In a newly created video, “Hidden System,” Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) documents the impact the enforcement practices that are currently putting an undue emotional and physical hardship on families and children. The video is based on the June 19 Night of 1,000 Conversations vigil and action ICIRR held at the Broadview Detention Center near Chicago.

In the wake of expanding enforcement operations, over 100 community members and people of faith came out to protest what they saw as a system out of control. This action was just one example of how people are beginning to speak out against the conditions in which immigrant men and women are being separated from their families, locked up, and denied fair trials.

The hard question we should start asking ourselves is, “What drives a person from one society to hate another person from another society to the degree that they want to segregate them, even demoralize them?” Roberto Lovato, of Of America, writes:

Among the principal concerns to be discussed during the nationwide events are what critics say, is nothing less than a “Guantanamization” of migrant detention within the borders of the United States: death, abuse and neglect at the hands of detention facility guards (many of whom are former military personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan); the prolonged and indefinite detention of thousands including children and families denied due process and other fundamental rights as they languish in filthy, overcrowded and extremely unhealthy facilities; orange-uniformed detainees sedated with psychotropic drugs, attacked by growling dogs and physically and sexually abused by guards; multi-million government contracts for prison construction and management given to high-powered, military industrial and prison industrial giants like Halliburton and the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation, whose former director set up the infamous Abu Ghraib detention facility.

It is difficult for the average American to believe all of this happening within our borders because many of us would like to believe we are courageous enough to resist unjust authority and would never abandon our core beliefs in the face of social pressures. However, the reality is, we can never predict our actions without being placed in similar situations.

Perhaps no one comprehends the roots of cruelty better than Philip Zimbardo. He is known for conducting the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, which demonstrated how, under the right circumstances, ordinary people could swiftly become amoral monsters. In his latest book, The Lucifer Effect, Zimbardo describes his own prison experiment that turned an ordinary group of young men into power-hungry “guards,” humiliating equally ordinary “prisoners” in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building.

The recipe for behavior change is not complicated. Dehumanization is the central process that changes a normal person into someone indifferent. The process clouds the mind of one’s thinking and foster the perception that “other” people are less than human. It will even drive some people to see others as enemies deserving of torment and torture.

I had the opportunity to meet with the families who were affected by the Houston raid. I have written many posts on how ICE raids have destroyed many families. While I have expressed my concerns, however, I was also grateful their problems were not mine. While I was in graduate school, I was taught it was better separate yourself from someone’s pain because it would protect you from feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

However, I have come to realize this only perpetuates a fear that if the situation were to happen to us personally, we would not be able to bear it. It was easier to keep an emotional safe distance, so we could avoid the truth of their experience. While it is natural to feel sympathy when someone is hurting, there is little sense of what to offer as meaningful support.

When I was at the meeting, I failed to find the words to comfort them. It was not until my professional detachment began to fade that I could not stop the sadness that engulfed me. To hear their stories on how ICE treated them was truly heart breaking. The underlying story is the same throughout the country. Because Congress has failed to act on reform, more than 40 states have been busy trying to crack down on undocumented immigrants, whether they are parents or minors.

I left the meeting in tears because even animals are treated more humanely. How anyone could not shed a tear hearing their traumatic stories is beyond me. Shining a light on the massive violations that took place in Postville, Iowa, this past May, Marisa Trevino of Latina Lista, writes:

The secretive and isolationist nature of how the federal government conducts deportations and immigrant detentions naturally lends itself to abuse of the system and the erosion of human rights.

The construction of modern day human zoos, such as the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, TX or the Willacy County Detention Center in Raymondville or the numerous deportation prisons throughout this country represents the collapse of a system that is not capable of making good on its promises of liberty, justice and democracy.

Under the guise of the rule of law, families are being separated as parents are pulled away from jobs, arrested, and deported. An estimated 2 million mixed families are living in fear that their breadwinner will not be home for dinner if stopped for an auto violation or found to be working without appropriate documentation.

Human ignorance in observing differences among different races has always been a burgeoning subset of other human frailties. When I left the meeting, I could not help but break down.

