By: Melba J.T. Vasquez, PhD, president of APA, and Erin Hustings, Asylum Advocacy Associate. As the rhetoric surrounding U.S. immigration policy continues to heat up, what is often forgotten is the impact our laws have on the most vulnerable, the children. Despite the disagreements on immigration policy, all sides of the debate should acknowledge that the children of undocumented immigrants are often the victims of a broken system.A 2007 report by the Urban Institute highlighted the consequences of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Greeley, Colo., and Grand Island, Neb. The report included narratives about children separated from their families: “In one case, a youth spent several days alone because both parents were arrested in the raid. In one household, three adolescents were left to fend for themselves after both parents were detained; neighbors provided occasional supervision. The respondents only found out about those cases because the youth subsequently showed up at food banks to ask for assistance.” There are currently an estimated five million children in our nation who have at least one undocumented parent and are vulnerable to parental deportation proceedings and detentions. In the past decade alone, it is estimated that more than 100,000 parents of U.S. citizen children have been deported. Decades of research indicate that separation from parents can affect a child’s psychological development, but the mental and behavioral health impact on the children during these immigration proceedings is seldom considered. Children and adolescents whose parents are taken into immigration custody can suffer severe psychological distress, resulting in anxiety, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, withdrawal, aggressive behavior and decline in educational achievement. Research even suggests that the longer the parent and child are separated, the greater the child’s symptoms of anxiety and depression become. Simply put, in many cases, our current immigration system does not contain the necessary guidelines that would prevent or minimize these types of harmful separations. Congress should make the necessary reforms to promote the physical and emotional well-being of children and adolescents and recognize the importance of family unification in the immigration process. Immigration reform efforts must also aim to keep families together throughout the legal proceedings and encourage reunification when there are separations. These types of necessary reforms will help to curb the emotional traumas of the children. As a nation, it is imperative that we consider the impact of our immigration policies on children and families. As Nelson Mandela once said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” In short, laws have consequences, and when it comes to immigration policy, children should always be a priority.

Last month, PHR released the report, Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State. Today, fourteen countries publicly support establishing a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate the human rights abuses outlined in PHR’s report. PHR’s Frank Donaghue discusses the report and its impact in today’s video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQAa_0MVRU

In 2010, Physicians for Human Rights investigated alleged human rights violations in Burma's Chin State. Our report, "Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma's Chin State", reveals extraordinary levels of state and military violence against civilian populations. PHR CEO Frank Donaghue discusses the report in this video.

When human rights advocates talk about providing humanitarian protection to vulnerable immigrants, they are usually concerned with threats to the health and well-being posed by other humans, whether they are security forces, gang members, or abusive spouses. Persecution by other people, however, is not the only source of the danger facing immigrants in their home countries. Witness the case of Wildrick Guerrier. Mr. Guerrier came to the US from Haiti in 1993 as a teenager, and was a legal permanent resident, or green card holder. He helped raise two younger brothers, and was a father figure to his US resident fiance’s son. He was ordered deported last year, however, after sustaining a conviction related to his possession of a firearm while working as a private security guard. Following the devastating Haitian earthquake last year, the US government quickly recognized that it would be cruel to return Haitians in the US to the dangerous conditions prevailing in their homeland. Lack of basic necessities like food, clean water, and shelter, and outbreaks of disease were and continue to be rampant. The US not only made temporary immigration status available to Haitians present in our country on the date of the earthquake (so that none would be forced to return home), the government also suspended deportations for those whose immigration court cases had already concluded. Over the past year, this moratorium on Haitian deportations was maintained due to ongoing concerns about conditions in Haiti. The environment remains perilous to this day. More than one million Haitians still lack housing; there is an alarming rise in reports of rape, domestic violence, and political violence; and the cholera epidemic has killed 4,000 people and is expected to claim thousands more victims. Nonetheless, despite warnings and protests from experts, NGOs, and Haitians, the US announced in December that it would soon restart deportations to Haiti. From his cell in a Louisiana detention center, Mr. Guerrier participated in a six-day hunger strike in opposition to this decision. He and several fellow Haitians made a request to immigration officials that they be deported to any country other than Haiti, because, in their own words, “Being removed to Haiti would amount to a death sentence…What have we done as a Haitian people to be sentenced to death?” Heedless of his pleas, the US deported Mr. Guerrier and 26 other Haitians on January 20, 2011. Upon arrival, the deportees were incarcerated in a dismal and dirty jail in accordance with the standard Haitian policy of locking up deportees with US criminal records. Mr. Guerrier quickly fell ill, and less than two weeks after his deportation, died of an apparent case of cholera. Another one of this first group of 27 deportees is also now suffering from cholera-like symptoms. Delivering a man to a foreseeable death due to disease is no less a tragedy and human rights abuse than delivering him to a foreseeable death at the hands of state police or other human persecutors. Wildrick Guerrier’s very avoidable death reminds us how important it is to hold our government accountable for providing sanctuary to people who face medical as well as human threats.You can ask the government to reinstate its temporary suspension of deportations to Haiti by signing this online petition created by the Jesuit Refugee Service. Update: On February 4, 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) added its voice to those urging the US to reconsider its decision to restart deportations to Haiti. The IACHR cited its concern that deportees to Haiti would be incarcerated in detention centers that are overcrowded and lack safe drinking water, food, adequate medical services, and sanitation. The US should not send deportees to Haiti, the Commission found, until Haiti can guarantee that “detention conditions and access to medical care comply with…minimum standards.”

