By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States — The Supreme Court issued a split decision Monday on the controversial Arizona law aimed at deterring illegal immigration.

The court differed on three key provisions of the law.  In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said those other portions of the Arizona law could not be enforced due to the federal government’s broad powers in setting immigration policy.

“The national government has significant power to regulate immigration,” Justice Kennedy wrote.  “Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process (of the federal government figuring out how to best carry out its immigration power) continues, but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.”

Specifically, the three provisions required immigrants to always carry immigration papers, banned illegal immigrants from trying to get work in public places, and allowed police to arrest immigrants without warrants, so long as the officers believed the immigrants were committing crimes that would deport them.  The votes on these provisions were either 5-3 or 6-2 in favor of declaring them unconstitutional, with the more conservative justices dissenting.

The justices unanimously upheld, however, the so-called “show me your papers” provision at the core of the law.  It requires local law enforcement authorities to determine the immigration status of anyone who’s stopped or arrested, so long as there is “reasonable suspicion” the person is illegally in the United States.

“There is a basic uncertainty about what the law means and how it will be enforced,” Kennedy wrote, emphasizing that state officials must obey all federal laws in checking a person’s immigration status or face additional constitutional challenges.

Opponents fear this portion of the law would lead to racial profiling.

“I know they will not be using that kind of tactic on people with the last name Roberts, Romney, or Brewer, but if your name is something like Gutierrez or Chung or Obama, watch out,” Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois told CNN.  He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.  “The express goal of the authors of Arizona’s [immigration law] is to make life miserable for immigrants so that they will leave, and a key tool in that effort was upheld by the court.”

Arizona’s immigration law, passed in 2010, was the first of half a dozen states to adopt laws aimed at removing illegal immigrants.  Reuters reports that three percent of the country’s illegal immigrants, or about 360,000, live in Arizona.  Nevertheless, most of the state’s two million Hispanics are legal residents.

According to CNN, neither the Arizona Department of Public Safety nor the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police was clear on whether authorities would begin checking drivers’ immigration status while enforcing other laws.  Questions were referred to the state’s attorney general’s office.

Despite the split ruling, both parties declared the Court’s ruling a win.  President Obama was “pleased” the justices struck down the three key provisions of the law, while Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, called the decision “a victory for the rule of law.”  She also assured that police engaged in racial profiling would be punished.

Among those upset with the Court’s decision was Justice Antonin Scalia, who read an angry dissent from the bench.  He said he would have upheld the entire Arizona law.

“[T]o say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind,” Scalia said in reference to Obama’s recent executive order stopping deportation for certain young people in the United States illegally.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case, presumably because she had worked on it as Obama’s solicitor general.

For further information, please see:

The Supreme Court — Opinion, Arizona v. United States — 25 June 2012

The Associated Press — Court Hampers Romney’s Plea to Hispanics — 25 June 2012

CNN — Supreme Court Mostly Rejects Arizona Immigration Law; Gov says ‘Heart’ Remains — 25 June 2012

The New York Times — Blocking Parts of Arizona Law, Justices Allow its Centerpiece — 25 June 2012

Reuters — Supreme Court Has Split Verdict on Arizona Immigration Law — 25 June 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HAVANA, Cuba — A Cuban human rights organization reported Thursday that the Cuban government arrested more than 400 people for political reasons during the month of May.

The opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said there were at least 423 arbitrary arrests last month, part of what it calls a “disturbing” trend.

“The Cuban government has among the highest number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in the world,” said activist-leader Elizardo Sanchez in the commission’s monthly report, according to Fox News Latino.

The report came less than a day after police released Cuban opposition leader Jorge Luis García Pérez amid U.S. demands for his release.

Many dissidents believe Cuban authorities arrested García Pérez because of his testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee about recent harassment of oppositionists in Cuba.  Police arrested García Pérez within 48 hours of his testimony, which happened via teleconference from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Reports quickly surfaced that García Pérez was beaten by Cuban authorities.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “An activist who was with (García Pérez) at the jail said that police pumped pepper spray into his mouth until he lost consciousness.  He was later taken away to a detention center, and his wife was not allowed to see him for more than three days.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was among those denouncing the beating of García Pérez and accusing Cuba of retaliation.