- they were not allowed to close the door whenever someone needed to use the restroom
- sexual harassment. women being touched in private areas in from of the men
- been told if they did not go through the voluntary deportation, the proceeding could take over a year, which would mean they are not allowed to work.
- no water was granted to them. One said when they asked for water, ICE dumped the water on the floor, saying “There is no water for you.”
- one woman fainted because she was thirsty and still no water was given to them
- before they were interviewed, they remained in a hot van with no running a/c for over an hour forced to share among 10-13 detainees one bottle water.
- when given something to drink, it was one of those frozen concentrated drink that was still unthawed.

Being at the meeting brought me to a new state of being and I have come to realize that the best gift I can give is my willingness to share their experience of a “hidden system” to others.

The same right-wing populist fears that fueled the Cold War anti-communism, rallied against the Civil Rights Movement and brought about the armed citizens militia movement in the 1990s have reappeared with an elaborate conspiracy theory about the reconquering of America – La Reconquista – the idea that Mexicans are invading America to reclaim it for Mexico.

Recently, Media Matters reported that G. Gordon Liddy, on his nationally syndicated radio show, stated that undocumented immigrants from Mexico “want to reconquer America.” From Liddy’s June 5 radio show:

LIDDY: Well, now, America’s a free country. And everyone who is here legally has the protections of the Constitution, and one of them is the right to gather together peacefully to petition government, you know, with respect to any grievance that you might have. Now, I don’t have any problem with that. What I have — the problem –

LIDDY: Now, wait a minute. Now, the problem that I have is with people who come over here and instead of wanting to become Americans, you know, fly the American flag, learn English, and so forth, they want to fly the Mexican flag, they want to speak Spanish, you know, and other varieties of illegal alien. And that’s — that is what distinguishes these people from the previous immigrants. Previous immigrants said, “Man, we can’t wait to get out of” — you know, whatever the country was they came from. “We can’t wait to get to the United States. We want to be Americans, we want to learn English, and, we want, you know, the best for our children,” and what have you. And they proudly displayed the American flag. Not so, especially these illegal aliens up from Mexico and what have you. They want to reconquer America, they say. They have this outfit called the Reconconquista [sic] or something of that sort, whatever it is in illegal alien.

The tone of the national debate over immigration is being set by organizations deeply rooted in hate. Too many people, from the media to community leaders, have stood aside with other hateful sources updating their tactics of Jim Crow for the more sophisticated media environment of the 21st century.

Millions of Americans are exposed to the conspiracy theories, either through television or through the Internet. The question is where did the “reconquering” idea originate? One possibility could be traced back to 1917 when Arthur Zimmermann sent his infamous telegram to Mexico’s President Venustiano Carranza, at the height of World War I, known as the Zimmermann Telegram. The telegram offered to form an alliance between Germany and Mexico, while trying to remain neutral with the US. However, if US were to enter the war, the Mexican government would agree to enter the war to support Germany, while trying to persuade the Japanese government to join the new alliance. Germany also promised to provide Mexico with financial assistance and the restoration of its former territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to Mexico. It was in this telegram that the word reconquer was used.

We intend to begin on the first of February, unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. [emphasis mine]

You will inform the President [of Mexico] of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves.

Please call the President’s attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace.

Most people assume that it was the sinking of the Lusitania that brought the United States into World War I. However, some will ague that was this message that helped draw the U.S. into the war. The military alliance’s main purpose was to keep the US out of the European conflict by convincing Mexico and Japan to attack the US.

The sentiment at the time, both anti-German and anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States was high – Americans where still angry over the loss of Americans lives in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 by a German U-boat and because of Pancho Villa’s recent raids into US border towns. The idea that the part of United States would possibly go back to Mexico, had Mexico complied with offer, was not very popular with the American people and did not bode well for President Woodrow Wilson.

