in the Senate.
The United States and Britain are preparing a U.N. draft resolution that would impose financial sanctions on Sudan, including targeted sanctions against individuals linked to atrocities there. They are also considering imposing a "no-fly" zone over Darfur if Sudan does not agree to accept thousands of U.N. peacekeepers.
"We're continuing to look at what options we have for action through the Security Council as well as outside the Security Council," said Ben Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. "We believe pressure needs to be maintained on the government of Sudan."
Ban said he reached an agreement with Bashir to hold discussions with the African Union next week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on a plan to send a reinforced U.N. peacekeeping force of more than 2,250 troops to Darfur. He also announced plans for a high-level meeting in New York on April 16 and 17 with the head of the African Union, former Malian president Alpha Oumar Konare.
"Before we talk about sanctions, let me have some more political space to deal with this dialogue with them," Ban said.
Violence broke out in Darfur in February 2003 when two rebel groups -- the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement -- attacked police stations. Khartoum responded by equipping local Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, and providing them with air support as they attacked villages, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and driving more than 2 million people from their homes. The Bush administration has accused the government of genocide.
The African Union blamed the main faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army for killing the African Union troops. But U.N. officials said they did not have enough information yet. "I am not aware of who was behind" the killings, Ban said. But he said the incident "illustrates the necessity and urgency of dispatching" more U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur.
Supreme Court Denies Guantánamo Appeal
New York Times, April 3, 2007
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, April 2 — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear urgent appeals from two groups of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The 45 men sought to challenge the constitutionality of a new law stripping federal judges of the authority to hear challenges to the open-ended confinement of foreign citizens held at the American naval base in Cuba and designated as enemy combatants.
The court’s action leaves standing a ruling six weeks ago by the federal appeals court here that upheld the jurisdiction-stripping provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The justices’ refusal to hear the case at this point, before any of the detainees have availed themselves of alternative appeal procedures that their lawyers argue are unconstitutionally truncated, does not foreclose eventual consideration by the court after those appeals have run their course.
The men have all been held at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years, and none has been charged with a crime. They filed petitions for habeas corpus, challenging their continued confinement, before Congress ordered in the 2006 law that all such petitions must be dismissed and no new ones could be accepted for filing.
Ordinarily, the Supreme Court makes no comment when it turns down an appeal. In this instance, the court offered an unusual degree of transparency, with two separate opinions accompanying the one-sentence order denying the two petitions.
One was a dissenting opinion from three justices, Stephen G. Breyer, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who voted to hear the cases as “significant ones warranting our review,” as Justice Breyer said in an opinion that spoke for the three.
The separate opinion was a statement “respecting the denial,” signed jointly by Justices John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy. They explained why they voted against hearing the cases. They said the court should follow its usual practice for ordinary prison inmates and require “the exhaustion of available remedies as a precondition to accepting jurisdiction over applications for the writ of habeas corpus.”
Despite the apparent transparency, the real story was probably one that no justice acknowledged: the inability of the court’s four most liberal members, Justices Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg, to count on Justice Kennedy’s eventual vote.
While four votes are sufficient to grant a case under the court’s rules, five are of course necessary to win it. The liberal justices, or at least their leader, Justice Stevens, may well have decided that refraining at this point was the wiser course, given the risk that the case might come out the “wrong” way, from their point of view, with an affirmation of the appeals court’s decision that would then become a hard and fast Supreme Court precedent.
Justice Stevens is the author of the court’s two decisions rejecting the Bush administration’s legal analysis of the status of the Guantánamo detainees, Rasul v. Bush in 2004 and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last June. He almost certainly agreed on Monday with the assessment in Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion that the men bringing the new appeals “plausibly argue that the lower court’s reasoning is contrary to this court’s precedent” as expressed in the earlier opinions.
But Justice Stevens, who will turn 87 later this month, is also a strategic and canny inside player who knew that providing a fourth vote to hear the cases without assurance of Justice Kennedy’s position risked putting them on track to the wrong destination.
Furthermore, Justice Ginsburg evidently did not agree with Justices Stevens and Souter that the court should not only grant the appeals, but also should schedule argument on an expedited basis in order to decide them in June. She declined to sign the part of Justice Breyer’s opinion that called for expedited review.