“I want to be crystal clear that I strongly condemn any efforts to intimidate Mr. Perez or any other Cuban citizen into silence,” Kerry was quoted as saying in the Charlotte Observer.  “I echo the calls of my Senate colleagues, demanding an end to repression in Cuba and urging international observers to conduct and investigation into his detention.”

The Miami Herald reports criticism has grown in recent days because President Raúl Castro has increased efforts to block opposition plans to honor political prisoners on Father’s Day this Sunday.  The government has reportedly blocked cell phones of several dissidents so they cannot communicate with supporters or journalists.

“These actions highlight once again the repressive nature of the Cuban government,” said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, “particularly with regard to citizens who peacefully express opposite points of view.”

For the opposition Commission on Human Rights, however, they continue to speak out.  The group also said Thursday that the government released data on Cuba’s prison population for the first time in 50 years.  The official number of inmates stands at 57,337, but the commission estimates the total may reach 70,000.

Sanchez and his organization are calling on Cuba to open its jails to inspection by international organizations, including the Red Cross.

For further information, please see:

Fox News Latino — Commission Reports 423 Political Arrests in Cuba Last May — 14 June 2012

The Miami Herald — Speaking Truth to Cuba’s Despots — 14 June 2012

The Miami Herald — Cuban Opposition Leader Jorge Luis García Pérez Released by Police — 13 June 2012

The Wall Street Journal — Cuban Payback — 13 June 2012

The Charlotte Observer — Dissidents, US Denounce Cuba on Man’s Beating — 12 June 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

LOS ANGELES, California — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to right a 70-year-old wrong.

The supervisors unanimously repealed a 1942 resolution that supported the internment of Japanese Americans at the start of World War II.

“We were imprisoned behind barbed wire fences when there were no charges, no trial,” former “Star Trek” actor George Takei told the Los Angeles Daily News.  He gave a moving presentation to the board supporting the repeal about his time in the camps when he was only five years old.

“It still stank of horse manure,” he said of the stables at Santa Anita Park, a thoroughbred racetrack, where he, his parents, and two siblings were housed.  “My mother said it was her most humiliating and degrading experience up to that point, but more were to follow.”

Takei’s family was among the 17,000 who lived at the camp for several months before they were shipped to internment camps in northern California and southeast Arkansas.

“Our only crime was looking like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor,” he said.

The board passed the resolution shortly after Japan’s surprise military attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The bombing directly led to the American entry into World War II.  At the time, the board hoped its resolution would urge President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move forward with the internment camps because the board felt it was difficult “if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens.

Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, placing roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps for up to three years.  Nearly a third of them were in Los Angeles County.  Thousands of people with German or Italian ancestry were also placed in the camps.

“The internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry was, no doubt, a low point in American history,” said Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who introduced the motion to rescind the old resolution.  “To ignore this and leave it as unfinished business is essentially to trivialize it, and we choose not to trivialize this travesty.”

Over the weekend, many Japanese Americans, who once were housed at Santa Anita Park, gathered there to reflect on the struggles and foster inspiration and healing.

“Every family that was put in the camps has a wide range of emotions,” event organizer Wendy Fujihara Anderson.  “My parents never talked about the camps.”

President Gerald Ford proclaimed in 1976 that Roosevelt’s executive order officially ended when the war did.  President George H. W. Bush issued an official apology in 1989.

Many who supported the board’s repeal said it was a long time coming, and a significant one at that.

“We (now) can face the future having extracted important lessons from our democracy,” Takei said.

For further information, please see:

CNN — L.A. County Board Repeals Support of WWII Japanese Internment — 6 June 2012

Contra Costa Times — Supervisors Repeal 1942 Act Supporting Japanese-American Internment — 6 June 2012

Los Angeles Times — County Supervisors Rescind 1942 Japanese American Internment Vote — 6 June 2012

Los Angeles Daily News — L.A. County Supervisors to Repeal 1942 Resolution Supporting Internment of Japanese Americans — 4 June 2012

San Gabriel Valley Tribune — Japanese Internment Recalled in Santa Anita; Heroes of Era Honored — 4 June 2012

ArcadiaPatch — Japanese-American Internment Camp Victims Remembered, Honored — 3 June 2012