Maybe one possible explanation for the strains between Latinos and Whites, especially in the Southwest, could be that Carranza did consider Zimmerman’s offer. Carranza assigned a general to consider the realities of a Mexican takeover of their former provinces. The general concluded that it would not work because taking over the three states would definitely cause problems and possibly war with the US; Mexico would also be incapable of accommodating a large Anglo population within its borders; and Germany would not be able to supply the arms needed in the hostilities that would surely arise. On April 14, Carranza declined Zimmermann’s proposals, by which time the US had already declared war on Germany.

Currently, right-wing pundits associate “reconquista” with El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the manifesto that is considered to be founding document of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA). However, according to Jorge Tapia, MEChA has its founding based on a conference held in Santa Barbara, CA, El Plan de Santa Barbara, El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan and ideas from other student organizations. In fact, “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán” was not just instrumental in the founding of MEChA, but it also became the framework of the Chicano movement.

In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal “gringo” invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlan from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny….With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation.

In reality, El Plan is a manifesto that appeals to nationalism as a way to achieve a self-awareness and self-esteem. El Plan never asked for the return of lost territories back to Mexico. So where did the idea of “Aztlán” come from? The concept of Aztlán began with the poet Alurista in a 1969 Denver Youth Conference that was organized by Corky Gonzales. He was one of the first poets to establish the concept of Aztlan in his writings. In an interview, Alurista said:

And while still calling California “occupied Mexico,” the poet disavows any lingering territorial claims. “People call California, Arizona, Nueva Mexico and Colorado Aztlán, but really, Aztlán is wherever we are. We don’t recognize borders. It’s more a matter of cultural/political identity. When I say this is our land, I don’t mean that we own it. Who owns anything?”

Aztlán was a spiritual concept, which was meant to unite all Chicanos/as. The reality is that Latinos are not a homogenous group and throughout the US one can find divisions within the same Latino sub-groups in the Southwest. There are considerable differences between Latinos in each State because each sub-group has their own history of discrimination and oppression. Because of this, there are consequences. Such as, Tejanos see themselves differently from those in New Mexico, Arizona and California. Maybe because Mexico lost Texas first, this probably explains why the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo is not celebrated in the state. Nuevo Mexicanos, in New Mexico also view themselves different from those in Arizona and California and vice versa, however these states have a common history, they were established from the Treaty. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
In other words, “Aztlán,” is a spiritual concept that we, as Latinos/as, have a spiritual homeland.

It is not just right-wing pundits who are fanning the flames of strife; there are prominent anti-immigrant activists such as Barbara Coe of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, John Vincent of the American Immigration Control Foundation, and Rick Oltman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform who are avid supporter of the reconquista conspiracy theory and are vehemently anti-Latino. The growing backlash against illegal immigration is creating an atmosphere of antagonism toward all Latinas/os. And many of these hate groups are eager to exploit mainstream fears.

When a society is undergoing change or turmoil, social movements can arise out of an idea that the idealized nation as being destroyed by foreign ideas. This can involve with the idea that the subversion is part of a conspiracy. In a healthy society, only a handful of people will actually consider conspiracy theories seriously. However, when conspiracy theories create a mass following, as a society, we should view this as a red flag because it is a clear indication that something is amiss in society.

Conspiracy theories about Mexico re-conquering lost territories have already seeped into conservative circles. It is just a matter of time it will make its way into progressive political circles. This not only is a waste of time and energy, but it undermines the struggle for human rights. It is important for people of all political stripes to denounce conspiracy theories as toxic to democracy.

x- posted on Scholars and Rogues

Advocates for “enforcement only” would like nothing better than to see a future in which most of the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US be removed, either through coercive means or voluntarily. This, however, is not the first time that fear has triggered the adoption of tough immigration policies. For example, it was economic insecurity that triggered the racism that contributed to the passage of the infamous laws excluding Chinese immigrants from the US in the late 1800s.

Given the history of US propaganda coupled with the general invisibility of Latina/o civil rights abuses during the last century, it is not surprising that a large majority of Americans have not heard of the forced removal of approximately one to two million persons from the United States during the Great Depression. The 1930s marked the first time in the history of international migration between the US and other countries that the federal government sponsored and supported the mass deportation of immigrants.

