The State of Opportunity

The Promise of Opportunity

Taking another look at "New Progressive Voices," a collection of essays outlining a new long-term, progressive vision for America, today we turn to our Executive Director, Alan Jenkins', contribution.

The piece paints a bleak picture.  Alan outlines many of the problems facing regular Americans today.  Many people are having trouble getting a job that pays a living wage, paying for health care, and getting their children into quality schools.  Tying this together with the present high rates of incarceration, all signs point to a general lack of opportunity in America.

In keeping with goals of this essay collection Alan's essay, "The Promise of Opportunity," strives to give concrete solutions to these communal ills.  Alan's essay suggests making "opportunity" a metric by which to consider the viability of federal programs.

As with the environmental impact statements currently required under the National Environmental Policy Act, the relevant agency would require the submission of information and collect and analyze relevant data to determine the positive and negative impacts of the proposed federally funded project. Here, however, the inquiry would focus on the ways in which the project would expand or constrict opportunity in affected geographic areas and whether the project would promote equal opportunity or deepen patterns of inequality.

While the measures of opportunity would differ in different circumstances, the inquiry would typically include whether the project would create or eliminate jobs, expand or constrict access to health care services, schools, and nutritious food stores, foster or extinguish affordable housing and small business development. At the same time, [these Opportunity Impact Statements (OIS)] would assess the equity of the project's burdens and benefits, such as whether it would serve a diversity of underserved populations, create jobs accessible to the affected regions, serve diverse linguistic and cultural communities, balance necessary health and safety burdens fairly across neighborhoods, and foster integration over segregation.

To read the full article, click here.

MA Courts Defends the Rights of the Prisoner

Last month the Appeals Court of Massachusetts issued two decisions regarding prisoner access to health care, both of which have vast implications for prisoner rights.  Through their rulings, the court affirmed two critical American values: redemption, the belief that humans are evolving beings who warrant the chance for rehabilitation when they falter, and healthcare as a human right. The cases,  Sullivan v. Correctional Medical Servs. et al. No. 07-P-964 72, 2008 WL 2552982 (Mass. App. Jun. 27, 2008) and Kilburn v. Dept. of Corrections et al., No. 07-P-987, 2008 WL 2566382 (Mass. App. Jun. 30, 2008) concerned claims of negligence due to poor dental care provided to prisoners by private health care contractors hired by the state.  Part of the case for the prisoners' claims rested on an appeal to third-party beneficiary rights.  Third parties in contracts have the right to sue if they can prove that they are the intended beneficiaries of the contract and are reliant on the contract.  Through their rulings, Massachusetts courts suggest that prisoners have standing as third party beneficiaries and can thus sue private health care providers despite their exclusion from the contract between the state and these private contractors.

In Kilburn v. Dept. of Corrections the Court ruled that the state cannot simultaneously deny responsibility for those healthcare duties delegated to its contractors and claim that those contracts were not meant to benefit the prisoners.  The fact that the state would make this argument to begin with is reflective of the larger shortcomings of the prison-industrial complex.  By contracting out the care of prisoners to private entities, the state claims that it is not liable for inadequate care provided by these groups.  The Appeals Court of Massachusetts took a stand for the right of prisoners to proper healthcare, and more generally to fair treatment, by stressing the state's responsibility in prisoner care.  It went further to argue that inmates' lack of standing to sue as a third party beneficiary of the contract does not make the state immune from liability or free from responsibility.  Simply because prisoners do not have the means to raise claims does not absolve the state of its duties.

While the decisions do not explicitly grant prisoners third-party beneficiary rights, they mark an important
step in this direction.  They document the receptiveness of the court third-party claims in government contracts on the part of prisoners.  Moreover the rulings affirm that the state cannot divorce itself from its responsibility to prisoners. Practicing redemption means providing the conditions that allow people to develop, to rebuild, and to take full responsibility for their lives after misfortune or mistakes.  Through its decisions, the court asserted the state's own responsibility in providing these conditions for prisoners. This particular case concerns dental care, but it opens the door for an invigorated conversation about the fundamental human rights of those people behind bars, and the responsibility of the state in caring for those prisoners such that they may one day reenter society and have the opportunity to achieve their own, full potentials.

