R&HR: United States

The Situation in Brief

While extensive civil liberties have been established for over two centuries in the United States, human rights and civil liberties began to be eroded after 9/11 as a result of the “war on terror.” This has been most keenly felt by some of the most vulnerable people in the U.S., including migrants, Muslims and Arab Americans. In addition, significant damage has been done to the rule of law and the U.S. system of checks and balances.

The estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S have increasingly become scapegoats for myriad social and economic problems and, as a result, there is an increasing level of hostility specifically directed at them. Atlantic believes that the immigration system is deeply flawed and in need of reform.

Even before 9/11, one of the more glaring examples of human rights violations in the United States is the use of the death penalty. Its existence sets the United States apart from other democracies and has a corrosive effect on society and the wider criminal justice system.

Reconciliation & Human Rights Programme Goals in the U.S.

• Support targeted efforts at the grassroots, state, and national levels to restore civil liberties and the rule of law, protect immigrants’ rights, and abolish the death penalty
• Strengthen grantees’ capacity to conduct effective advocacy
• Build broader coalitions and connections between different organisations working to protect human rights
• Mobilise constituencies in support of human rights

Reconciliation & Human Rights Resources

 Abolition of the Death Penalty

Death Penalty Information Center www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ 

Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, http://www.murdervictimsfamilies.org/

National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, www.ncadp.org/

Immigration Reform

Office of Immigration Statistics, Homeland Security, Immigration Statistics for January 2009. http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2009.pdf

America’s Voice, http://americasvoiceonline.org/

Reform Immigration FOR America, http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/

National Security and Human Rights

Amnesty International USA, Racial Profiling, National Security, and Human Rights in the United States, http://www.amnestyusa.org/racial_profiling/report/index.html

Center for Constitutional Rights, http://ccrjustice.org/

Muslim Advocates, http://www.muslimadvocates.org/

Fact at a Glance

• On September 17, 2001, six days after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., President Bush signed a directive authorising the Central Intelligence Agency to set up and run secret prisons outside the United States. President Obama officially ended the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation Program in January 2009.¹
• The U.S. executed 52 people in 2009, ranking 5th in the world in frequency of use of the death penalty – after China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.²
• It is estimated that 11.9 million unauthorised immigrants live in the U.S., and 76% of them are Hispanic. Significant regional sources of unauthorised immigrants include Asia (11%), the Caribbean (4%) and the Middle East (less than 2%).³

Footnotes

1. Source: The Torture Report, by Larry Siems, 24 September 2009. http://thetorturereport.org/report/chapter-1-origins.

2. Source: Amnesty International, 2010. http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/death-sentences-and-executions-in-2009.

3. Source: A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States. Pew Hispanic Center and Pew Research Center, 14 April 2009.  http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=107.