Now more than ever, we must look to our nation’s history, especially the tragedy of the Mexican repatriation, as the United States continues to wage a “war on terror” in response to the horrible loss of life on September 11, 2001. This “war” has not only targeted immigrants, but has subjected them to same special immigration procedures, arrest, detention, raids on homes, the confiscation of property, and deportation from the US.

Unfortunately, throughout US history, when harsh measures are done in the name of national security, it is often directed at unpopular ethnic/racial minorities. It is not far fetch to compare the current Administration’s responses to the tragic events of 9/11 to the internment of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II because the policies that were passed after 9/11 proved to be no different. Racial profiling in this sense is a tool that Americans turn to when a perceived outsider threatens to damage the status quo.

Within hours of the declaration of war on Japan, all Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans who were in the US were branded “alien enemies.” According to the US Department of Justice’s “Review of the Restrictions on Persons of Italian Ancestry During World War II: Report to the Congress of the United States,” within a few days after President issued Proclamations 2525, 2526 and 2527, 500 aliens of different ancestries were on a train with darkened windows bound for an undisclosed location in Montana.

During World War II, approximately 120,000 men, women, elderly, and children of Japanese ancestry, of which 60% were native-born citizens, were sent to interment camps. Though many Americans are aware of the Japanese-American internment during the war, few know about the wartime abuses of Americans of German and Italian descent. However, their abuses where to a much lesser extent than the Japanese.

As then California Attorney General Earl Warren put it:

“When we are dealing with the Caucasian race we have methods that will test the loyalty of them. But when we deal with the Japanese, we are on an entirely different field.”

Like the Japanese, German and Italian during World War II, raids were made upon scores of Arabs and Arab Americans immediately following the tragic events of 9/11. Persons generally were not told the specific reason for the raid because they were depicted as the “enemy” who could not be trusted and needed to be contained.

Another similarity since the days of internment has to do with the reasons to target individuals based on their ethnic background. In 2004, in “The Hispanic Challenge,” Samuel Huntington wrote:

The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture…

Whether born in Mexico or in the United States, Mexican children overwhelmingly did not choose “American” as their primary identification.

Demographically, socially, and culturally, the reconquista (re-conquest) of the Southwest United States by Mexican immigrants is well underway. [emphasis mine]

Such sentiments were echoed by influential government officials like Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, the head of the Western Defense Command and the chief proponent of the internment of Japanese Americans at the time.

In Final Report: Japanese Evacuation, DeWitt wrote:

The continued presence of a large, unassimilated, tightly knit and racial group, bound to an enemy nation by strong ties of race, culture, custom and religion along a frontier vulnerable to attack constituted a menace which had to be dealt with.

The harsh reality is that America is a racist society. Not only are these occurrences instances of racism, they are evidence of a longstanding American tradition of using racial profiling in order to subordinate and control the threatening menace of the “other.” Fear is always used to justify the use of racial profiling. It is easy to deduce the existing parallelism between the repatriation of the 1930s, the internment of the Japanese, and the measures taken by the US government in the name of national security after September 11. Almost a century later many of the actors have changed, but the situation is not greatly different.

Be it fear of the Japanese or fear of the job stealing Mexican, Americans, with the help of the media, are conditioned to fear the “other,” even when it turns out there was nothing to fear. In other words, public opinion is manipulated to to uphold the status quo and protect privilege from those unprivileged.

Approximately 60 percent of those deported to Mexico in the 1930s were US citizens; many of them were children because their immigrant parents were sent there. It is estimated that one to two million people were deported from the US. Twelve states – Colorado, Illinois, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming – all lost over half of its Mexican population, while Indiana lost three-fourths.

Several decades later, it is clear that federal, state, and local officials violated the legal rights, especially those who were stopped, interrogated, and detained but not removed from the country.

In “Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s,” Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodríquez documents the historical events surrounding that time. The mass deportation campaign of the 1930s destroyed lives. Families were torn apart. Deportees lost their personal property, automobiles, homes, businesses, and other investments in America.