That meant that even if the court did vote to hear the cases, the argument would be deferred until next fall and a decision might well be a year or more away. Now that the appeals have been denied, the detainees’ lawyers will undoubtedly explore other options for moving the cases along, perhaps even more quickly.
Justices Stevens and Kennedy said pointedly that if it turns out that “the government has unreasonably delayed proceedings” or subjects the detainees to “some other and ongoing injury,” the Supreme Court would be open to a renewed appeal.
At issue at this point are challenges to proceedings known as Combatant Status Review Tribunals that decide whether a detainee should be labeled an enemy combatant. Under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has sole jurisdiction to hear appeals from the tribunal’s determination.
The detainees’ lawyers argue that both the tribunals and the limited form of review in the appeals court are fatally flawed.
The cases were Boumediene v. Bush, No. 06-1195, and Al Odah v. United States, No. 06-1196
april 2, 2007
Official Pushes for Immigrant Work Permit
Contra Costa Times, April 2, 2007
By SUSAN FERRISS
SACRAMENTO - A California assemblyman who says he's tired of waiting for Congress to change immigration laws has come up with his own bill to provide a "California work permit" to undocumented workers for three years.
Assemblyman Rick Keene, a Republican from Chico, introduced his proposed "Employer Security and Accountability Act" to the Assembly's labor committee last week.
The bill, which some experts say is patently unconstitutional, would create a state work permit for non-U.S. citizens, including undocumented workers. It would require employers to ask to see the permits and verify them through a state "hotline." Employers could face a $10,000 fine for failing to comply.
The proposed law would also garnish 8 percent of the wages of undocumented workers -- exempting legal immigrants -- to contribute to California's general fund to help pay for public education, police, health and other services. If undocumented workers don't become legal residents within three years, Keene said, they would lose the permit.
"The Congress has been saying it's going to address this issue, but they're doing nothing about it," Keene said. "Frankly, personally, I'm frustrated with sitting here waiting for them to do something about immigration."
Congress has resumed debate on immigration reform again, Keene acknowledged. But as the 2008 presidential campaign heats up, he said, politicians will steer clear of any firm stance on immigration reform for fear of that position being unpopular.
Keene said he's not trying to resolve the federal immigration crisis, and doesn't have a position on what kind of reform he wants Congress to enact. He introduced the bill Thursday.
He said he is trying to address constituents' concerns in his district while also trying to address the perception that many illegal immigrants work under the table and don't pay into the tax system.
Bill Hing, a UC Davis specialist in the history of immigration law, said some research shows that most illegal immigrants pay taxes through their jobs. Regardless, he said, Keene's bill is dead on arrival because the state has no power over immigration law.
"It's a nice swing, but I think it's a strike," Hing said. "But it's very interesting. It's sort of the opposite of anti-illegal-immigrant ordinances."
Some U.S. cities have passed laws to make illegal immigrants feel unwelcome, including ordinances Hing predicted will be found unconstitutional in court challenges.
Some ordinances forbid a language other than English while conducting government business. Others, under threat of local penalties, require businesses to verify the legal status of people they want to hire or to whom they want to rent housing.
Carl Borden, an attorney with the California Farm Bureau, said his trade group supports work permits but wants the federal government to soon act to issue them.
"It's just going to create confusion," Borden said of Keene's bill, and "false hope" among those rooting for Congress to approve a legalization of certain undocumented workers and new guest-worker visas.
Keene admitted his state bill is "a sticky issue."
He brushed aside constitutional questions, though, calling his proposal a "stopgap measure." While Congress debates, he said, his bill would provide employers who hire many undocumented workers a secure labor force, while guaranteeing that workers contribute money for public services.
Keene said estimates for how much illegal immigrants cost the state's public coffers are unreliable. But he's convinced that an underground economy exists, with wages paid under the table, and that this activity should be brought to the surface and taxed.
"I have folks who want to contribute, they want to pitch in," he said, referring to undocumented workers in his district. They don't want to be "scapegoated" because people think they don't pay into the system, he said.
