U.S. Auditors to Crack Down on I-9 Compliance

This month, the Obama administration announced that it has created an audit office to crack down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants. According to ICE, this action is a result of leads and other reports alleging the employment of unauthorized workers, payment of unfair wages or other unlawful working conditions.

Monetary penalties for knowingly hiring and continuing to employ foreign nationals who are unauthorized to work in the U.S. are in the thousands of dollars. In certain instances, there can be criminal fines in addition to the civil penalties as well as the potential for imprisonment for individuals who verify the I-9 documents.

Talk: Solidarity with Immigrants

Solidarity with Immigrants
From
Arizona to New Hampshire

Rev. Liana Rowe
Tuesday, March 8, 7:00 p.m.
The Church of Christ
at Dartmouth, Sanborn Room (soup and bread potluck at 6:00)

Rev. Liana Rowe, a minster of the Southwest Conference
of the United Church of Christ, is a resident of N.
Phoenix, Arizona who has been working for humane
immigration policies for more than ten years.
She sits on the Board of Directors for Humane Borders, a
humanitarian organization that maintains water stations in
remote desert regions of Southern Arizona. She has also
been active with Somos America/We Are America
Coalition in advocating for human and civil rights in
Arizona. Rev. Rowe was 2011 recipient of the City of
Phoenix Martin Luther King, Jr. Living the Dream
Award.

New York Times: Police Chiefs Express Reluctance to act as "Immigration Enforcment"

Police Chiefs Wary of Immigration Role

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: March 3, 2011

As many state legislatures consider laws to expand the role of local police departments in immigration control, police chiefs across the country say they are reluctant to take on these tasks and want clear lines drawn between local crime-fighting and federal immigration enforcement, according to a new report by a police research group.

Dozens of police department commanders who participated in the report recommended that local officers should be explicitly prohibited from arresting people solely because of their immigration status, and should have orders to protect victims and witnesses regardless of that status.

The report, issued on Thursday by the Police Executive Research Forum, cites worries among police chiefs that if they are pulled into immigration enforcement, a job that was limited until recently to federal agents, their ties to immigrant communities will be eroded, with the result that crimes would not be reported and witnesses would be afraid to cooperate in investigations.

While police chiefs have spoken out against efforts to increase their immigration role in cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles, which have been embroiled in debates on the issue, the report makes clear how widespread the concerns are among commanders. Top officers from Salt Lake City, Topeka, Kan., Elgin and Peoria, Ill., Framingham, Mass., and Miami were among the chiefs and sheriffs supporting the recommendations in the report.

Arizona has gone furthest among the states to authorize local police departments to participate in an immigration crackdown, with a law passed last April. It ordered officers to question anyone they stopped about immigration status based on a “reasonable suspicion” that the person was an illegal immigrant. The Obama administration sued Arizona over the statute and federal courts have suspended its central provisions.

Despite the federal challenge in Arizona, similar bills have been introduced this year in at least 19 state legislatures. They have advanced through some stage of approval in Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Nebraska.

The Police Executive Research Forum, based in Washington, provides policy research to the chiefs of the country’s largest law enforcement agencies. Its report started with recommendations that police chiefs initially made at a meeting in Phoenix in July 2009. The researchers then looked more closely at six cities where police chiefs became embattled because of immigration disputes in their communities.

While local police officers generally have not been authorized to enforce federal immigration law, the chiefs recommended that arrests based only on immigration status be prohibited by order. They said departments should reinforce policies that civil rights must be protected regardless of a person’s immigration status.

The chiefs called on federal immigration authorities to separate out criminal warrants from civil immigration warrants, which are not based on crimes, in law enforcement databases that police routinely use to check backgrounds of people they arrest.

“I’m trying to avoid my police officers getting into the immigration enforcement business,” J. Thomas Manger, the police chief of Montgomery County, Md., said in an interview Thursday. “It’s counter to my mission,” said Chief Manger, one of the commanders whose role in an immigration debate was highlighted in the report.

He said one of his biggest efforts was to gain the trust of immigrant communities in the county. “If folks think for one second that if I report I was assaulted, the police will deport me, there will be an increase in unreported crime and people won’t testify,” he said.

Chief Manger said he would not advocate any policy that would lessen enforcement against immigrants who committed crimes. Montgomery County “is not a sanctuary jurisdiction by any means,” he said. “If there are criminal warrants, we lock them up as quick as we find them.”

