Today’s the second full day of Netroots Nation (formerly known as YearlyKos). So far we’re having a blast: Last night Howard Dean gave the keynote address (the slogan “empowered by Howard” is echoing through my head). Our own Liz Rose from the Washington Legislative Office was on a panel called “Working from the Inside Out: Success Stories in Netroots Organizing,” this morning. I attended a panel about using profanity in blogs, which featured a
great, very funny panel with Jesse Taylor and Amanda Marcotte of href="http://www.pandagon.net">Pandagon, Rudepundit Lee Papa, href="http://www.eschatonblog.com/">Eschaton’s Duncan Black, href="http://hullabaloo.com">Hullabaloo’s Digby and href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com">Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum.

The opinions were varied, but if you’ve ever read these bloggers’ posts, you know their thoughts on swearing on blogs.

Right now I’m in a panel about immigration, and they’re hitting all the big issues: comprehensive federal immigration reform, anti-immigrant ordinances, racial profiling (see our lawsuit against Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio), immigration detention, day workers, and other issues. Man Eegee at Latino Politico is liveblogging this session.

Tomorrow, Jameel Jaffer, Director of the the ACLU’s National Security Project, will speak at a panel called “Guantánamo, Habeas Corpus, Torture and Military Contractors: The Roadmap to Accountability in the First 100 Days.” Jameel will talk about the ACLU’s national security work, which includes our John Adams Project and uncovering the abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody abroad. If you’re at Netroots, come check it out!

UPDATE: Pandagon’s got video of the profanity panel.

I am a native of Iraq and proud to be a U.S. Army soldier with a Purple Heart. I love the U.S. and that’s why I want to become a citizen. But my naturalization has been delayed. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told me that it’s because, despite my combat service in the U.S. Army, I haven’t passed the FBI background check.

When I was serving this country and the U.S. Army in Iraq, a suicide bomber blew up just 10 feet from me and my buddies, and I was seriously wounded. After partially recovering from my injuries, I did another stint in Iraq until December 2007. For my service, I was awarded the Purple Heart, two Army Commendation medals, a Combat Action badge, Gold Combat Spurs and many certificates and letters of appreciation.

In August 2006, having met all the requirements for citizenship, I applied for naturalization. I was interviewed by USCIS on January 18, 2008 and I passed the exam. I know that naturalization is a long process and I have tried to be patient. I’ve followed all the rules but it’s a confusing mess and my citizenship has been delayed over 6 months now.

At one point, I was told by a USCIS official that my citizenship would be expedited because of my military status. At another point, I was told it would take longer because of my military status. By yet another official, I was told that the USCIS never does checks on military background before granting citizenship.

With my experience translating in the Army, I will be looking for those kinds of civilian jobs open only to U.S. citizens. That’s why with the help of the ACLU, I’m suing the government for delaying my citizenship.

My military background is easy to check. I have many commendations and medical record resulting from my injuries. If they found out something about me they didn’t like, why did they send me to Iraq in the first place?

Specialist Polous is a permanent lawful resident of the United States, currently stationed in Fort Riley, Kansas. He is a native and citizen of Iraq. He immigrated to the U.S. in May 2001 and quickly applied for political asylum, which was granted in 2002. In 2005, he became a lawful permanent resident of the United States.

There was some great Phoenix television
of the ACLU lawsuit against anti-immigrant crusader Sheriff Joe Arpaio for racial profiling of Latinos in his so-called “crime suppression sweeps.” In one clip, Manuel Nieto talks about what it felt like to see his son and daughter - both U.S. citizens - be harassed by police right in front of the family auto repair shop because they were listening to music in Spanish.

In another video, ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler-Meetze talks about the illegality of stopping people for no other reason than the color of their skin.

Watchalo.

On Friday, March 21, 2008, at around 4:30 p.m., I found myself in the middle of one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration sweeps in a Latino neighborhood in Phoenix. I was on my way to Cave Creek-a suburb outside of Phoenix-to meet with two Latino day laborers who are my clients in a First Amendment lawsuit. Despite being an immigrants’ rights advocate and ACLU attorney, I couldn’t believe what I saw first-hand that night.