Both the Mexican-American and Mexican immigrant communities were terrified and the impacts were profound. The repatriation negatively affected the views of Mexican-Americans of government in the United States. This distrust of government remains to this day, with many Latina/os sharing a deep fear and view of law enforcement and immigration authorities.

The deportation campaign of the 1930s is part of a long history of “enforcement only” immigration policies that have violated the civil rights of persons of Mexican ancestry in the US; such as, Operation Wetback, another mass deportation campaign of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American citizens. In 1954, hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American citizens were also rounded up and deported. The 1996 immigration legislation has resulted in increased border enforcement that led in hundreds, if not thousands, border deaths and a dramatic rise in deportations.

Unfortunately, recent immigration raids are eerily reminiscent to anti-Mexican sentiments of the 1930s, which many Mexican immigrants were succumbed to the worst kind of racial profiling and scapegoating. People were rounded up, herded onto trains and buses, and driven to the border. This was true for citizens by birth and those who had been lawfully naturalized to become citizens.

During Pope Benedict’s visit to the White House, April 16, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal law enforcement agencies along with an array of other local, state law enforcement raided Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plants in six states, arresting more than 300 workers at the nation’s largest chicken-processing plants on charges of identity theft, document fraud and immigration violations. According to ICE, only 91 were charged with criminal violations, while the remaining employees are being processed for deportation.

Commenting on the raids, Sister Lena Deevy, Executive Director of the Irish Immigration Center, said:

“President Bush welcomed Pope Benedict to the White House and spoke about freedom in a ’spirit of mutual support.’ Yet, in my eyes, President Bush fails to live up to his words by continuing to increase harsh enforcement measures and refusing to help immigrants become citizens. Today’s immigration raids across America are yet another example of political scapegoating at its worst.”

Currently, only a few articles have been written about the current US’ mass deportation campaign. Most are about individual cases or the raids conducted by ICE, and even those are often short, perfunctory and dependent on government sources for information. Just because there isn’t any follow up to pieces does not mean repatriation is simply ancient history.

Most people overlook the degree to which racial stereotypes might influence the public’s perception on the targeted ethnic/racial group, in this case, Latina/os. If one where to examine post-9/11 immigration enforcement practices closely, much can be inferred from ICE’s immigration raids. Of the few articles written about the raids conducted by ICE, one could easily come to the conclusion that Latina/os continue to be coded in ways that conflate their identities with immigrants or foreigners, which means they would be presumptively subjected to immigration laws.

The Latino-as-foreigner stereotype is particularly troublesome when this perception slides into Latino-as-illegal-immigrant stereotype. This view tends to associate any brown-skin person who speaks English with a Spanish accent as an undocumented immigrant. In 2006, in an operation dubbed “Operation Wagon Train,” it was reported that ICE rounded up, questioned, and detained persons based on their skin color. During the raid, ICE targeted Latina/os at six meat-processing plants that fit a crude profile of the undocumented immigrant.

In September 2006, in a series of raids conducted in southeast Georgia, 15-year-old Marie Justeen Mancha, a US citizen, found herself in the middle of a botched immigration raid when federal agents barged into her home. During there raid, ICE targeted US citizens of Mexican descent, like Mancha, solely because of their skin color. With the help of Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mancha, her mother and three other US citizens of Mexican descent are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against ICE.

This is not the first time a US citizen was wrongly accused of being undocumented. Last year, Peter Guzman, a mentally disabled US citizen who was born in Los Angeles, was deported from an L.A. County jail despite clear evidence that he was a citizen. He spent nearly three months lost in Mexico while family members desperately searched for him. Like Manacha, attorneys for the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster filed a lawsuit against ICE on behalf of Peter Guzman.

Last March, ICE agents in San Francisco detained Kebin Reyes, a 6-year-old boy who was born in the U.S., for 12 hours when they arrested his father as an undocumented immigrant. Earilier this year, Marisa Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers reported that a 2006 unpublished study by Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit organization, identified 125 people in immigration detention centers across the nation.

An unpublished study by the Vera Institute of Justice, a New York nonprofit organization, in 2006 identified 125 people in immigration detention centers across the nation who immigration lawyers believed had valid U.S. citizenship claims.