60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Yesterday was the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a ground-breaking document initiated and championed by the United States and Eleanor Roosevelt.  Frank Knaack of the ACLU Human Rights Program writes about the significance of the Universal Declaration in the United States and where we are today in fulfilling the promise of "the foundation of the modern human rights system":

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.

[...]

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.

The Opportunity Agenda is dedicated to bringing human rights home.  We are proud to work with coalitions such as the U.S. Human Rights Network and the Human Right to Health Capacity Building Collaborative to build the national, state, and local will to make human rights a real and effective tool for realizing American opportunity.

U.S. Human Rights Reports and Tools from The Opportunity Agenda:

• Human Rights in the U.S.: Opinion Research with Advocates, Journalists, and the General Public
• Unequal Health Outcomes in the United States: A Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
• Policy Brief: Healthcare, Opportunity, and Human Rights at Home

A Debate on Housing, Live from the New Orleans City Council

• Louisiana news station WDSU is offering a live video feed from the New Orleans City Council meeting on the impending demolition of public housing.  In addition to those speaking at the meeting, hundreds of people are standing outside City Hall in protest of the lack of affordable housing in the region since the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina two years ago. Present-day inequities in New Orleans are often framed with respect to human rights; the demand for affordable housing is just one aspect of ensuring that residents have the social and economic security needed to provide for their families with dignity.

• Bloggernista has reported that Congress has lifted a nine-year ban on using public funding to support needle exchange programs in Washington, DC.  Despite the fact that syringe exchange programs have proven effective in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, this ban had held firm while the capital city has the developed the highest rate of HIV infection in the nation, a true modern epidemic noted for its immense racial disparities.

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog reposted an Associated Press article entitled 'State supreme court rules counties are liable for inmates' care,' including conditions that existed prior to imprisonment. It's great to see a court ruling in favor of the responsibility of the community to provide a basis level of health care for those in custody without other options -- this is a good step towards the recognition that all Americans deserve access to health care.
  

Justices voted 8-0 on Tuesday in favor of HCA Health Services of Oklahoma, the parent company of OU Medical Center. The hospital sued Oklahoma County commissioners and Sheriff John Whetsel over $2.2 million in medical payments for treating prisoners in the jail from February 2003 through September 2006.

The county's argument was that much of the expense was to treat conditions that predated the prisoners' arrests, Justice Marian Opala wrote in the court opinion.

• The DMI Blog analyzed a recent New York Times editorial on Arizona's new law intended to crack down on undocumented immigrants, offering praise for what it refers to as an 'example of smart immigration policy.' Author Suman Raghunathan expounds:

I am, in fact, waxing poetic on a stellar editorial in yesterday’s  Times.  This gem of a piece outlines in plain, centrist-liberal-speak why going after employers who employ undocumented immigrants instead of enforcing existing labor law makes for poor immigration policy.

What’s more, Arizona’s law (and believe me, there are many more in the works across the country) will do nothing to address our nation’s desperate need for smart and fair policies that welcome immigrant contributions into our economy. Worse yet, it does nothing to bring undocumented workers out of the shadows with a legalization program to level the playing field on wages and labor conditions for all workers – documented and undocumented, green card holders and US citizens.

Meanwhile, the Presidential election campaigns continue to work themselves into a fevered state, trying to say as little as possible on immigration policy (pick a party, any party) while sounding tough on undocumented immigrants (again, pick a punching bag, any punching bag). 

Here’s to hoping those high-falutin’ political operatives take a page from the Times’ editorial board’s playbook when they think about immigration. 

The Return of Redemption

• Alan Jenkins' newest opinion piece is live on TomPaine.com. Entitled 'The Return of Redemption,' the piece contextualizes the recent crack sentencing ruling as well as the end of the death penalty in New Jersey as part of a larger shift in American values:

Together, these decisions reflect decades of difficult lessons: about the folly of locking away people convicted of low-level, non-violent offenses for decades; about how seemingly neutral policies can have gravely discriminatory effects; and about the ineffectual, discriminatory and dangerously inaccurate nature of the death penalty.