Sheriff Arpaio had set up a circus: Standing in a large commercial parking lot along one of Phoenix’s main roads, the Sheriff and his deputies announced to the media and the public that they would engage in a neighborhood sweep, stopping and arresting those suspected of violating traffic and safety laws. Behind Sheriff Arpaio were sheriff’s department trailers, vans and cars - many emblazoned with the words: “Do Not Enter: Illegal Aliens.” Dozens of deputies were preparing to drive around a predominantly Latino neighborhood and pick up whoever they found suspicious. Helicopters flew overhead. You could feel the panic in the air.

People from the community concerned about what Sheriff Arpaio was up to began to arrive in the parking lot. A group of anti-immigrant protesters on motorcycles and holding signs began to surround the parking lot as well. I remember at least one shouted “spics, go home; this is our country,” while aggressively inching closer and closer to the many Latino community residents and families who opposed the Sheriff’s sweep.

The deputies began driving into the neighborhood, terrorizing the community until almost 11 p.m. that night. Young Latino men were brought into the parking lot in handcuffs. They looked terrified as they arrived in the back of sheriff’s vehicles.Stadium lights were everywhere. The media was on-site interviewing deputies and concerned residents.

I felt like I was dreaming and in fact wondered if the men in handcuffs felt like that too. Were we in a movie? Why had they been brought to a parking lot instead of the downtown jail?

And they must have wondered why there were so many people present shouting, “No hables. Permanece callado. Tienes derecho a un abogado.” I was one of those people shouting that these men remain quiet, and that they assert their rights. But as I stood there shouting for what seemed like an eternity, I could not help but feel fearful myself. As a first-generation Mexican-American, the daughter of Mexican immigrants and someone who grew up in a Latino neighborhood-much like the one being targeted that night-I thought of how this could happen to my father, my brother-in-law and my cousins, who every single day fear that they will be stopped or questioned because of the color of their skin and their accents.

Today, in an effort to put an end to this culture of fear born from rampant discrimination and racial profiling in Maricopa County, five Latinos and Somos America, a Latino community-based organization, sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Maricopa County. The lawsuit was filed on their behalf by the national ACLU, the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and lead counsel Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

I hope that our plaintiffs find justice. The fear that pervaded that Friday in that Phoenix neighborhood didn’t end that night. It’s a fear that persists every single day for people who are, or appear to be, Latino or speak Spanish in Maricopa County. We cannot stand by and let this continue to happen in the United States.

Sixty years ago today the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, adopted the draft of what would become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR has since become the foundation of the modern human rights system, or in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt “the international Magna Carta.”

The UDHR sprang from the death and destruction of World War II and the Holocaust. It sought to create a new system of rights protection; a system whereby certain rights could not be violated, regardless of where they occurred. In addition to the duty of states to refrain from violating the rights of individuals within their territory, this new system also placed positive obligations on states to provide all persons within their jurisdiction with certain basic rights, without distinction as to race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status.

The UDHR laid the foundation for a system of rights which are universal, indivisible, and interdependent. The UDHR does not differentiate between civil and political rights on one side and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other. It realizes that in order to properly enjoy one set of rights, you must also be able to enjoy the other. As is often noted, one cannot properly exercise their right to vote, think, or live if they have no food, housing, or basic health services. It is from these principles that the modern human rights treaty system (international human rights law) was born.

Although the notion of universal rights to be enjoyed by all persons was a great step forward, the decisions of the U.S. government during the past 60 years have greatly hindered the ability of people to enjoy these rights, both abroad and at home. Beginning with the debate during and immediately following World War II over the creation of the international human rights system, the U.S. pushed for and ultimately succeeded in creating a non-binding declaration, instead of a binding covenant. This decision was taken to pacify the segregationists in the U.S. Congress. A further impediment to the realization of the UDHR is the view, by the U.S. government, that the UDHR and international human rights law are unnecessary at home, and are thus rightly used only as a tool of U.S. foreign policy.

Beyond the historical impediments noted above, the U.S. government’s current policies, from its failure to adequately abide by its human rights treaty obligations, to its failure to ratify the majority of the U.N. human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, just to name a few, continue to negatively impact the enjoyment of these basic rights and protections as well as U.S. standing in the world.