Keene's large rural district is home to many businesses that hire immigrants, including farms, construction companies, landscapers and hotels. Employers tell him, Keene said, that they can't tell whether documents are real or fake. A state permit, he said, might be designed to prevent forgeries.
"All the employers I have talked to say they would like a way to be in compliance with the law," Keene said.
april 1, 2007
Iraqi Returns to Britain After Guantanamo 'Nightmare'
Agence France-Presse, April 1, 2007
An Iraqi held at the US base in Guantanamo Bay for nearly five years said Sunday his "nightmare is finally at an end" in a statement issued after he returned to his family living in Britain.
Bisher al-Rawi also spoke of the "hopelessness" and "extreme isolation" suffered by detainees at the US military base in Cuba and asked to be granted time with relatives to come to terms with his "horrific experience".
Al-Rawi was arrested in November 2002 while on a business trip to Gambia, where his supporters say he was helping his older brother Wahab set up a peanut oil processing business.
He returned to the family home in New Malden, southwest London, this weekend.
"The hopelessness you feel in Guantanamo can hardly be described," he said in a statement released through his lawyers.
"You are asked the same questions hundreds of times. Allegations are made against you that are laughably untrue, but you have no chance to prove them wrong. There is no trial, no fair legal process.
"I was alleged to have participated in terrorist training in Bosnia and Afghanistan. I've never been to Bosnia and the only time I visited Afghanistan was thanks to the hospitality of the CIA in an underground prison, the Dark Prison outside Kabul."
News of Al-Rawi's release was announced by Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in a written statement to parliament last week.
Although he is not a British citizen, he was allowed to live in Britain after his immediate family fled Iraq more than 20 years ago when his father was arrested and tortured under former dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
Beckett added that his return would follow "extensive discussions to address the security implications of Mr Al-Rawi's return."
Asked what this would mean for Al-Rawi now that he was back in Britain, the Foreign Office would not comment except to say that Britain would "continue to take the necessary measures to maintain national and international security."
Human rights group Amnesty International called "urgently" for an independent inquiry into "any UK complicity with Guantanamo detentions", including in Al-Rawi's case.
It added that Britain had played a "shadowy role" in his arrest and rendition.
"In the past, the government has shamefully tried to wash its hands of UK residents at Guantanamo -- with Bisher's belated release, this must now end," the organisation said in a statement.
Al-Rawi said there were still nine other British residents in the Guantanamo camp, some of whom were on hunger strike to protest at their extended periods in solitary confinement.
He called for them to be allowed to return to Britain soon.
These include Jamil El-Banna, a British refugee from Jordan, who was arrested alongside Al-Rawi in Gambia.
Clive Stafford-Smith, his lawyer, has said that Al-Rawi was showing signs of secure housing unit psychosis, which affects prisoners held in high-security compounds, after spending four years in detention.
Stafford-Smith described the conditions in which Al-Rawi was held as "worse than any death row I've ever seen."
March 15, 2007
U.S. plans new financial sanctions on Sudan
Reuters, March 15, 2007
By SUE PLEMING
The United States is planning new sanctions against Sudan, including restrictions on companies that do business there in U.S. dollars, because of Khartoum's refusal to allow U.N. troops into Darfur, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan said on Wednesday.
There are also plans to impose travel bans on and confiscate the savings accounts of three individuals, two politicians accused of "atrocious acts" and a rebel leader who was "obstructionist" in peace talks, U.S. envoy Andrew Natsios told a conference call with nongovernmental groups.
Natsios, who was in Sudan last week and met its leaders, said it was up to President Bush to announce the sanctions, which are part of a "Plan B" to get Khartoum to agree to a joint U.N./African Union force with the goal of stemming the violence in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Speaking later, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirmed the United States and others were looking at "other options" to deal with the Darfur crisis.
"It's simply the case that the Sudanese government needs to recognize that the international community can't stand idly by while people suffer," said Rice at a news conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Neither Rice nor Natsios said when new sanctions would be imposed but the U.S. envoy made clear time was running out.
"Enough is enough, we need to now take action and not just (have) more talk," he said.
"It's pretty clear the (U.S.) president is angrier than anyone else on this. He gets very upset when he talks to me about this situation. He is very frustrated by it," Natsios said.