But information alone rarely leads to policy change, especially when it comes to criminal justice policy. That political leaders could even consider these changes in an election year speaks to a shift in public values as well as public understanding. Each reform reflects a return to the values of redemption and equality that are essential to a fair and effective criminal justice system, and that polls and politics show are on the rise in our country.

• RaceWire has shared a LA Times article on California's new plan for universal health care, a measure negotiated by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles). On Monday the state Assembly approved the first phase of a $14.4-billion plan to extend medical insurance to nearly all residents by 2010. The legislation will provide subsidies and tax credits for people who have trouble paying their health insurance premiums.

• Pam's House Blend has posted about a student at Southern Utah University who was denied housing because he is transgender. The university, which offers separate housing for men and women, demanded that Kourt Osborn provide the following in order to live in male housing:

• a letter from the doctor that monitors his hormone treatment;
• a letter from his therapist saying that he has gender identity disorder, or gender dysphoria; and
• official documentation that he has had sexual reassignment surgery.

Like many transgender people, Osborn isn't interested in surgery or a clinical diagnosis of his 'disorder.' The post compares Osborn's situation with that of people of mixed racial backgrounds in decades past:

"When people do not fit into a structured, discriminatory and binary system, the chances of discrimination against that person goes up."

Such is the case with Kourt. He is a person who does not fit into society’s tidy binary system on gender. Because he has transgressed society’s gender rules, the discrimination he faces on a daily basis — including the denial of housing at a public university — is very real and hardly ever subtle.

• Finally, Firedoglake published a piece on media reporting (or lack thereof) on torture  in the United States. Blogger PhoenixWoman received a story in her email entitled CIA photos 'show UK Guantanamo detainee was tortured' from Britain's The Independent, which details the existence of photographic evidence proving that British citizen Binyam Mohammed has been abused while in American custody.  Mohammed's lawyers in the UK have expressed their worry that the photos will be destroyed, given the CIA's recent destruction of "hundreds of hours of videotapes showing the torture of detainees held by the US." Interestingly, while US-based CommonDreams.org has also picked up this story, Google News did not provide any matches for the article.

From Homeless to Harvard

• The Angry Asian Man blog has posted a series of inspiring articles about a woman who is working towards a degree from Harvard University. Kimberly S.M. Woo is a single mother who was once a homeless drug addict. In the process of turning her life around she sought an education as a means of escaping poverty and creating a better life for her five-year-old daughter. Woo is a stellar example of the power of redemption as well as our potential for social mobility. Like thousands of Americans, Woo was given a second chance and has excelled; after a year working for Americorp she attended a community college in Boston for her Associate's Degree, where she earned a 4.0 GPA before transferring to Harvard.

• This weekend saw a couple interesting articles about the politics behind skiing. Immigration News Daily has written about an Aspen Ski resort's efforts to find workers:

The Aspen Skiing Co.'s quest to find enough workers this winter led recruiters to Puerto Rico, among other places. The company hired about 20 workers from the Caribbean island this fall to work in various positions at its two lodging properties, The Little Nell hotel and Snowmass Lodge and Club, according to Skico spokesman Jeff Hanle. The Skico was forced to get creative this year when there was a snafu at the national level with the H-2B visa program for temporary guest workers. An exemption to the program expired Sept. 30, after Congress failed to address comprehensive immigration reform.

And the Immigrants in USA blog did a feature called Niños on the slopes about a new Park City, Utah programs to provide local Latino children with access to the sport:

The Niños program, sponsored by St. Mary's Catholic Church, exists to bridge the cultural divide between, generally speaking, the affluent whites of Park City and the Latino immigrants who work in the posh community's service industry.

"Here, in this town, skiing is the great equalizer," explained the Rev. Bob Bussen, known as "Father Bob," who tears down the mountain wearing his clerical collar. "If you can ski, you're as good as anyone."

• The All About Race blog has reported on an upsetting development in the Jena 6 case. It seems that the plea bargain the Mychal Bell accepted also included a promise to testify against the other five students facing charges:

With Bell being placed in the position of serving as the star witness against the other teens, they are more likely to be convicted if they refuse to follow Bell’s example and cop a plea. This is the underbelly of an unfair judicial system. Upon entering his guilty plea, Bell admitted that he hit the White student, knocking him unconscious, and joining others in kicking him after he fell to the floor. Therefore, the D.A. will be using the most culpable of the six teens to obtain convictions against those who were less involved. That’s the way the judicial system works – or doesn’t work.

