News (Noticias) Tagged ‘justice department’

CONTACT: Maria Archuleta, ACLU national, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Alessandra Soler-Meetze, ACLU of Arizona, (602) 650-1854
Laura Rodriguez, MALDEF, (310) 956-2425; lrodriguez@maldef.org
David Bodney, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, (602) 257-5212

PHOENIX – Today, five individuals and Somos America, a Latino community-based coalition, sued Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office (MCSO) and Maricopa County, charging that they or their members were unlawfully stopped and mistreated by law enforcement because they are Latino. The class action lawsuit - which builds upon a complaint filed last December - is before the U.S. District Court in Arizona.

The amended complaint was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and lead counsel Steptoe & Johnson LLP. The lawsuit charges that the policies and practices of Arpaio and the county are discriminatory and unlawfully violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Arizona Constitution.

“In this country we value fairness and equality. There’s nothing fair or equal about armed deputies pulling people over and treating them differently because of the color of their skin,” said ACLU of Arizona Legal Director Dan Pochoda. “Sheriff Arpaio does not have the right to profile people because they look Latino regardless of their immigration status. His job is to uphold the law, not violate people’s rights.”

Sheriff Arpaio has made no secret that he believes physical appearance alone is sufficient reason to stop and question individuals regarding their immigration status. Arpaio has also touted the fact that he has directed his deputies to target people they perceive as immigrants in so-called “crime suppression sweeps” in Latino neighborhoods and areas where Latinos work as day laborers.

MCSO’s rampant racial profiling has created a culture of fear in Maricopa County. Latinos in the community have good reason to worry that a trip to the grocery store or to work will end with interrogation by armed officers on the roadside and possible incarceration at the county jail.

One plaintiff in the coalition’s lawsuit, Manuel Nieto, Jr., a U.S. citizen, was unlawfully stopped and detained in front of his family’s auto repair shop after police heard him listening to music in Spanish.

“It was very humiliating to be handcuffed in front of my family’s business, in front of customers and neighbors,” said Nieto. “It’s not a crime to be Latino or listen to a Spanish-language radio station but you wouldn’t know that by the way Sheriff Joe and his posse treat people.”

David J. Bodney, an attorney with Steptoe & Johnson LLP, said, “At the sheriff’s hand, an atmosphere of fear and hostility has swept across the valley. It takes courage and commitment for these individual plaintiffs to come forward in the name of equal justice under law to stop this discriminatory treatment for everyone who lives here.”

Maricopa County residents and local officials alike have complained that the conduct of the sheriff and his office go well beyond the scope of the MCSO’s legal authority and far too often results in the harassment of Latinos. Many complain that the sheriff’s obsession with enforcing federal immigration law has come at the expense of his office pursuing serious criminal matters.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon has denounced Sheriff Arpaio and last April, after the MCSO engaged in sweeps in the town of Guadalupe, Gordon formally requested that U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey launch a Justice Department investigation into Sheriff Arpaio’s and the MCSO’s “discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests” of Latino persons in Maricopa County. Gordon has also publicly stated that the sweeps are interfering with the work of undercover city police officers and federal agents.

“Police should not be in the business of acting as immigration agents; everyone’s safety is jeopardized when they do,” said MALDEF staff attorney Kristina Campbell. “In Maricopa County, as in other parts of the country, when local police try to take on the job of being immigration officers, immigrants and their family members often get the message that they should fear coming forward if they are the victim or witness of a crime.”

Increased attempts by local police to involve themselves in federal immigration law enforcement have been accompanied by a troubling rise in complaints of racial profiling across the nation.

“As charges of discrimination have mounted, Sheriff Arpaio has only dug in his heels, and the federal government has thus far done nothing to rein him in,” said Robin Goldfaden, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Unfortunately, court intervention is necessary for the Constitution to be upheld.”

Lawyers on the case, Ortega Melendres, et al. v. Arpaio, et al., include Goldfaden and Mónica M. Ramírez of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project; Pochoda of the ACLU of Arizona; Campbell and Nancy Ramirez of MALDEF; and Bodney, Peter Kozinets, Karen Hartman-Tellez and Isaac Hernandez of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

The complaint is online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35998lgl20080716.html

The Letter from Mayor Gordon to Attorney General Mukasey is online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/35981res20080404.html

As a fellow Chicano, I read former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales’ recent Op-Ed article, “What Latinos want from their president,” with interest. I can assert with confidence that he remains hugely unpopular in our community. Latinos have called him everything from a token to a sellout to a “Pancho” — a derogatory term for a Mexican American who exists only to serve a white man.

