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HUMAN RIGHTS

HUMAN RIGHTS-MIGRATION-TRAFFICKING-SLAVERY-CIVIL RIGHTS

Situation Report: Remain in Mexico (2020)

By Hope Border Institute

Remain in Mexico represents a new level of assault on migrants, our binational communities and our country’s commitment to asylum. But it is also a piece with the long legacy of racism at the border and a national history of immigrant scapegoating. This situation report documents the real impacts of Remain in Mexico on migrants in Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, TX.

El Paso: Hope Border Institute, 2020. 18p.

Witness to Forced Migration: The Paradox of Resilience

By Mark Lusk

Hope Border Institute is proud to present “Witness to Forced Migration: The Paradox of Resilience,” a new report by Dr. Mark Lusk, professor emeritus of social work at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), and Georgina Sanchez Garcia, psychologist and Ph.D. candidate at UTEP.

Based on years of research into the lived experiences of migrants and refugees, the piece highlights the ways that people dealing with trauma and a broken immigration system build resilience and strength and find meaning in the midst of suffering. It also underscores the structural causes behind forced migration, including poverty and state failure to shield people from violence.

El Paso: Hope Border Institute, 2021. 36p.

Pain as Strategy: The Violence of U.S>-Mexico Immigration Enforcement and Texas’ Operation Lone Star against People on the Move in El Paso-Ciudad Juárez

By Jesus de la Torre, Blanca Navarrete and Diana Solis

On June 4, 2024, President Biden announced the Proclamation on Securing the Border. Together with the accompanying Interim Final Rule (IFR), the administration imposed a suspension of normal asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border when the sevenday average of encounters with migrants by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reached 2,500. This executive action significantly limits the chances of bona fide asylum seekers to present their protection claims and increases the chances of forced removal. These changes add to an already extensive list of actions which the administration has taken to significantly weaken the framework of asylum protection at the border, especially for those unable to access the 1,450 CBP One app appointments allotted daily In the State of Texas, these actions also come against the backdrop of Governor Greg Abbott’s parallel immigration enforcement operation, known as Operation Lone Star (OLS), which first began in March 2021. Since its implementation, OLS has led to harrowing levels of cruelty at the Texas-Mexico border. An obscene amount of dangerous concertina wire fortifies the border, National Guard soldiers fire projectiles at families stranded at the border wall, and the Texas Department of Public Safety regularly engages in deadly high-speed chases in border communities. In the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez region, many migrants who arrive at the Mexico-Texas border find themselves in a state of dangerous limbo, able to access safety neither in the United States nor in Mexico. In recent years, Mexico has also taken increasingly drastic action to militarize its border cities and migration routes, detaining up to thousands of migrating persons per day and reaching an unseen level of 1.4 million enforcement encounters in the first five months of 2024. At the U.S. request, Mexico also accepts nationals from third countries who have been deported from the U.S. Abuse of persons in immigrant detention in Mexico is widespread. In order to avoid detention, families seeking safety must maneuver through a terrain of omnipresent violence from statesanctioned unscrupulous criminal groups, who extort, kidnap and kill them. This report sheds light on the reality of people on the move in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez region under the layered pressures of the recent Interim Final Rule; the Biden administration’s existing Circumvention of Lawful Pathways Rule (known as the ‘Asylum Ban’ and implemented in May 2023); Texas’ Operation Lone Star; and Mexico’s complex of immigration enforcement operations and systematic criminal exploitation of migrants. This report relies on in-person observations made during the course of HOPE’s medical interventions with migrants at the border wall between May and June 2024. It also draws from an analysis of joint U.S.- Mexican migration policies and monitoring exercises in temporary and permanent shelters and critical transportation infrastructures in Ciudad Juárez between 2023 and 2024. It is complemented by Jesuit Refugee Service Mexico data obtained during interviews with 841 family units and 2,278 individuals between June 2020 and May 2024. Although interrelated, this report presents the impacts of a multilayered border in El Paso-Ciudad Juárez in three sections: the impacts of Mexican enforcement actions before arriving to and while in Ciudad Juárez; the impacts of Texas’ Operation Lone Star at the border wall; and the impacts of the U.S. asylum bans. It also unmasks how criminal organizations prey on those who migrate while they wait in Ciudad Juárez. We conclude with critical immigration policy recommendations for the future U.S. and Mexican administrations.

El Paso: Hope Border Institute and Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción. 2024. 27p.

