How the U Visa Builds Trust, Counters Fear, and Promotes Community Safety
The 50-page report, “‘We Need U’: How the U Visa Builds Trust, Counters Fear, and Promotes Community Safety,” finds that the administration’s deportation policies undermine federal visa programs that provide a pathway for crime victims to obtain legal residency when they cooperate with law enforcement. Changed enforcement guidance, such as allowing Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to apprehend people in previously safe places like courthouses and health centers, is a strong deterrent for immigrants who might otherwise report crime to police or seek a protective order.
Human Rights Watch's engagement with IOM arises from our concern that IOM has no formal mandate to monitor human rights abuses or to protect the rights of migrants and other persons, even though literally millions of people worldwide participate in IOM-sponsored programs and projects. We began to monitor and document IOM operations in the field in the early 1990s.
June 20, 2003 will mark international refugee day - a day when governments should reaffirm their obligations to protect some of the world's most vulnerable people. Instead, European governments will meet on June 20 to debate the United Kingdom's (U.K.) proposal that promises to undermine those obligations.
Australia is the only country to grant temporary status to refugees who have been through a full asylum determination system and who have been recognized as genuinely in need of protection for 1951 Refugee Convention reasons.
Human Rights Watch urged Bhutan and Nepal to implement a screening and repatriation process that protects the human rights of more than one hundred thousand refugees of Nepalese ethnicity who were arbitrarily stripped of their citizenship and forced to flee Bhutan in the early 1990s.
The Triumph of Efficiency over Protection in Dutch Asylum Policy
Critical aspects of Dutch asylum policy violate international refugee standards, Human Rights Watch said in this new report. Human Rights Watch urged the new Dutch government being formed to prioritize reforms to bring asylum policy back in line with international standards.
West African governments are failing to address a rampant traffic in child labor that could worsen with the region’s growing AIDS crisis, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today. The 79-page report, “Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo,” highlights Togo as a case study of trafficking in the region.
Briefing to the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
The Commission on Human Rights has not focused specifically on the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees, except as a part of its work on the human rights of non-nationals more generally.
This briefing paper describes the current humanitarian and security conditions faced by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi residents, refugees, and displaced persons, and examines priority concerns and potential humanitarian consequences in the event of war.
Repression of Women and Girls in Western Afghanistan
Afghan women and girls have suffered mounting abuses, harassment and restrictions of their fundamental human rights during 2002, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.
Many refugees who come uninvited to Australia are compelled to do so because they cannot find effective protection anywhere else, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released to mark International Human Rights Day.
Refoulement, Militarization of Camps, and Other Protection Concerns
The United Nations Security Council should extend the arms embargo on Liberia to all rebel groups, and closely monitor the compliance of the Guinean government with that embargo, Human Rights Watch said today. The Guinean government’s close relationship with Liberian rebel groups is posing a serious threat to refugees’ security and protection in Guinea.
China must end the forcible return of North Korean asylum-seekers and the arrest and harassment of aid workers who assist them, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
The Turkish government, security forces and paramilitaries are obstructing the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced villagers to their homes in the formerly war-torn southeast.
Why the International Community Should Reject Australia's Refugee Policies
The government of Australia has taken increasingly aggressive measures in recent years to prevent unauthorized asylum seekers from reaching its shores. One year ago, on September 26, 2001, it enacted new legislation that extended the legal basis for its policies, which are among the most restrictive in the developed world.
The Arbitrary Application of Spanish Immigration Law
The Human Rights Watch report, "Discretion Without Bounds: The Arbitrary Implementation of Spanish Immigration Law," criticizes the Spanish authorities' uncoordinated and ad hoc application of Spanish Law 8/2000.