Training of Trainers March 7, 2011

Each year, the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services offers a free Training of Trainers to our Academy Trainers, as well as others in the larger victim services community who might be interested. Below you will find a short description of the day. Please feel free to pass this along to your colleagues or anyone who might be interested.

2011 Training of Trainers

Hazen's Notch Conference Room
Summit Learning Center, State Office Complex, Osgood Building
Waterbury, Vermont

10 :00 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
March 7, 2011

In this 5 ½ hour training, participants will review and analyze such training techniques as:
Creating Clear and Achievable Goals
Group Management Skills
Effective Facilitation Skills
Participants will also have the chance to practice these techniques in this interactive learning environment.

To register or for more information, contact:
Rocío C. Mora, Training & Technical Assistance Coordinator
Vermont Network Against Domestic& Sexual Violence
(802) 223-1302 ext. 109
rocio@vtnetwork.org

The 2011 Advanced Victim Assistance
Academy: Training of Trainers is sponsored by the VT Network Against Domestic and Sexual
Violence, and the VT Center for Crime Victim Services.

Directions to the Summit Learning Center:

From I-89 (North or South):
Take Exit 10
From 89 South, turn Left onto Rt 100 South
From 89 North, merge (Right) onto Rt 100 South
Head towards Waterbury on Rt 100 South
At the Stop sign at the bottom of the hill turn Left. This is still Rt 100 South and it also becomes Main St. Follow Main St through 2 sets of lights. At the second set of lights, turn Right onto Park Row St. Continue straight through the stop sign. The State Office Complex will be on your left. Look for parking in the large parking lot on your right. After you park, the large building that you will see is Osgood and the Summit Learning Center is on the ground floor.

Film on Child Sex Trafficking to be Shown at St. Michael's College

FILM: “Playground: the Child Sex Trade in America”

Screening and Discussion with the Filmmaker

Monday, March 7, 2011, 7:00 p.m.

McCarthy Arts Center, St. Michael's College

While traveling to the Philippines in 2001, filmmaker Libby Spears gained first-hand knowledge of the horrific practice of trafficking human beings for sexual exploitation. She dug a little deeper and discovered that most of these victims were young children. She was further astonished to find the involvement of the United States and the degree to which the U.S. was influencing the global demand and growth of the sex-trafficking industry. This powerful yet poignant film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.There is no admission cost.

Contact Laurie Gagne for more information: lgagne@smcvt.edu

A Painful Aspect of our Work

One of the most distressing aspects of our work with refugees, immigrants and asylees is the task of identifying a survivor of torture. However, this also opens up an opportunity for that person to receive support and the prospect of healing.

A recent report from the Florida Center for Survivors of Torture points out that one step in identifying a survivor of torture is knowing the condition of the country they are coming from. They are creating a series of country condition reports in the hope of increasing our ability to recognize and effectively work with torture survivors.

The first two of these reports, on the Democratic Republic of Congo, and on Cuba, are available at the following links:

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1103672707181-12/DRC+final+final+.pdf

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1103672707181-16/Cuba+Country+Conditions+FINAL+2.1.11.pdf

If you have questions about serving survivors of torture through your program, the New England Survivors of Trauma and Torture (NESTT) has resources for you. Contact them at:

2 Colchester Avenue, Burllington, VT, Department of Psychology - University of Vermont
Tel: 802-656-5715 - 802-565-5715

Current Statistics on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking

The following is excerpted from the website of The Covering House, a secure shelter offering all-inclusive care for girls who are victims of sexual exploitation and sexual trafficking in St. Louis, Missouri. Recommended: follow the link in the second bullet point to read an article on child prostitution in the U.S.

Crisis In The United States

Human Trafficking is Real in the United States

• Human trafficking generates an estimated $9.5 billion in annual revenue in the United States. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
• There are reportedly up to 300,000 child prostitutes in the United States. And that number is growing daily. (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
• The average age of entry into prostitution for a child victim in the United States is 13 years old. (The U.S. Department of Justice)
• The average victim may be forced to have sex up to 20 times a day. (The A21 Campaign)
• One in three teens on the street will be lured toward prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. (National Incident Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children)
• 52 children were rescued in nationwide sex-trafficking raids. The Federal officials arrested 60 suspected pimps, in a three-day crackdown on child prostitution. The youngest victim was 10. (Los Angeles Times October 27, 2009| Joe Markman) http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/27/nation/na-child-prostitution27)
• 69 children in 40 cities being used as child prostitutes were rescued by a law enforcement task force headed by the FBI, which also arrested 99 suspected pimps. (Federal Bureau of Investigation: November 8, 2010 http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/occv_110810)