Coercion and Wage Labour: Exploring work relations through history and art

Edited by Anamarija Batista, Viola Franziska Müller and Corinna Peres

Coercion and Wage Labour presents novel histories of people who experienced physical, social, political or cultural compulsion in the course of paid work. Broad in scope, the chapters examine diverse areas of work including textile production, war industries, civil service and domestic labour, in contexts from the Middle Ages to the present day. They demonstrate that wages have consistently shaped working people’s experiences, and failed to protect workers from coercion. Instead, wages emerge as versatile tools to bind, control, and exploit workers. Remuneration mirrors the distribution of power in labour relations, often separating employers physically and emotionally from their employees, and disguising coercion. The book makes historical narratives accessible for interdisciplinary audiences. Most chapters are preceded by illustrations by artists invited to visually conceptualise the book’s key messages and to emphasise the presence of the body and landscape in the realm of work. In turn, the chapter texts reflect back on the artworks, creating an intense intermedial dialogue that offers mutually relational ‘translations’ and narrations of labour coercion. Other contributions written by art scholars discuss how coercion in remunerated labour is constructed and reflected in artistic practice. The collection serves as an innovative and creative tool for teaching, and raises awareness that narrating history is always contingent on the medium chosen and its inherent constraints and possibilities. Praise for Coercion and Wage Labour This is a pioneering volume. It makes a well-founded break with the widespread misconception that wage labour is by definition free from coercion. The 14 historical case studies cover a vast geographical area and review a long time period. Together, they lead to the conclusion that wage labourers too were subject to many forms of coercion and that usually their “freedom” was and is only relative. But something else makes this book special: throughout the text there are artistic illustrations that enter into a dialogue with the individual chapters and create an inspiring interaction that complements the volume’s interdisciplinary nature.' Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam

London: UCL Press, 2024. 405p.

Taking Vulnerabilities to Labour Exploitation Seriously: A Critical Analysis of Legal and Policy Approaches and Instruments in Europe

By Letizia Palumbo

This open access book intends to contribute to the debate on migrant labour exploitation by exploring the extent to which the EU and the European countries provide a standard for protecting migrant workers. It moves from a socio-legal and theoretical perspective and builds on critical studies on vulnerability, exploitation, trafficking and migrant labour regimes – along with relevant feminist theories, including theories on social reproduction – while also drawing on extensive fieldwork. By mobilising the concept of ‘situational vulnerabilities’, the book critically investigates the assemblage and interaction of factors creating and amplifying migrant workers’ vulnerabilities to exploitation in the key sectors of agriculture and domestic work. The aim is to highlight how situations of vulnerability to exploitation are generated and exacerbated by relevant legal and policy frameworks, underlining and questioning the tensions, continuities, and ambiguities between different regimes, such as the regimes regulating labour migration and those intended to combat severe exploitation. While at national level the focus is on relevant Italian legal and policy instruments and approaches, the book also offers a comparative look at those adopted in the UK. This critical analysis considers labour exploitation both in its systemic dimension and as a continuum. It sheds lights on how forms of exploitation are associated with different ‘situational’ vulnerabilities produced by the interplay of personal and structural factors in line with a gender and intersectional approach. By engaging an analysis of the ways in which the concepts of exploitation and vulnerability are addressed and formulated in various international, European, and national legal and policy instruments, the study reveals the limitations and ambiguities of applicable legislation and policies. The book is a great resource for students and academics in the field as well as legal practitioners and policymakers interested in human rights, migration studies, labour rights, labour exploitation, and gender related issues.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2024. 323p.

Briefing - Human trafficking: The gender dimension - 26-11-2024

By Martina Prpic; Graphics: Giulio Sabbati

Human trafficking is a serious crime and a violation of human rights. It has been on the rise because of increasing mobility, the spread of internet use and the generally low risks and high profit involved. The true extent of the problem can only be estimated, as complete statistics are not available and data are difficult to collect. However, even without exact numbers, it can be observed that a victim's gender influences the likelihood, manner and purpose of their being exploited. Available data on the prevalence of human trafficking show that most victims are women and girls, although men and boys are registered as victims in increasing numbers, as are transgender people. Sexual exploitation is by far the number one purpose of trafficking in women, while forced labour is the main purpose of trafficking in male victims. The leading factors that contribute to trafficking in women are their vulnerability, particularly as a consequence of violence, and demand for their sexual services. Traffickers usually exploit the dire economic situation of people searching for a better life abroad. The internet plays an important role, as does migrant smuggling. Sex trafficking also has an impact on how EU Member States legislate for prostitution, as authorities are aware that many people may not engage in prostitution willingly. The EU has adopted key instruments to tackle trafficking in human beings. In line with international standards, these instruments take a victim-centred approach and recognise that support and protection of victims, as well as prevention, should be gender-specific. In the most recent legislative instruments, the crime's digital dimension has been given more attention. The European Parliament is playing an important part in shaping EU policies in the field, and has pushed for more progress. This updates a briefing written by Anja Radjenovic and Sofija Voronova in 2016.

Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2024. 10p.

Child Migrants: Irregular Entry and Asylum

By Györgyi Mácsai and Maria-Margarita Mentzelopoulou

Child migration takes many forms, from family reunification and moving in the hope of finding a better life to forced and traumatic migration caused by conflict, poverty or climate change. Overall, the number of migrant children has been rising globally since the turn of the century. In 2020, there were an estimated 35.5 million international migrant children globally, the largest number ever recorded. This infographic focuses exclusively on forced and irregular movements of migrant children to the EU. According to Eurostat, on 1 January 2023 around 7.4 million children in the EU under the age of 18 did not have the citizenship of their country of residence.

  Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2024. 6p.

Disrespected, disregarded and discarded: workplace exploitation, sexual harassment, and the experience of migrant women living in Australia on temporary visas

By Unions NSW

This report on workplace exploitation and the experience of migrant women living in Australia on temporary visas identifies an unacceptable level of sexual harassment, exacerbated by visa status, and calls for immediate policy action. The report makes recommendations to create a safer and more equitable working environment for migrant women.

The study underscores the need to implement policy changes that target intersecting issues experienced by migrant women in Australia. Migrant women on temporary visas are forced to endure sexual harassment in silence due to numerous factors, including uncertainty regarding their immigration status, precarious work, and racial and gender workplace discrimination. The research also underscores the need to allocate more resources to developing services to provide advice, education, and training to empower migrant women to report sexual harassment.

Key findings

  • 51% of respondents reported having experienced sexual harassment at work.

  • Sexual harassment was commonly reported in the construction, hospitality, horticulture, retail, and cleaning industries.

  • 82% of respondents who worked in the construction industry experienced sexual harassment.

  • Participants experienced a range of repercussions when they tried to defend themselves, rejected the behaviour or reported the harasser’s conduct.

  • 48% working in the construction and horticulture industries decided to leave their job because they felt unsafe.

  • 50% of those who experienced workplace sexual harassment were concerned that reporting could result in losing their job, and 75% did not report the incident.

Recommendations

  1. Migrant worker centres should be established in each state.

  2. Culturally appropriate education and training should be developed in each state in collaboration with migrant worker groups.

  3. Implement a legal framework and policies to protect migrant women.

  4. Develop reporting pathways that reflect the needs of migrant women.

  5. Introduce reforms to ensure migrant women have access to existing legal avenues to address sexual harassment.

  6. Facilitate migrant women's access to employment opportunities.

  7. Provide temporary migrant women with visa protections to ensure they can report sexual harassment without fear of visa cancellations or other negative impacts to their immigration status.

  8. Remove the requirement for working holiday makers to undertake ‘specified work’ in regional areas.

  9. Remove the working hours cap on student visas.

Sydney: Unions NSW, 2024. 56p.

Suffering at the Margins: Applying Disability Critical Race Studies to Human Trafficking in the United States

By Rachel Rein

This Note explores human trafficking in the United States through Disability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit). First, the Note offers background on trafficking and applicable federal law. The Note shows that not only does trafficking disable people, but that people with preexisting disabilities are especially at risk for trafficking. Next, the Note indicates that trafficking law follows a Law-and-Order framework that retraumatizes marginalized survivors. Then, the Note introduces DisCrit and justifies its use for anti-trafficking advocacy. Finally, the Note applies DisCrit. By looking at trafficking law through DisCrit, it becomes clear that trafficking law must work with—not against—survivors to end human suffering.

42 Colum. J. Gender & L. 183 (2022).

Legal Limbo as Subordination: Immigrants, Caste, and the Precarity of Liminal Status in the Trump Era

