Post-Deportation Human Rights Project
About
Over the past decade, immigrant communities in the U.S. have been subjected to an increasing range of systematic human rights violations, including arrest without warrants, incarceration without bail, and deportation without regard to family ties, length of residence in the U.S., or other humanitarian factors.
The Post-Deportation Human Rights Project, based at the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, is a pilot program designed to address the harsh effects of current U.S. deportation policies. The Project aims to conceptualize an entirely new area of law, providing direct representation to individuals who have been deported and promoting the rights of deportees and their family members through research, policy analysis, human rights advocacy, and training programs. Through participatory action research carried out in close collaboration with community-based organizations, the Project addresses the psycho-social impact of deportation on individuals, families, and communities and provides legal and technical assistance to facilitate community responses. The ultimate aim of the Project is to advocate, in collaboration with affected families and communities, for fundamental changes that will introduce proportionality, compassion, and respect for family unity into U.S. immigration laws and bring these laws into compliance with international human rights standards.
What's New:
- Watch two brief videos, "My Asian Americana” and “Return to Sender”, narrating the stories of Cambodian refugees who were deported to a country they had never been to or left as young children
- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy wrote a letter to the Justice Department asking them to clarify the “potentially misleading statement” made by government lawyers with regard to the existence of a policy and practice to assist deported individuals in returning to the U.S. if they win their immigration cases on appeal. Read the letter and a Wall Street Journal blog commenting on this latest development.
- On February 24, 2012, ICE issued a memo on returning wrongfully deported individuals to the U.S. However, the memo falls short of what an effective policy should include, provides no actual procedure to return individuals, and does not cover individuals who prevail on a motion to reopen after having been deported. Read the press release outlining why the policy is insufficient and a related declaration submitted in response to the government’s use of the policy to oppose a request for stay of removal.
- A young man who was wrongfully deported, despite a judge's order delaying his deportation so his case could be reconsidered, was killed in a prison fire in Honduras. This story underscores why we need a system in place to return to the United States those who are wrongfully deported. Read the article here.
- Center's Post-Deportation Human Rights Project gets federal court victory aimed at clarifying a method of return for wrongfully deported persons. Read press release here. Read the decision here.
- Center Associate Director Brinton Lykes and PDHRP Supervising Attorney Jessica Chicco publish “Deportation Policy and Practices in the Obama Administration: “The More Things Change the More they Stay the Same” in Encuentro, the magazine of the University of Central America (UCA) Read the article here.
- Boston College Post Deportation Project Involved in Major Legal Victory in New York: PDHRP co-authored an amicus brief describing some such cases with which the Project has been involved. The New York Court of Appeals, in a landmark ruling, held that even deportees outside the US have the right to pursue direct criminal appeals post-departure. Read more about the decision here.
- PDHRP practice advisory instrumental in educating counsel on successful Post-Departure Bar appeal. Read about it in the American Immigration Lawyers Association publication "Voice" here.
- PDHRP 2010-2011 Annual Report now available online in English and Spanish.
- PDHRP signs on to a joint statement by NGO's to the U.N. Human Rights Council condemning the resumed deportations to Haiti. Read the statement here.
- PDHRP joins 126 other organizations voicing opposition to the "Secure Communities" program in a letter to Governor Patrick. Read the letter here.
- Despite the continuing humanitarian crisis and the outbreak of cholera in Haiti, the U.S. resumed deportations of some Haitians in January of this year. View a video produced by the New York Times on the hardships faced by deportees in Haiti here.
- PDHRP submits comments to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on proposed policy of expediting certain requests for waivers of grounds of visa ineligibility. Read the comments here.
- Post-Deportation Project Legal Victory: Haitian Deportee Allowed to Return to the U.S. to Rejoin Wife and Children. Read more here.
- PDHRP co-founder Professor Daniel Kanstroom and former PDHRP Supervising Attorney, Rachel Rosenbloom, quoted in an article in The Nation discussing problems with the immigration court system. Read the article
- Post-Deportation legal victory at the Inter American Commission. Read more.
Contact
Post-Deportation Human Rights Project
Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College
Kenny Cottle Library
885 Centre Street
Newton, MA 02459
Phone: 617-552-9261
Fax: 617-552-9595
E-mail: pdhrp@bc.edu
Practice Advisory on Post-Departure Motions to Reopen and Reconsider (April 2012). Download here.
PDHRP applauds ABA Support of the Right of Deportees to Reopen their Immigration Cases. Read the Statement here.
Statement on the resumption of deportations to Haiti here.
Join the Post Deportation Human Rights Project Pro Bono Attorney Panel here.
Temporary Protected Status for Haitians: Information and Volunteer Opportunities here.