Natsios declined to provide the names of companies that might be affected by new sanctions but said international transactions involving U.S. dollars would be blocked. He did not name the three Sudanese who would be sanctioned but said they were well-known.
BROAD IMPACT
The threat of U.S. financial sanctions would push banks in Europe and Asia to restrict their business with individuals or businesses in Sudan. China, India and Malaysia are the biggest foreign investors in Sudan.
Natsios said there had been a series of high-level U.S. government meetings before he left for Sudan during which the measures were discussed and agreed on.
"People have been designated within the (U.S.) Treasury to enforce this," he said.
The sanctions would be imposed by the United States and not the United Nations or another body, but Natsios said Washington hoped other countries would do the same.
The United States and others are increasingly angry at Sudan's refusal to accept the UN/AU force into Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003 and more than 2.5 million displaced by the conflict.
Britain wants the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Sudan, including the broadening of an arms embargo and imposing a no-fly zone in Darfur.
The Bush administration threatened to impose "Plan B" against Sudan this January but has held off on taking any action after Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir gave a loose agreement at the end of last year to allow the first phase of a hybrid force to begin.
Bashir then sent a letter to the United Nations this month arguing in detail against U.N. plans to bolster under-financed AU military monitors.
"We think that the administration has shown too much patience with the Sudanese government," said David Rubenstein of the Save Darfur Coalition, one of the most vocal activist groups for Darfur.
(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton)
Bush promises a compromise on immigration
Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2007
By SAM ENRIQUEZ and PATRICK J. MCDONNELL
MERIDA, MEXICO — President Bush wrapped up his Latin American tour Wednesday with a pledge to Mexican President Felipe Calderon that he would seek an accord that straddles the middle ground between amnesty to illegal residents and booting out more than 12 million people.
"Amnesty is not going to fly," Bush said. "There is not going to be automatic citizenship; it just won't work. People in the United States don't support that, and neither do I. Nor will kicking people out of the United States work. It's not practical."
Bush said he was optimistic about convincing congressional Republicans that resolving the status of millions of undocumented workers, mostly Mexican, would be in the best interests of U.S. security.
Eliminating hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossings by job-seekers each year would free authorities to concentrate on those smuggling drugs and guns, Bush said.
Calderon offered an impassioned and personal defense of the more than 10 million Mexicans working north of the border, including some of his extended family.
Responding to a question during a joint news conference, Calderon confirmed that he had relatives working in vegetable fields in the United States, adding, "They probably handle what you eat." But he said he didn't know their legal status.
"What I can tell you is that they work and pay their taxes to the government" of the United States, Calderon said. "These are people who respect the United States. These are people who have children, who want these children to be educated with respect for the land where they live and for Mexico."
Calderon narrowly won election last year with promises of attracting investment and creating jobs that would keep Mexicans home. He echoed that theme Wednesday, noting that half of the residents of his home state of Michoacan were working abroad, part of an expatriate community that last year sent home more than $20 billion.
"We want them to come back," he said. "We want them to find jobs here in Mexico."
Bush spoke sympathetically of the plight of men, women and children who embark on the often dangerous border crossing.
"A system that encourages people to sneak across the border is a system that leads to human rights abuses," Bush said. "It's a system that allows for the exploitation of citizens who are trying to earn a living for their families."
But Bush's low popularity and lame-duck status has sapped the political capital he would need to shepherd immigration reforms through a Democrat-controlled Congress. During his trip, Bush acknowledged that Republicans need to reach a consensus before a deal can go forward.
Bush praised Calderon's fight against the Mexican drug cartels that ferry drugs across the border in cars, trucks and planes and through tunnels.
Calderon told Bush Tuesday that he could not win his war on drugs without reductions in U.S. demand for the marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine that move by the ton through his country. The drug trade has overwhelmed and corrupted many local governments and it cost more 2,000 lives in Mexico last year.
Bush on Wednesday acknowledged a responsibility "to convince people to use less drugs." Calderon said the two men had agreed to better coordinate the fight against organized crime. What increased role the U.S. would play in Mexico was unclear.
"Mexico is obviously a sovereign nation," Bush said. "But the Mexican government can lay out a plan where the U.S. can be a constructive partner."