While much of the focus on the human rights record of the U.S. government is in the context of foreign policy and the so called “war on terror,” including the rendition, torture, and indefinite detention of foreign nationals, and vis-à-vis its high rhetoric on spreading freedom and democracy throughout the globe, it is of equal importance to look at the state of human rights at home. From the government’s inadequate response in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita; to pervasive discrimination against racial minorities in the areas of education, housing, and criminal justice, including death penalty; to imposing life sentences without the possibility of parole on juveniles; to abhorrent conditions in immigration detention facilities, it is clear that the U.S. government has failed to abide by its international obligations.

While the struggle for universal human rights is far from over, there has been great improvement in the fight to bring human rights home. More and more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individual activists in the U.S. are utilizing the human rights framework in the domestic advocacy and litigation. At the latest session of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (the treaty body that monitors state compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination), there were more than 120 representatives from U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Geneva, Switzerland, who briefed the Committee members and provided additional information to counter the misrepresentations and omissions of the official U.S. government report on the state of racial discrimination in the U.S. This information, in turn, led the Committee to conclude that the U.S. should make sweeping reforms to policies affecting racial and ethnic minorities, women, indigenous people, and immigrants. The Committee’s recommendations garnered domestic and international media attention, and were followed by a three week official visit to the U.S. by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Racism. This visit by the Special Rapporteur further opened up opportunities for domestic NGOs to utilize the international human rights framework, as was evidenced by the successful public education and media outreach campaigns conducted by local NGOs throughout the US during this visit. As this shows, human rights advocacy has become an effective tool for social justice advocates in the U.S. to use to press for change and enhance the protection of basic human rights.

To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR, the ACLU will be engaging in an advocacy campaign to raise awareness of U.S. obligations and shortcomings under international human rights law. This campaign will culminate with day of action events throughout the country on December 10, 2008, the day when the UDHR was adopted by the Member States of the United Nations General Assembly. As part of this campaign, the ACLU Human Rights Program put together a short video on the UDHR. The video highlights the importance of the UDHR to both the international human rights system, as well as to the work of the ACLU at the local, state, and federal levels and features ACLU lawyers and advocates as well as internationally renowned human rights leaders. Please visit the homepage of the ACLU UDHR 60th Anniversary advocacy campaign, www.udhr60.org, to view the UDHR Anniversary video, find additional information on the UDHR, and find out how you can become a part of our campaign to raise awareness of the UDHR and the international human rights system. We hope that you will join us in this effort!

Yesterday, the ACLU formally welcomed a fact-finding mission to the U.S. by Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions. Early this morning, my colleague Jody Kent and I had the opportunity to personally welcome him to our Washington, D.C., office with a cup of coffee and some conversation regarding deaths in U.S. jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities.

The issue of deaths in immigration custody has gotten a good deal of press attention recently, and two weeks ago Congress held a hearing on the broader problem of poor medical care in immigration detention and the lack of transparency and oversight over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the entity responsible for immigration detention. (You can read our testimony at the hearing.)

We spoke with Special Rapporteur Alston about the breadth of the problem, and offered some thoughts about what we believe might be done to address the problem. One important start is the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008, a bill that has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) (H.R. 5950) and in the Senate by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) (S. 3005). The Act would require ICE to create some important policies that would help to ensure that detainees receive basic medical services, and that Congress and the Inspectors General of both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have an opportunity to perform necessary oversight over in-custody deaths.

But while the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act is an important step in the right direction, it is certainly not a panacea. As we explained to Special Rapporteur Alston, the key problem is our country’s overreliance on detention in general, but more specifically with respect to vulnerable populations such as survivors of torture, asylum-seekers, and people with severe medical and mental health problems who pose no danger to society and clearly are not a flight risk.

For these individuals and others, they are alternatives to secure detention that are more humane, less punitive, and extremely effective at ensuring attendance at immigration proceedings. The bean counters out there will also appreciate how much taxpayer money the federal government could save by pursuing these superior alternatives.