Also, as a fellow attorney, I was curious to read what Gonzales had to say now that he has been out of office for nearly a year. His tenure in the White House and the Justice Department was stormy to say the least, culminating in his leaving office in disgrace. I wondered if Gonzales, like former Bush spokesperson Scott McClellan and a host of other Bush administration refugees, might provide new insights into his role in history.”*

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FBI background checks of potential U.S. immigrants are slow and unreliable, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog agency said in a highly critical report Monday.

“The FBI’s name check processes are inefficient and untimely, rely on outdated technology and provide little assurance that pertinent and derogatory information is being retrieved and transmitted to customer agencies,” said the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine.

Fine identified not only old FBI technology but also “limited supervision and training, and inadequate quality control measures” as reasons for the delays.”*

Peterson says current employees smuggled documents out of the Justice Department so he could provide them to ABC News as proof of the favoritism.

“More than a half dozen career employees through faxes, FedEx, made sure that you had this stuff,” said Peterson.

Many top-rated programs were denied federal grants.

A program to help troubled teens in San Diego, Vista, was ranked number two by the staff out of 202 applicants in its category of prevention and intervention but was turned down for a grant to help deal with inner city teen violence in San Diego.”*

OJJDP = Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a Justice Department agency, since 2002.

More info

• House Committee, ABC Nightline, to Discuss OJJDP Grants
• Meet J. Robert Flores, OJJDP Chief (Underminer)

But the gap between an English-speaking city government and an overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking population has grown so wide that the federal government has stepped in to mandate that the city bridge the divide.

After a legal aid group filed a Civil Rights Act complaint, the U.S. Department of Justice worked with the city and Police Department to develop a language assistance plan.

Adopted in March, the plan is unique in Washington and is seen as a bellwether for cities with similar demographics. The plan requires Mattawa to employ at least one bilingual employee during regular business hours and to make vital information available in Spanish as well as English. It also requires the police to have qualified interpreters on call at all times.”*

he Texas Democratic Party was sued Friday by Latino advocacy groups that contend the complicated primary and caucus system used in the March 4 presidential primary unfairly diluted Latino votes.

The League of United Latin American Citizens of Texas and the Mexican American Bar Association of Houston sued in federal court, arguing the party failed to seek clearance required by the U.S. Justice Department for the so-called “Texas Two Step.” The groups also argue the system effectively discriminates against Latino voters by giving them fewer delegates.”*

The head of a Congressional subcommittee looking into complaints of inadequate medical care in immigration detention announced on Tuesday that she had introduced legislation to set mandatory standards for care and to require that all deaths be reported to the Justice Department and Congress.

“This should not be part of the debate about illegal immigration,” the chairwoman, Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, said of the bill, which she introduced late last week. “This is about whether the government is conducting itself according to the basic minimum standards of civilization.””*

Texas will have more than two dozen new federal prosecutors in border districts to help fight drug, human and weapons smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border, a Justice Department official said Friday.

Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip announced the 64 new assistant U.S. attorney posts in four border states during a visit to Brownsville that included a stop at the port of entry. He made a twin announcement in Tucson on Thursday.”*

An aide to President Bush has resigned in the midst of an investigation by the Justice Department over allegations he misused an unspecified amount of U.S. grant money intended to promote democracy in Cuba, the White House said Friday.

Felipe Sixto, a Cuban American from Miami, was the special assistant to the president on inter-governmental affairs, dealing with Cuba, Native American issues, state legislators, Latino elected officials and Puerto Rico.

Sixto was until last summer the chief of staff of Frank Calzón, the head of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba. Sixto did not respond to emails and calls to his home Friday.”*

*From: http://www.miamiherald.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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From: http://media.www.dailyvidette.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

A program along the border in parts of Texas and Arizona to haul illegal immigrants off to jail instead of shipping them home has overwhelmed the U.S. Marshals Service.

The 600 marshals stationed on the border with Mexico are dealing with as many as 6,000 new defendants a month. That’s taking them away from other tasks such as capturing escaped prisoners and rounding up sex offenders, according to Justice Department documents.

David Gonzales, the head marshal in Arizona, said “Operation Streamline” shows how a well-intentioned program to crack down on illegal immigrants can be undermined by inadequate funding and the strain it places on all layers of the criminal justice system.”*

*From: http://www.dallasnews.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Some landowners and political leaders intensified their opposition to a border fence Wednesday after the Justice Department forced the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to temporarily relinquish 233 acres in a prelude to building the barrier.

U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum ordered Eagle Pass to “surrender” the 233 acres. The Justice Department sued for access to the land Monday.”*

*From: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Should the Salvation Army be able to require its employees to speak English? You wouldn’t think that’s controversial. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding up a $53 billion appropriations bill funding the FBI, NASA and Justice Department solely to block an attached amendment, passed by both the Senate and House, that protects the charity and other employers from federal lawsuits over their English-only policies.