• The Happening Here blog has posted about a nurses' strike at St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco's Mission District. We've previously mentioned the hospital's plans to close down in order to shift its services to a more affluent neighborhood.  The hospital has refused for months to negotiate a contract with the nurses union, who began striking last Thursday.

• Lastly, the Inteligenta Indiĝena Indigenismo Novaĵoservo blog has advised us of a Washington Post article stating that the federal government has paid $1.3 billion in farm subsidies since 2000 to people who do not farm. While our government policies are never devoid of irony, these subsidies are a particularly painful instance of unequal treatment given the "go-it-alone" narrative of individualism that conservatives use to justify cutting back on social services. In reality, however, great societies are built by investing in the well-being of the community, which was understood well by the authors of the New Deal legislation, the GI bill and the HeadStart program.

 

New Jersey Set to Abolish the Death Penalty

• The Sentencing Law and Policy blog has reported that the New Jersey legislature has voted to outlaw the death penalty in the state. The governor has already indicated his support for the measure, so it will likely be signed into law soon. New Jersey will be the first state in more than 40 years to abolish capital punishment. While human rights law has called for a ban on the death penalty under certain circumstances (concerning juvenile offenders, for example), the UN has yet to impose a blanket ban. However, the practice is frowned upon internationally -- it is mandated that all nations seeking to join the European Union or the Council of Europe either abolish capital punishment or institute an official moratorium on executions.

• RaceWire has provided us with another update on the struggle to preserve affordable housing in New Orleans, quoting an AP article:

Protesters wielding bullhorns and shouting “housing is a human right” stopped demolition at a massive public housing complex Wednesday in this hurricane-ravaged city in dire need of homes for the poor.

More than 30 protesters blocked an excavator from entering the fenced-off area of the B.W. Cooper complex. It was the first of what likely will be many standoffs between protesters and demolition crews that are tearing down hundreds of barracks-style buildings so they can be replaced with mixed-income neighborhoods.

• The ImmigrationProf Blog has posted about the recent case of a security officer at a New Mexico high school who has been dismissed for reporting a pregnant 18-year-old student to immigration authorities. The Roswell school district has a policy preventing school officials from concerning themselves with the immigration status of their students. However, officer Charlie Corn decided to take matters into his own hands when he realized that Karina Acosta was unable to produce a driver's license. Acosta has been deported to Mexico in her final year of school, denying her the opportunity to complete her education.

• The Latina Lista blog has covered another story about New Mexico, a recent raid of the Proper Foods, Inc tamale plant.  This raid was exceptional in some ways:

What's pleasantly surprising is that for the first time that we've heard, ICE made sure that all the 21 undocumented immigrants apprehended, as they shuffled out of the kitchens from making the tamales that will be sold by the dozens for Christmas dinners, received their full paychecks before being bused off for deportation.

However, the piece goes on to request an end to work-site raids this year, in the spirit of compassion, good will, and community, a set of values that seem closer to our hearts and minds during the winter holidays:

Because it is the Holiday season, the last thing ICE wants to be caricatured as is the "Grinch Who Stole Christmas." Maybe that explains the sudden change of heart in advocating for these workers' wages.

Yet, with only 12 days left before Christmas, there is one thing more that the Department of Homeland Security can do to exemplify that it is in the "Spirit of the Season" — declare a moratorium on further raids and deportations for the month of December.

For every adult taken into custody and deported, who knows how many children are left behind?

Critics yell that these parents should take their children with them but if there is no home to go back to, no relatives who can take you in, no money to rent someplace, no clothes other than what's on your back, then what kind of parent would rip their children from the comforts, no matter how meager, of their lives here to take them where they literally will have nothing?

To separate parents from their children, especially at Christmastime, is perhaps more cruel than any kind of trauma, aside from sexual and physical abuse, afflicted on a child.

We hope Operation Tamale is the last work-site raid for 2007.