Vera initially focused on six facilities where most of the cases surfaced. The organization later broadened its analysis to 12 sites and plans to track the outcome of all cases involving citizens.

Although the number of US citizens who have been swept up in the raids is small compared to the mass deportation of the 1930s, the article went to say that there is a good possibility that “many more American citizens” are falsely being “detained or deported every year,” according to Nina Siulc, the lead researcher of the study.

It is not surprising that immigration and other law enforcement officers are being accused of engaging in unlawful racial discrimination by Latina/os. . The lawsuit filed by SPLC against ICE charges that agents violated Mancha’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. It will be interesting to see what comes from this lawsuit because it has already been ruled that racial profiling is allowed to a certain degree in immigration enforcement.

In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, the Supreme Court found that the immigration stop in question violated the Fourth Amendment because Border Patrol officers relied exclusively on “the apparent Mexican ancestry” of the occupants of an automobile; the Court, however, further stated that “[t]he likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor” in an immigration stop.

There are many circumstances that drive undocumented migration, such as the desire for economic betterment. The ebb and flow of migration has always resulted in increased tension and apprehension. In a time of a severe national economic crisis, history has shown deportation is often used to save jobs for true “Americans” and to reduce social service expenses by encouraging Mexicans to “voluntary” leave the country.

The federal government’s response to September 11 and the current economic crises demonstrate the close relationship between immigration law and civil rights. Consequently, the laws and policies put into place in the name of fighting terrorism have disproportionately affected Latina/o immigrants. The willingness of Congress to disturb traditional operations of the courts, states, and federal bureaucracy in what it perceives to be the special circumstances of immigration has contributed enormously to the problem.

Congress is only one source of American law. One can argue that International law condemns forced deportation, or exile, of a nation’s citizens and that the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (UDHR) expressly states that “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” Or that the Rome Statute, declares that it is a “crime against humanity” to engage in the “[d]eportation or forcible transfer of population” from a country.

Sadly, there is a fundamental disconnect between international human rights laws and our laws protecting our civil rights. Recently, the Supreme Court ruled, Medellín v. Texas, that an international treaty may constitute an international commitment, but it is not enforceable as domestic law unless Congress has enacted statutes implementing it or unless the treaty itself is “self-executing” and that decisions of the International Court of Justice are also not enforceable as domestic law. Although the Justices was not making it’s ruling on the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” it’s ruling does pose a challenge to the universality of the Declaration.

The US record of ratifying human rights treaties was quite dismal. As the UDHR was not expected to impose binding obligations, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights began drafting a pair of binding Covenants, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Covenant on Economic and Social Rights (ICESCR), on human rights intended to impose concrete obligations on their parties. As of today, Congress has only ratified one of the two Covenants.

Although the US ratified the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, however, the Senate attached a number of reservations, understandings, and declarations. In particular, the Senate declared that “the provisions of Article 1 through 27 of the Covenant are not self-executing.” In other words, with the recent Supreme Court ruling, Article 9, which addresses the issue of detention, may be ostensibly binding upon the United States as a matter of international law; it does not form part of the domestic law of the nation.

Rather than learning from past mistakes, the laws and policies put into place in the name of fighting terrorism have disproportionately affected Latina/o immigrants and it seems there is no end in sight. Now that the Supreme Court has upheld many racial, national origin, political, and other forms of discrimination in the immigration laws, this have given the federal government opportunity to create more aggressive anti-terrorism policies.

As a nation, we must be most careful in times of severe national stress. History has shown time and time again, the nation often has acted aggressively but mistakenly, frequently punishing minorities. Commenting on last months raids, Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said, “There is a fundamental disconnect between our nation’s moral belief that all human beings should be treated with dignity and the implementation of our nation’s broken immigration system.”

America must admit its wrongdoing to help ensure its sins are not repeated. The true test of human progress is whether we have the wisdom to see our faults and the strength to acknowledge them. Until we admit that racial profiling can never work, we will never progress from the days of old.

cross-posted on The Sanctuary