Yesterday at the membership
href="http://www.aclu.org/conference/2008/">conference,
the href="http://www.aclutx.org/">ACLU of
Texas, href="http://www.aclu-nm.org/">ACLU
of New Mexico, and ACLU
of Massachusetts kicked off the
morning with a deeply
affecting plenary discussion about the real-life human impact of the
government’s abuse of core constitutional principles in the
name of
immigration enforcement. ACLU clients, primarily young folks from
Texas and New Mexico border towns, talked about the assumptions made
about them and the law enforcement challenges they face simply
because they are brown.

One young woman from Texas,
Luissana
Santibenez, described her calling as an activist fighting for the
human rights of immigrants locked up in detention centers in South
Texas. Whole families, held only on charges of civil immigration
violations, are kept in prisons as if they are convicted criminals. In
one such detention facility, href="http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/hutto.html">Hutto,
the ACLU discovered that children ranging in age from just three
months to 18 years old, were made to dress in prison garb, denied
basic education and proper nutrition, and not allowed even to go
outside and breathe fresh air for a month at a time. This led to a
lawsuit against the federal government filed by the ACLU and other
lawyers. href="http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/31469prs20070827.html">Settlement
of the Hutto litigation has compelled the federal government to
change its standards and conditions for the detention of immigrant
families. Vanita Gupta, an ACLU lawyer instrumental in the
litigation, recalled one of the government attorneys in that case
telling her, “you know, the ACLU is a real thorn in the side
of DHS
[the federal Department of Homeland Security].” She
responded,
simply, “Thank you.”

James and David de la
Torre, two
16-year old boys from New Mexico, shared a shocking account of local
sheriffs’ deputies knocking on their family’s door
at 5 am under
the astounding pretense of delivering a pizza, and when that
didn’t
work, responding to a call of a faulty refrigerator, to get them to
open the door, force everyone outside, and interrogate them about
their immigration status. As a result most of their family members
were deported, and James and David, both U.S. citizens, are the only
members of their families left in the United States.

It is almost unimaginable
that local
police and sheriffs could get away with these gross violations of the
law and assume the powers of federal immigration agents. Even more
outrageous is that these unlawful tactics do nothing to protect
public safety or enforce criminal laws. Instead, they target Latino
families who have committed no crimes, and tear them apart. The ACLU
and Mexican-American
Legal Defense
and Education Fund (MALEF) jointly filed a lawsuit
challenging
these brazen immigration enforcement tactics. As a result, the Otero
County, NM Sherriff’s Department agreed to href="http://www.aclu-nm.org/News_Events/news_4_9_08.html">settle
the suit and change their practices.

The Southwest border
regions of the
United States have been described by some as
“constitution-free
zones,” where Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable
search
and seizure, Fifth Amendment rights to due process, and Fourteenth
Amendment protections of equal protection under the law do not apply.
Today’s poignant stories help explain why.

As one presenter at the
conference
posed this morning, “is this the America we want to live
in?”

On Wednesday afternoon, the href="http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/racialjustice/sronracism.html">Special
Rapporteur on Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, Mr. Doudou
Diène, boarded his flight to Washington, D.C.,
clearly
affected by his visit to Puerto Rico. Mr. Diène
had heard numerous accounts of pervasive systemic and institutionalized
criminalization of poverty and race by both Puerto Rican and Federal
authorities.

On his first day, Mr. Diène was driven to the Guerrero
Prison facility, over three hours from San Juan, where he toured the prison facilities and residence areas, with
limited and guarded interaction with prison inmates.
Leaving Guerrero Prison, Mr. Diène visited the town of
Hormigueros, the site of the FBI’s 2005 raid on Filiberto Ojeda Rios’
home. In that raid, over 100 FBI agents stormed the house under cover
of sniper fire. When Rios was mortally wounded, the FBI
denied him medical aid and left the Pro-Independence and Machetero
leader to bleed to death over a 24-hour period. Mr. Diène
examined up-close evidence of the FBI’s use of high power fire against
72-year-old Ojeda and his wife, and stood on the very spot where Rios
died. To this day, the FBI has obstructed all attempts by
Puerto Rico’s government officials to investigate the
incident. On an island known for its political in-fighting,
the Rios killing has unified people across the political spectrum in
outrage.