Americans Care Deeply About Human Rights

• In honor of Human Rights Day, The Nation published a piece by Alan Jenkins entitled "Our Inalienable Human Rights."  Alan begins:

Today is International Human Rights Day, celebrated across the world to mark the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. While the topic of human rights is frequently in the news, mainstream media coverage of human rights invariably describes violations in faraway lands: censorship in China, repression in Myanmar. Social injustice in our country, when it enters the public discourse, is almost never discussed in terms of fundamental human rights.

But a new national poll conducted by The Opportunity Agenda and sponsored by The Nation reveals that Americans care deeply about human rights here at home. They see human rights as crucial to who we are as a country, and they worry that we are not living up to those principles in our national policies and practices.

• The various CERD "shadow reports" released yesterday on racial disparities in the US have received attention in the press and in the blogosphere.  The Opportunity Agenda collaborated on the report submitted by the US Human Rights Network, which was picked up by Reuters in a story on Yahoo! News as well as the Dead Racists Society blog. Additionally, the ACLU's report has been discussed on Immigration News Daily and the Human Rights Weblog.

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog wrote about yesterday's Supreme Court decision on crack sentencing. The ruling, which is a victory for criminal and racial justice, allows for judges to use their discretion in imposing shorter prison sentences than the previously mandatory five-year minimum. The Our Rights, Our Future blog explains how the sentencing guidelines on crack have targeted black communities:
  

"The crack cocaine and powdered cocaine disparity is outrageous: the law sets a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence for trafficking in 5 grams of crack cocaine or 100 times as much cocaine powder.  The effect on communities of color is disastrous because 85 percent of those punished for crack crimes in federal court are African American."

• Finally, in immigration news, the Texas border town of Laredo will be setting up its annual rest stop for migrants going to Mexico for the holidays.  According to a Star-Telegram article, this year's assistance is especially important given changes in federal regulations on January 31st which will require all Americans re-entering the country to carry proof of citizenship.

"Every year, roughly 90,000 immigrants pass through Laredo on their way home for the holidays, some coming from as far as the Midwest or California. For the last 10 years, the city convention and visitor's bureau has opened a rest stop with the Mexican General Consulate to help travelers ensure they have the right documents and to help check goods headed to Mexico to quicken entry at the border port."

Today is Human Rights Day

• Human Rights Day commemorates the adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948.  This year, a number of human rights organizations in the US have chosen today's date to launch their "shadow reports" intended to supplement the United States' report on International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, or CERD.

• The ImmigrationProf Blog has posted about two newly-released reports. The first, by Human Rights Watch, details the Department of Homeland Security's " inadequate care and treatment of immigrant detainees with HIV/AIDS." The second, by the ACLU and other San Diego-based organizations, reveals "patterns of neglect and instances of abuse of some of the area's most vulnerable populations--especially Latino immigrants and the indigent--in the rescue and relief efforts" during and after last month's wildfires.

• Other immigration blogs have shared a series of news articles about families being torn apart as a result of recent immigration crackdowns. Immigration News Daily posted on fears in an Oklahoma town in which the number of Latino children attending school is decreasing after the implementation of harsh new legislation targeting those transporting undocumented immigrants.  And the 'Just News' blog reposted a Dallas Morning News article about one Texas family's struggle to stay together and to provide stability and security their young children:

"Mirian Villalobos had plenty going for her. The 25-year-old had a dimpled son, a handsome husband, a new house, and a happy suspicion she was pregnant again.

Then, it unraveled.

On a balmy Sept. 6 in Wilmer, outside Dallas, she was pulled over by the police as she rode on the back of a motorcycle driven by her husband, 30-year-old Juan Espinoza. She was stopped for not wearing a helmet, but a routine check of her record found an arrest warrant. She'd been ordered to report for deportation in 2002.

Caught in the middle: an infant named Kevin Isaac, born a U.S. citizen with a father in the U.S. legally and a mother in the U.S. illegally. Ms. Villalobos was deported.

Unable to bear the separation from her son, now 9 months old, she returned to the U.S. in November and was detained in Arizona.

On Thursday she was deported again to Honduras – without seeing her young son and now six months pregnant, her husband says.

Her story is one echoing through many families with mixed immigration status, as a crackdown on illegal immigrants cleaves communities."