After two days of talks, Bush affirmed strong ties with Mexico, the United States' third-largest trading partner..
Mexico was the last stop on Bush's five-nation visit to Latin America, designed to shore up the United States' declining image in the region. Many saw the trip as a popularity contest between Bush and leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who shadowed Bush's weeklong trip with a tour of his own.
Few Latin American commentators said they believed Bush had reversed years of inattention to the region. Many gave the president credit for making the trip, but critics ridiculed the $1.6-billion-a-year U.S. aid package as crumbs compared with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' oil-funded largesse.
Left-leaning governments in Brazil and Uruguay were clearly pleased with the president's visit, despite large anti-Bush protests. The leaders of both nations calculated that they could afford some discontent in exchange for the benefits of closer U.S. ties.
Uruguay's agriculture and livestock minister, Jose "Pepe" Mujica, an ex-leftist guerrilla, declared his country "much better off than before" after meeting with Bush.
In Brazil, the region's most populous country and the ninth- largest economy in the world, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was keen to elevate his stature and diminish Chavez's rising star. Brazil emerged as the chief beneficiary of the trip, with a partnership to develop and produce plant-based fuels.
"Even if the economic issues are not resolved, this was still a diplomatic victory for Lula," said Rogerio Schmitt, an analyst with the Tendencias consulting firm in Sao Paulo.
The tour may reverberate most strongly in Argentina, where Bush didn't stop. President Nestor Kirchner was criticized for allowing Chavez to stage a rambunctious anti-Bush rally at a stadium as the U.S. president arrived in Uruguay.
Some commentators said Chavez's shrill rhetoric may have alienated moderates.
But Kirchner, whose leftist government has received more than $3 billion in indirect aid from Venezuela, defended himself and Chavez.
"We will always stand in solidarity with … our Latin American brothers who have helped us," a defiant Kirchner said.
March 13, 2007
Report: Employers Take Advantage of Immigrant Workers
Inc.com, March 13, 2007
By ANGUS LOTEN
The federal government also fails to enforce workers' rights, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Guest workers in the United States are trapped in low-wage jobs where they risk injury without health coverage and often live in squalid conditions, according to a national report released this week.
The report, which likens the current federal guest-worker program to slavery, comes as members of Congress reopen debate on an immigration-reform package that collapsed in the House ahead of last year's midterm elections.
President Bush has repeatedly said he supports expanding the guest-worker program, along with tougher border security, in order to crack down on the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently working in the United States.
In Mexico this week, Bush told Mexican President Felipe Calderon he will urge Congress to overhaul immigration and include a larger guest-worker program.
In his State of the Union speech in January, Bush defended the guest worker program as a way of taking pressure off the border, while creating a path for foreign workers to enter the country and be gainfully employed on a temporary basis.
"As a result, they won’t have to try to sneak in, and that will leave border agents free to chase down drug smugglers and criminals and terrorists," Bush said.
More than 121,000 guest workers were employed in the United States in 2005, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Montgomery, Ala.-based civil rights group that released the report Monday.
Based on interviews with thousands of foreign workers employed under the Labor Department's so-called H-2 temporary-employment program -- an initiative created in 1943 to boost cheap labor for the sugar cane industry -- the 48-page report slams the government for failing to protect guest workers from unscrupulous employers.
"The current program is shamefully abusive in practice, and there is almost no enforcement of worker rights," Mary Bauer, the group's director of immigrant issues, said in a statement. She called guest workers the "disposable workers of the global economy."
Most H-2 class guest workers are employed in agriculture, followed by forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction, and other industries, according to the report. They are typically poor people who leave home with the promise of decent jobs, Bauer said.
Many pay hefty "recruiting fees" for U.S. jobs, on top of travel costs, and once they get here are housed in shabby hotel rooms and forced to work 10-hour days, the report said.
Since employers have nearly full control over the legal status of their foreign workers under the H-2 program, those that complain can face deportation, the report said.