Later the same day, Mr. Diène
presided over a public hearing in the west coast City of Mayaguez,
where at the Eugenio Maria de Hostos School of Law he heard stories
from ex-political prisoners, advocates of indigenous rights, residents
of marginalized communities. The ACLU of Puerto Rico’s Eva
Prados read from her preliminary findings in an ACLU investigation into
42 unexplained prison deaths of mostly young drug-addicted homeless men
at the Guerrero Prison facility previously visited.
On the second day of his visit Mr. Diène visited the east coast Villa
Cañona Community in the town of Loiza. The town of
Loiza was settled hundreds of years ago by
“Cimarrones” or escaped slaves. To this
day, Loiza maintains its strong African roots and closely guards its
culture and music, to its credit, and to its detriment.

Loiza’s people told stories of vicious police abuse against minors and
women with children. Two ACLU clients spoke: One, an alternative school
principal, related being stripped naked, beaten, and verbally abused in
the presence of his students, and another, the mother of a severely
mentally disabled young man, spoke of outrageous misconduct by police
officers targeting her son and other residents of this proud community
of African heritage. Presenters spoke of how in the name of
the War Against Drugs, they have become prisoners in their own homes,
too fearful even go to the community mini-mart or send their children
to school.

Mr. Diènes visit to Puerto Rico ended
with a public hearing at the Inter-American University School of Law in
San Juan, where members of the Dominican community spoke of racial
profiling and vicious police brutality against young Dominican
immigrants. Presenters spoke of a particular method of baton
beating by that always ends in organ damage. Several
young men displayed the scars of operations necessitated by these
beatings. Community leaders and advocates spoke of
displacement of poor black communities of San Juan to make room for
businesses and the rich.

Human Rights Attorney Wilma Reverón explained that the FBI
in Puerto Rico has more power than the Puerto Rican government itself
and uses it to repress the people. She spoke of the intrinsic and
inescapable relationship between race and Puerto Rico’s 500 year
history of colonialism which renders meaningful application of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights impossible.

Hopefully, the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Puerto Rico is
only the beginning of a thorough investigation into racism here. In the
last U.S. census, 80 percent of Puerto Ricans classified themselves as
white, in contradiction of a common Puerto Rican quote “el
que no tiene Dinga, tiene Mandinga” which roughly means you
are either from Dinga, or from Mandinga. Approximately 4 million people
live separate and unequal, politically speaking, in a U.S. territory
that is neither fish nor fowl.

James Carafano has been blogging on the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry” this week on his trip to our southern border. Carafano has been mighty impressed with all the potential benefits of increased border security. Specifically, Carafano believes it will protect the environment, even though Defenders of Wildlife has warned that the erection of a border fence will have “serious and lasting” effects on wildlife, clean water and clean air in the region. He’s also convinced it will reduce human fatalities, even though over 200 people die on the border each year, mostly from exposure, while the rate of illegal immigration remains steady.

But today’s post is a real humdinger. Titled “Virtual Fences Can Help Make Real Good Neighbors,” it praises the rollout of “Project 28,” part of the Department of Homeland Security’s initiative to create a “virtual fence” of video surveillance, motion sensors and other nifty gadgets along 28 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border. But as the Government Accountability Office and The Washington Post reported in February, Project 28 has been an utter fiasco. None of the technology has worked, and DHS decided to scrap the pilot project (they are now trying again with newer, fancier equipment).

However, even if the technology had worked, it’s not clear the program would have. Residents of Arivaca, Ariz., an unincorporated town nearby on of Project 28’s video surveillance towers, complained that while DHS reported the tower’s field of vision was only about 10 miles, the agency had placed it right next to the town, which happens to be 12 miles from the border. The potential for the federal government to spy on American citizens was real; the impact on border security, not so much.