All Boston-based PHR members are invited to participate in a Global Day of Protest on January 30, 2011 which will call for the Release of Dr. Binayak Sen and other human rights defenders and journalists. In December, The Chattisgarh Court in India handed down a life sentence to Dr. Sen, finding him guilty on charges of treason and sedition for alleged support of Maoist rebels. The sentence shocked family and supporters of the celebrated pediatrician who spent years devoted to public health and the poorest of India’s poor.The “Demonstration for Freedom” will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 30, 2011 at the Harvard Square Pit (Behind the Redline T-stop). The protest will be held by the Association for India’s Development, Alliance for Secular and Democratic South Asia, Mass Global Action and Boston May Day Committee.

The Associated Press yesterday featured an article on PHR’s newly released report, “Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State.” The article, which was picked up in TIME, Washington Post, NPR.org, and The Boston Globe, described how the report revealed widespread human rights violations including the fact that more than 92 percent of the people surveyed had been subjected to forced labor.

The U.S.-based group says its 64-page report — "Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma's Chin State" — provides evidence of at least eight human rights violations that could be taken to the International Criminal Court," said the AP article.

To learn more about the report, you can visit www.lifeunderthejunta.org or listen to the ABC News Australia podcast featuring the report’s author, PHR deputy director Richard Sollom, who has been in Geneva sharing the report with UN officials.

While it’s no secret that the Government of Burma oppresses its people, the international community has only had survivors’ stories to assert these claims — until now. One week before Burma’s human rights record will be reviewed by the UN at the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, PHR has released the first widespread, quantitative reporting of rights abuses in Chin State, Burma. By going to door-to-door to survey the people of Chin State, PHR documented abuses perpetrated by government officials including forced labor, religious persecution, beatings, killing, disappearances, torture, rape and widespread pillaging.PHR believes the report, which includes a foreword from former U.N. Chief Prosecutor Richard J. Goldstone and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, shows evidence of “crimes against humanity” – “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community” – which fall under the purview of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The research revealed widespread reports of human rights violations among 621 randomly selected households during the 12 months prior to interviews including:

• Nearly 92 percent of the households interviewed reported at least one episode of forced labor, such as portering of military supplies or building roads.
• Government authorities, primarily soldiers, committed more than 98 percent of the abuses.

Justice Goldstone denounced the acts and called for a UN Commission of Inquiry:

It is unconscionable that suffering as dire as that of the Chin people under Burma’s dictator_ship should be allowed to persist in silence. We urge the United Nations to immediately establish a Commission of Inquiry into crimes against humanity in Chin State, and in all of Burma.

You can view the full report, “Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State” as well as the latest news on the report at http://lifeunderthejunta.org.