"As part of the reform of our broken immigration system, Congress should eliminate the current H-2 system entirely or commit to making it a fair program with strong worker protections that are vigorously enforced," Richard Cohen, the group's president, said in a statement. [read the report]
Detained immigrants 'treated very badly'
Chicago Sun-Times, March 13, 2007
By ESTHER J. CEPEDA
Family members of several Mexican nationals who were arrested in a February raid on undocumented workers at an Arlington Heights factory spoke out Monday, claiming their loved ones are being mistreated in detention facilities.
Gilberto Valencia, 40, of Wheeling, stood outside the downtown offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with protesters demanding reforms that would keep families from being separated because of deportation.
"She told me she had been treated very badly," Valencia said, referring to his common-law wife, Maria Elena Paez, 40. Valencia said he had to wait three days to speak to Paez. "She said her co-workers were woken up at 4 in the morning and pressured to sign forms to be deported."
Other husbands present for initial bond hearings were told by their wives that they hadn't been allowed baths or given adequate food, water or proper medical care since being detained two weeks ago.
No complaints: agency
Palatine resident Gerardo Medrano, 52, said his wife, Maria de Carmen Santana, 47, suffers from chronic tendonitis in her leg. She was a factory worker at Cano Packaging Corp. where the Feb. 27 raid occurred. Though at first she was given Tylenol, "now, nothing, she's just in pain," Medrano said.
Immigration has detailed guidelines ensuring detainees get medical care, "nutritious, attractively presented meals, prepared in a sanitary manner," and procedures for reporting mistreatment.
Agency spokesman Tim Counts said he's not heard of any such complaints coming from any Chicago area detention or processing center. The Cano raid netted 17 arrests.
"Both the McHenry and Broadview facilities have standards in place that assure highest quality medical care, and there are thorough procedures in place for complaint," Counts said.
The families' outrage comes on the heels of an incident last week in which detainees from a raid at an Indiana factory had numbers marked on their hands for identification purposes at the McHenry County Jail. After outcry from Mexican Consulate officials who considered the treatment degrading, ICE instructed the jail to discontinue the practice.
March 12, 2007
Citizens Who Lack Papers Lose Medicaid
New York Times, March 12, 2007
by ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, March 11 — A new federal rule intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid has instead shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens who have had difficulty complying with requirements to show birth certificates and other documents proving their citizenship, state officials say.
Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia have all reported declines in enrollment and traced them to the new federal requirement, which comes just as state officials around the country are striving to expand coverage through Medicaid and other means.
Under a 2006 federal law, the Deficit Reduction Act, most people who say they are United States citizens and want Medicaid must provide “satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship,” which could include a passport or the combination of a birth certificate and a driver’s license.
Some state officials say the Bush administration went beyond the law in some ways, for example, by requiring people to submit original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency.
“The largest adverse effect of this policy has been on people who are American citizens,” said Kevin W. Concannon, director of the Department of Human Services in Iowa, where the number of Medicaid recipients dropped by 5,700 in the second half of 2006, to 92,880, after rising for five years. “We have not turned up many undocumented immigrants receiving Medicaid in Waterloo, Dubuque or anywhere else in Iowa,” Mr. Concannon said.
Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the new rule was “intended to ensure that Medicaid beneficiaries are citizens without imposing undue burdens on them” or on states. “We are not aware of any data that shows there are significant barriers to enrollment,” he said. “But if states are experiencing difficulties, they should bring them to our attention.”
In Florida, the number of children on Medicaid declined by 63,000, to 1.2 million, from July 2006 to January of this year.
“We’ve seen an increase in the number of people who don’t qualify for Medicaid because they cannot produce proof of citizenship,” said Albert A. Zimmerman, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families. “Nearly all of these people are American citizens.”
Since Ohio began enforcing the document requirement in September, the number of children and parents on Medicaid has declined by 39,000, to 1.3 million, and state officials attribute most of the decline to the new requirement. Jon Allen, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said the state had not seen a drop of that magnitude in 10 years.
The numbers alone do not prove that the decline in enrollment was caused by the new federal policy. But state officials see a cause-and-effect relationship. They say the decline began soon after they started enforcing the new rule. Moreover, they say, they have not seen a decline in enrollment among people who are exempt from the documentation requirement — for example, people who have qualified for Medicare and are also eligible for Medicaid.