The U.S. used to welcome immigrants while at the same time encouraging assimilation. Since 1906, for example, new citizens have had to show “the ability to read, write and speak ordinary English.” A century later, this preference for assimilation is still overwhelmingly popular. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 87% of voters think it “very important” that people speak English in the U.S., with four out of five Hispanics agreeing. And 77% support the right of employers to have English-only policies, while only 14% are opposed.”*

Supporters of former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales have created a trust fund to help pay for his legal expenses, which are mounting in the face of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into whether Gonzales committed perjury or improperly tampered with a congressional witness.

The establishment of a legal defense fund for the nation’s former chief law enforcement officer underscores the potential peril confronting Gonzales, who is one of a handful of attorneys general to face potential criminal charges for actions taken in office.”*

Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila met with political allies in a slew of appearances across the U.S. territory Tuesday, a day before his attorney was scheduled to meet U.S. Justice Department officials who are probing the top official’s campaign contributions.

Acevedo, who has vowed to remain in office to fight any possible charges resulting from a nearly concluded federal probe into alleged campaign irregularities, surprised his Cabinet when he appeared unannounced at a Tuesday meeting and urged them to stay focused on their work.”*

“Earlier this month, the Department of Justice’s top official overseeing voting rights, John Tanner, made some insensitive comments about elderly and minority voters at a Latino forum in Los Angeles, raising eyebrows in the voting rights community and prompting Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama to call for his ouster on Friday.

But the greater outrage, according to civil rights lawyers across the country, is how the Department’s Voting Section has turned away from defending minorities that are seen as supporting Democrats — African Americans and Native Americans — while instead focusing on another minority that is seen as a Republican swing vote — Latinos.

“It may be cynical, but it may also be true,” said Julie Fernandes, senior policy analyst and special counsel for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, “that the enforcement for Latinos has been more vigorous because they see it as more in their political interest — their partisan interest.”"*

“Alberto Gonzales used a criminal leak probe to aggressively investigate the very same subordinates who were potential witnesses against him in separate Justice Department inquiries.

While Attorney General, Gonzales oversaw the probe into the disclosure of the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program to the New York Times. However, many of those under scrutiny in that investigation were likely to be crucial witnesses about whether Gonzales himself had violated the law while promoting the program as White House counsel and testifying about it to Congress.”*

“On Oct. 4, The New York Times disclosed that shortly after Gonzales became attorney general in February 2005, his Justice Department issued a secret opinion. In it, Gonzales approved a legal memo authorizing agents “to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics,” according to the Times.

The methods included head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. Some torture practices had been recanted earlier when they were disclosed after a Gonzales-led task force in the White House had given them legal sanction.

As legal counsel to President Bush, Gonzales had orchestrated the group that devised the draconian torture papers, giving legal sanction to methods violating the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of war prisoners.”

“Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has hired a high-powered Washington lawyer to represent him in investigations of mismanagement of the Justice Department.

George Terwilliger, a white-collar crime defense attorney and the Justice Department’s No. 2 in the early 1990s, last month was on the White House’s short list to replace Gonzales.”

“Jon Stewart reported Tuesday on the ceremonies marking Alberto Gonzales’s departure from the Justice Department. He began by playing a clip of a department employee saying, “When I think of the Attorney General, three words come to mind” — immediately followed by one of Gonzales telling Congress, “I don’t recall.”"

Watch the video at the bottom of the page.

“Resigning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left the scandal-scarred Justice Department on Friday, declaring himself hopeful about its mission of ferreting out crime and defending the truth.

Gonzales quit after 2 years at the department amid investigations into whether he broke the law and lied to Congress. He has denied any wrongdoing.

President Bush is expected to announce a nominee next week to replace his longtime friend and fellow Texan.”

“Banana producer Chiquita will pay a $25 million fine and serve five years’ probation for once paying millions of dollars to groups in Colombia considered by the U.S. to be terrorist organizations, a Department of Justice spokesman said Tuesday.

In so doing, the banana producer avoided prosecution for the company’s now-defunct payoff of Colombian terrorists protecting its most profitable banana-growing operation, according to terms of a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.”

“Alberto Gonzales, the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general, announced his resignation Monday ending a nasty, monthslong standoff over his honesty and competence at the helm of the Justice Department.

Republicans and Democrats alike had demanded his resignation over the botched handling of FBI terror investigations and the firings of U.S. attorneys, but President Bush had defiantly stood by his Texas friend until accepting his resignation Friday.”