In a historic event starting on Sunday, January 9, four million South Sudanese will have the opportunity to vote for self-determination. The referendum was mandated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005, and follows years of civil war marked by brutality, discrimination and negligence of the central government in Khartoum. The people of the South are expected to vote in large numbers for the establishment of a new country. This is a critical time for the world to be watching and acting to protect the rights of all of the people of Sudan. During the build-up to the referendum, attacks on villages and civilians have continued in the western region of Darfur. Other requirements of the CPA including a referendum for the Abyei area and popular consultations for South Kordofan and the Blue Nile remain to be implemented. There is great risk of violence in the South following the referendum in January and related to the resolution of these other areas going forward. Next week’s major step in CPA implementation is in large part a result of engagement and diplomacy by governments including the United States, the European Community and the African Union. And it is also a response to global citizen pressure. Now, there is a major role to be played in development of a new “South Sudan.” Access to water and sanitation, health care and education are vital and currently are rudimentary at best. Therefore, respect for human rights by all parties must be at the core of the South’s future. They are the only guarantee of the life and wellbeing of the people of Sudan.The referendum, if its aftermath is peaceful, may well open the way to unprecedented development for the people of South Sudan. However, attention to the South should not preclude our urgent focus on Darfur where the Government of Sudan continues with its information blackout, persists in obstruction of humanitarian aid, and continuously suppresses dissent as it intimidates, arrests and tortures human rights advocates and other voices in civil society. We must remain alert in days ahead.

Today’s issue of the journal Science includes an article by PHR experts which outlines how the Bush administration relied on flawed science to justify the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs). While we have long known that the EITs employed by the Bush administration were illegal and unethical, this article shows that the science used to justify them was flawed as well. The article, which is authored by Vince Iacopino, Scott Allen and Allen Keller, argues that the science used to justify the EITs strongly suggests evidence of criminal negligence and possibly an intent to commit and conceal a systematic policy of torture. The article concludes with a number of recommendations designed to help scientists and health professionals uphold their commitment to the human rights and dignity of all people. David Biello, of Scientific American, echoed the author’s call for an investigation in his news story on the article:

As a result, the authors call for reforms, including requiring military medical personnel to follow all civilian medical ethics standards, as well as an investigation into what role, if any, such CIA or Department of Defense doctors played in torture or human experimentation. At the very least, such an investigation might provide some more useful information than that elicited via enhanced interrogation techniques.

Prominent individuals, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen as well as human rights and medical organizations across the globe have responded in protest to the life-sentence imposed on Dr. Binayak Sen last week. Ram Jethmalani, an M.P. from India’s conservative BJP party, told the press on Tuesday that he would argue Dr. Sen’s case on appeal before the High Court of Chhattisgarh. Jethmalani is in retirement and rarely takes on cases. He is India’s most prominent criminal attorney. Dr. Sen’s wife, Ilina, spoke on Indian television and reported being harassed by anonymous phone calls and told the media that she did not feel safe in Chhattisgarh. On Tuesday, January 4, Dr. Sen spent his 61 birthday in prison. Meanwhile, we’ve learned that friends and supporters organized protests in Kolkata, Wharda, Delhi, Cambridge, MA, and his hometown of Kalyani in West Bengal. In Delhi and Kalyani, activists began campaigns to feed the homeless in these cities in Dr. Sen’s honor. The issue of malnutrition is one that Dr. Sen has worked tirelessly to bring to light and address, and organizers continue his work in solidarity with his plight. Also in Kalyani, Dr. Sen’s mother, Anasua Sen, sang a song for her son to begin the two-hour program honoring his birthday, which closed with a chorus of “We Shall Overcome.” The next day, Sen’s counsel Mahendra Dubey filed an appeal against his conviction in Chhattisgarh High Court. Dubey argued that Sen’s alleged crime was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He cited a lack of evidence beyond the circumstantial, and a failure by the court to follow correct procedure. Human Rights Watch this week called again on India to repeal its sedition law which it alleges is used to silence peaceful dissent, as in the case of Dr. Sen. PHR calls once again for a prompt overturning of the sentence against Dr. Sen and for his immediate release.