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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.)