• The DMI Blog has written about a man slated for the death penalty in Alabama.  While Tommy Arthur's execution has been postponed while the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of lethal injection, Arthur insists that is innocent of the murder for which he has been convicted and already served twenty-five years in prison.  Alabama's governor Bob Riley, however, has refused to grant DNA testing in the case in spite of the presence of biological evidence that would confirm or disprove guilt. The Innocence Project has set up an email feature on their website to advise Governor Riley that it is absolutely critical to know the truth before condemning someone to death.

The US Promises to Rehabilitate Prisoners, but Continues to Confine Them at Higher Rates

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog has posted a New York Times article stating that nearly "one in every 31 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail or on supervised release at the end of last year."  The article continues with the findings of a new Department of Justice report:

An estimated 2.38 million people were incarcerated in state and federal facilities, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2005, while a record 5 million people were on parole or probation, an increase of 1.8 percent. Immigration detention facilities had the greatest growth rate last year. The number of people held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities grew 43 percent, to 14,482 from 10,104.

The data reflect deep racial disparities in the nation’s correctional institutions, with a record 905,600 African-American inmates in prisons and state and local jails. In several states, incarceration rates for blacks were more than 10 times the rate of whites. In Iowa, for example, blacks were imprisoned at 13.6 times the rate of whites, according to an analysis of the data by the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group.

These statistics of mass incarceration and racial disparities highlight the fact that our government policies are failing to offer a second chance to citizens and immigrants alike.  Instead of spending millions of dollars to confine millions of people, we should invest in their personal development. In human rights law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that “the penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation” -- and the United States has pledged to uphold the values in this United Nations treaty.

• Over at The Huffington Post, Mike Garibaldi Frick has posted an interview with street artist and free speech activist Robert Lederman.  Lederman "was arrested over 40 times by the Rudy Giuliani administration for exercising his free speech and sued the city of New York to strike down permit requirements for artists in public spaces." The post discusses the way government restrictions on public spaces interfere with our constitutional rights -- and human rights -- to self-expression, a cornerstone of our democracy.

Though American democracy promotes "freedom of expression," regular citizens are effectively blocked from creative and free speech public space uses unless they have considerable financial or political influence.

Opposition groups, nascent movements, students, artists and all citizens need safe, free public space in which to communicate and develop. Planned events, spontaneous gatherings and ongoing meeting places that are autonomous from entrenched government and corporate interests are vital to a free public speech. The health and well-being of a true democracy requires free access to open public forums.

The post also includes a YouTube video of the interview with Lederman:

• MigraMatters has done a series of posts on the framing of the immigration debate. In "Illegal" is Never a Noun, blogger Duke1676 features a piece by Eric Haas of The Rockridge Institute called Losing Our Minds Over Immigration as well as an opinion by Roberto Lovato of New America Media entitled Anti-Immigrant Rage Dehumanizes the Undocumented. 

• Most recently, Migra Matters posted The Democrats' New Immigration Strategy...Sort Of.   Duke1676 makes a valid point about the uselessness of criticizing the Republican stance without offering another vision of immigration reform:

The Democratic Party finally released what appears to be their official strategy/talking points intended to counter the Republican immigration wedge.

The strategy in essence revolves around a few key concepts:

• The Republicans are using the immigration issue for political gain


• The Republicans had plenty of time to fix immigration and didn't


• The Republicans have been unable to secure the border


• The Republicans are using fear and bigotry to scapegoat immigrants


• The scapegoating isn't working

Of course there's one glaring omission in this strategy …. there isn't any sort of a alternative plan proposed.

Nowhere is there a word about what in fact the Democrats are going to do about immigration. Not even the usual vague call for "comprehensive reform that secures our border while providing a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants." And you can just forget about specifics.

In the absence of this vision, Migra Matters proposes its own strategies:

There have to be other, more complex, and comprehensive ways of controlling immigration:

• Things like adjusting free trade agreements so they don't foster poverty in sender nations.

• Things like working with foreign governments in sender nations to ensure that they not only respect human rights, but worker rights and economic justice.

• Things like examining and reforming our immigration codes to make them more practical, fair, and reflective of economic realities.

• Things like fixing our immigration bureaucracy so it can efficiently and humanely process the flow of immigrants in a timely and effective manner.

And these are but just a few of the things that should be talked about. There are many, many more.