Wisconsin keeps detailed records listing reasons for the denial or termination of benefits. “From August 2006 to February of this year, we terminated benefits for an average of 868 people a month for failure to document citizenship or identity,” said James D. Jones, the eligibility director of the Medicaid program in Wisconsin. “More than 600 of those actions were for failure to prove identity.” In the same period, Mr. Jones said, the state denied an average of 1,758 applications a month for failure to document citizenship or identity. In 1,100 of those cases, applicants did not provide acceptable proof of identity.
“Congress wanted to crack down on illegal immigrants who got Medicaid benefits by pretending to be U.S. citizens,” Mr. Jones said. “But the law is hurting U.S. citizens, throwing up roadblocks to people who need care, at a time when we in Wisconsin are trying to increase access to health care.”
Medicaid officials across the country report that some pregnant women are going without prenatal care and some parents are postponing checkups for their children while they hunt down birth certificates and other documents.
Rhiannon M. Noth, 28, of Cincinnati applied for Medicaid in early December. When her 3-year-old son, Landen, had heart surgery on Feb. 22, she said, “he did not have any insurance” because she had been unable to obtain the necessary documents. For the same reason, she said, she paid out of pocket for his medications, and eye surgery was delayed for her 2-year-old daughter, Adrianna.
The children eventually got Medicaid, but the process took 78 days, rather than the 30 specified in Ohio Medicaid rules.
Dr. Martin C. Michaels, a pediatrician in Dalton, Ga., who has been monitoring effects of the federal rule, said: “Georgia now has 100,000 newly uninsured U.S. citizen children of low-income families. Many of these children have missed immunizations and preventive health visits. And they have been admitted to hospitals and intensive care units for conditions that normally would have been treated in a doctor’s office.”
Dr. Michaels, who is president of the Georgia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that some children with asthma had lost their Medicaid coverage and could not afford the medications they had been taking daily to prevent wheezing. “Some of these children had asthma attacks and had to be admitted to hospitals,” he said.
In Kansas, R. Andrew Allison, the state Medicaid director, said: “The federal requirement has had a tremendous impact. Many kids have lost coverage or have not been able to obtain coverage.” Since the new rule took effect in July, enrollment in Kansas has declined by 20,000 people, to 245,000, and three-fourths of the people dropped from the rolls were children.
Megan J. Ingmire, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Health Policy Authority, which runs the state Medicaid program, said the waiting time for applicants had increased because of a “huge backlog” of applications. “Applicants need more time to collect the necessary documents, and it takes us longer to review the applications,” Ms. Ingmire said.
The principal authors of the 2006 law were Representatives Charlie Norwood and Nathan Deal, both Georgia Republicans. Mr. Norwood died last month.
Chris Riley, the chief of staff for Mr. Deal, said the new requirement did encounter “some bumps in the road” last year. But, he said, Mr. Deal believes that the requirement “has saved taxpayers money.” The congressman “will vigorously fight repeal of that provision” and will, in fact, try to extend it to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Mr. Riley said. He added that the rule could be applied flexibly so it did not cause hardship for citizens.
In general, Medicaid is available only to United States citizens and certain “qualified aliens.” Until 2006, states had some discretion in deciding how to verify citizenship. Applicants had to declare in writing, under penalty of perjury, whether they were citizens. Most states required documents, like birth certificates, only if other evidence suggested that a person was falsely claiming to be a United States citizen.
In Virginia, health insurance for children has been a top priority for state officials, and the number of children on Medicaid increased steadily for several years. But since July, the number has declined by 13,300, to 373,800, according to Cindi B. Jones, chief deputy director of the Virginia Medicaid program.
“The federal rule closed the door on our ability to enroll people over the telephone and the Internet, wiping out a full year of progress in covering kids,” Ms. Jones said.
State and local agencies have adopted new procedures to handle and copy valuable documents. J. Ruth Kennedy, deputy director of the Medicaid program in Louisiana, said her agency had received hundreds of original driver’s licenses and passports in the mail.
Barry E. Nangle, the state registrar of vital statistics in Utah, said, “The new federal requirement has created a big demand for birth certificates by a group of people who are not exactly well placed to pay our fees.” States typically charge $10 to $30 for a certificate. |
