Farmworker Awareness Week Day Three: Take Action to Ban Chlorpyrifos
“We started around four [4:00] to four thirty [4:30] in the morning,” one worker reported. “I heard someone say ‘it’s raining,’ I didn’t feel anything but I could smell it. I could smell a chemical smell like a garden product. I heard a plane or helicopter I never saw it but I heard it. I did have symptoms, my head was hurting, and my eyes were itchy and really watery.”
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women: The Need for Gender Parity within Human Rights Bodies
For an introduction to the Commission on the Status of Women read here
Forced Labor, Big Profits: One Dollar a Day in Detention Facilities
Last year people held at at a private immigration detention facility in Aurora, Colorado filed suit against the owner, The GEO Group, claiming that the company required them to work in the facility “Volunteer Work Program” and threatened solitary confinement to those who refused.
The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women: the Unequal Effects of Climate Change on Rural Women
This year, the United Nations held the 62nd annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in order to gather the international community to discuss the importance and necessity for inclusion and empowerment of women on a global level and to propose strategies to enact positive change.
Fear as Strategy: Trump Administration Using Cruelty as Deterrence
Several articles in the past week have focused on the ways the Trump administration is employing fear tactics as means to punish migrants. To some degree deterrence has always been a part of U.S. policies aimed at limiting migration. Yet, the current administration seems intent on reaching a new level of cruelty that is both immoral—and illegal. By targeting asylum seekers, separating children and families, and using enforcement in a campaign to silence dissent among immigration activists, Trump’s team is reaching new lows.
The Cycle of Criminalization in U.S. Immigration Policy
Last week, visitors from the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) joined us at the Quixote Center for a conversation on migrant detention and the prison-industrial complex. We discussed the brutality of ICE, the injustice of Operation Streamline, and the expansion of private prisons. But there was one topic we kept coming back to: the cycle of criminalization.
Torture by Another Name: Immigrant Detention in the United States
U.S. immigration enforcement practices violate internationally recognized human rights. They have for years. However, under the Trump administration the scale of violations has grown, with increases in mass arrests that ignore asylum claims, expansion of detention under conditions that are inhumane, and a recent spike in the use of family separation as a tactic to further punish migrants. These practices dehumanize migrants. And in combination, might well constitute torture.
Inspirational and Influential Women of the World: Wangari Maathai
Part II of the Inspirational and Influential Women of the World Blog Series
"Some of our human rights is environmental rights." - Wangari Maathai
We all know that the #FutureIsFemme :-) but we also have to take a step back to acknowledge the remarkable women who helped paved that way. One African queen, in particular, is Wangari Maathai, Kenyan activist and founder of the Green Belt Movement.
Activism in Retrospect
During the last two weeks of February, the Quixote Center was involved in actions of solidarity for Dreamers and the people of Honduras. I attended the Honduras Awareness Tour (Feb. 22) and the Catholic Day of Action for Dreamers (Feb. 27) and was equally moved by both events that called us to be a catalyst for change. Below are my reflections on these experiences.
Honduras Awareness Tour
Addressing Hate Incidents at Maryland Colleges
On February 8th I had the privilege of testifying in front of the Maryland House Appropriations Committee in support of bill HB0511. The bill, sponsored by Del. Angela Angel, is designed to track and document hate-bias incidents at Maryland’s public colleges.
Inspirational and Influential Women of the World: Nora Astorga
Part I of the Inspirational and Influential Women of the World Blog Series
"The great advantage in representing Nicaragua is that this is a revolution with principles and it bases its foreign policy on its principles" - Nora Astorga