But forget the fact that Project 28 is a complete boondoggle for a moment (Carafano admits that in addition to suffering from “bad publicity,” nobody at DHS bothered to ask the Border Patrol what they actually needed). The virtual fence is also one of the largest government gravy trains out there, and the main beneficiary has been Boeing Corp. Boeing got the original contract to install Project 28, and despite its failure to build something that works for more that $860 million in taxpayer dollars, DHS keeps offering the company new contracts. Just last month, it was announced that Boeing would be asked to build on its “experience” with Project 28 to construct two new sections of virtual fence in Arizona and Michigan.

Now to return to our friends at Heritage: Why would a think tank that advocates for limited government, free enterprise and strong national defense support a program that is massively expensive to taxpayers, invades the privacy of local residents, and amounts to a handout to a company that has repeatedly failed to secure our borders? A massive buildup of surveillance technology at the border is the kind of cash cow that fiscal conservatives and civil libertarians should be united in opposing. We’re eagerly waiting to welcome our friends at Heritage to the right side of the (virtual) fence.

During his 1-1/2 day visit to Miami, Mr. Doudou Diène, U.N. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, race discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, was presented with a detailed, and frequently emotional, picture of the many forms and textures of race discrimination and racism in Miami and Florida, generally.

The visit began with a tour of urban Miami, during which he saw the stark juxtaposition of affluent communities and the communities of color that were deliberatively and systematically destroyed to make room for condos, art galleries and commercial retail developments. Mr. Diène saw and heard much about Overtown. Famous performers like Count Basie and Billie Holiday were frequent visitors to Overtown and stayed there after their Miami Beach performances (since Jim Crow laws barred them from hotels on the Beach). As Mr. Diène witnessed the blight, disappearing stock of public and affordable housing, and the boarded up businesses, he heard about the efforts to destroy this once vibrant African-American community. Not only was it was dissected by I-95 (one of our tour guides pointed to a concrete support pillar for I-95 which now stands on the site of the home she grew up in), but neglect, aggressive (but unequally enforced) code enforcement practices, aggressive policing, and the fraudulent siphoning of tax dollars to private developers all were tools used to undermine the community’s infrastructure and displace its residents. Overtown activists and residents described their dedicated fight to preserve and regain control of this historic neighborhood.

On Monday, Mr. Diène conducted a series of public hearings.

The first presenters painted a picture of Miami from all perspectives of the African diaspora: Afro-Cuban, African-American, African, Haitian, and English-speaking Caribbean.

Against this backdrop, Mr. Diène heard compelling testimony from Latino and African American domestic and agricultural workers. A third generation farmworker told how the ground near Lake Apopka that she literally crawled on for decades had been contaminated by pesticides; she spoke emotionally about the resulting deaths of Lake Apopka farmworkers and how the government is pouring resources into addressing the impact that the decades of pollution have had on the alligators and birds of the region, but no resources at all are being used to address the deadly toll that the pesticides have taken on the women and men who worked the contaminated land.

A domestic worker described the inhumane treatment experienced by the many women who leave their families and home countries lured by false promises. She talked emotionally about how she and others were denied adequate food and water and forced to work 16-17 hour days with very little time off.

Prize-winning author Edwidge Danticat told the story of her uncle, Joseph Dantica, the family patriarch and a leader of his Haitian community and congregation. In 2004, at the age of 81, he was forced to flee Haiti when U.N. soldiers chose to use the rooftop of his church to wage a fire fight with gang members, who later sought retribution against him. Despite having a multiple-entry visa that allowed him to come in and out of the U.S. freely for 30 years, Joseph Dantica was detained upon his entry in the U.S. and his medicines for high blood pressure and heart problems were taken away. He died in DHS custody. (Independent medical experts attribute his death to the fact that he was not allowed to take the medications on which he had relied for years.)

Mr. Diène’s visit ended with a description of the rise of Islamophobia, and the overt (and often officially sanctioned) hate-mongering that flourishes in the U.S. during this post-9/11 era.

Most compelling and moving was the testimony from and about the strong and unyielding women and men directly impacted by racism and race discrimination in Florida - people who refuse to be victims or defeated, but instead use their own experiences to fight for the dignity of all and for the empowerment of their communities.

(Note: to ensure the privacy of the people who spoke with Mr. Diène, their stories are described here only with their express permission.)