National civil rights group brings international charges against U.S. for violating human rights of Latinos

Contact: John Garcia (212) 739-7513 jgarcia@latinojustice.org

The United States is violating the human rights of Latinos living within the country’s borders, according to a petition filed today with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights by LatinoJustice PRLDEF. The rarely-used international procedure charges that the U.S. Government is failing to protect its Latino residents.

Latinos have been targeted, attacked, brutalized and murdered because of their race and ethnicity in incidents with rising frequency and severity throughout the United States.

In the past four months, three Latino men have lost their lives in racially-motivated attacks. Luis Eduardo Ramirez was beaten to death in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, in July when local teenagers attacked him, yelling racial epithets. In November, Marcelo Lucero was assaulted, stabbed and killed by a group of seven young men who had set out to go “beaner jumping” in Patchogue, New York. And, just last week, José Sucuzhañay was beaten to death in Brooklyn, NY, by men wielding baseball bats and broken bottles.

“Through our work, we see alarming anti-immigrant and anti-Latino activity and are called upon to respond to violent hate incidents with ever more frequency,” said César Perales, LatinoJustice PRLDEF’s President and General Counsel. “The United States government is doing nothing to prevent these attacks or to protect Latinos from these incidents of hate.”

LatinoJustice PRLDEF also argues that the United States’ aggressive immigration enforcement policies have fostered an increasingly unsafe environment for U.S. Latinos, regardless of their legal status. These immigration policies—which include midnight raids of private homes by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents – have been undertaken with little regard for the human rights of undocumented and documented immigrants.

By adopting these aggressive policies and by doing nothing to prevent the growing number of bias attacks, the U.S. government is sending a message to the Latino community that says ‘your safety and well-being are not our concern,’” said Christina Iturralde, a lawyer for LatinoJustice PRLDEF.

The United States has an obligation to ensure the safety of all those who reside within its borders under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, adopted 60 years ago by the members of the Organization of American States, of which the U.S. is a founding member. Specifically, the Declaration’s Article 3 states that “everyone has a right to life, liberty and security of person.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States. The commission, based in Washington, D.C., was established to hear petitions against member states for violations of the American Declaration of Human Rights. The IACHR represents all of the member States of the Organization of American States, and has seven members who act independently, without representing any particular country. Any non-governmental organization legally recognized in a member state may file a petition with the commission.

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LatinoJustice PRLDEF, established in 1972, has won landmark civil rights cases in education, housing, voting, migrant, immigrant, employment and other civil rights. LatinoJustice PRLDEF has fought for the right of non-English speaking students to get a good education, against housing discrimination in city-owned apartments, and to open up employment opportunities for all citizens.

LatinoJustice PRLDEF | 212 739 7581
99 Hudson St, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10013
www.latinojustice.org“

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