By Nina Rabin

This Article describes the ways in which prolonged states of legal limbo have grown more precarious, and thereby subordinating, under the Trump administration. Liminal forms of status have long been a feature of U.S. immigration law. But under the Trump administration, legal limbo grew both in prevalence and precarity. Due to Trump’s pursuit of an aggressive enforcement agenda, the legal system has become so overwhelmed that non-detained immigrants find themselves in protracted removal proceedings that routinely last for years. During this time, immigrants are consigned to a marginalized existence that harms their long-term ability to achieve social and economic mobility and integration. In this way, legal limbo has become increasingly tied to the creation and maintenance of a caste system in U.S. society. This Article offers a new conceptual framework, the “spectrum of precarity,” to analyze how and to what extent various types of liminal legal status in immigration law marginalize immigrants. Application of this spectrum to the states of limbo experienced by immigrants under the Obama and Trump administrations reveals very different approaches and outcomes. President Obama created liminal forms of legal status through specific policies and programs: administrative closure and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). These efforts were explicitly designed to provide immigrants with a measure of social integration, along with protection from deportation. In contrast, immigrants in the Trump Era found themselves in limbo due to ballooning backlogs in the over-burdened legal immigration system. As a result, at the close of the Trump administration, immigrants with pending visas and asylum-seekers live in a state of prolonged uncertainty and fear that forces them into a marginalized existence in the shadows. This state of affairs poses a challenge for removal defense attorneys of non-detained immigrants, and calls into question the due process framework that often serves as a guiding structure for advocates in the immigration system. Due process, with its focus on discrete legal events and its failure to pay sufficient attention to the passage of time, risks causing attorneys to become accomplices in the creation of caste. Instead, in the current dysfunctional and disempowering legal immigration system, removal defense attorneys must seek to counterbalance the marginalizing effects of legal limbo on their clients’ daily lives and future trajectories through multi-faceted, interdisciplinary, and community-based models of lawyering.

35 Geo. Immigr. L.J. 567,569. 2021.

Ending Forced Labor in ICE Detention Centers: A New Approach

By Jonathan Booth

Privately managed detention centers hold the majority of detained immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) custody. Coerced detainee labor in these for-profit facilities is commonplace. The practice contributes significantly to the financial viability of CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two corporations which manage most ICE detention centers, but it violates the prohibition on forced labor contained in the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPA”).

Despite a growing field of scholarship on “crimmigration” and proposals to abolish immigration detention, or on its extraterritorial application. Because practitioners, rather than scholars, were the first to recognize that the TVPA’s prohibition of forced labor applies to private detention centers, there has been little scholarly analysis of the application of the TVPA to forced labor within detention facilities.

This Article provides the first scholarly assessment of a wave of pending class action lawsuits challenging forced labor in privately managed ICE facilities under the TVPA. It concludes that such lawsuits are likely to succeed, given the facts known about conditions in for-profit immigrant detention facilities and the broad text and favorable legislative history of the TVPA. If the plaintiffs win a favorable jury verdict or a far-reaching settlement, the cases may cause fundamental changes to the current system of mass immigration detention.

Part I of this Article examines the rise of for-profit detention in the United States and shows that detaining immigrants is now a central business of forprofit detention corporations. Next, Part II describes the labor policies within ICE detention that plaintiffs in these lawsuits allege amount to forced labor and thus violate the TVPA. Part III turns to the TVPA itself and analyzes its text, legislative history, and applicability to class actions. Part IV argues that its text and legislative history demonstrate that the TVPA covers forced labor claims within for-profit immigrant detention facilities and that such claims, if successful, could transform the business of detaining immigrants. Finally, Part V argues that publicly available information, including that revealed through discovery in these lawsuits, makes it likely that plaintiffs will prevail at trial.

35 Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 573 (2020)

The impact of disinformation on democratic processes and human rights in the world

By Carme COLOMINA, Héctor SÁNCHEZ MARGALEF, Richard YOUNGS

Around the world, disinformation is spreading and becoming a more complex phenomenon based on emerging techniques of deception. Disinformation undermines human rights and many elements of good quality democracy; but counter-disinformation measures can also have a prejudicial impact on human rights and democracy. COVID-19 compounds both these dynamics and has unleashed more intense waves of disinformation, allied to human rights and democracy setbacks. Effective responses to disinformation are needed at multiple levels, including formal laws and regulations, corporate measures and civil society action. While the EU has begun to tackle disinformation in its external actions, it has scope to place greater stress on the human rights dimension of this challenge. In doing so, the EU can draw upon best practice examples from around the world that tackle disinformation through a human rights lens. This study proposes steps the EU can take to build counter-disinformation more seamlessly into its global human rights and democracy policies.

Brussels: European Parliament, Policy Department for External Relations Directorate General for External Policies of the Union, 2021. 84p.

Erased: The impact of FOSTA-SESTA and the removal of Backpage on sex workers

By Danielle Blunt and Ariel Wolf

This short article presents in brief the findings of a community-based, sex worker-led survey that asked sex workers about their experiences since the closure of Backpage and adoption of FOSTA. It shows that the financial situation of the vast majority of research participants has deteriorated, as has their ability to access community and screen clients. It concludes that FOSTA is just the latest example of the US government using anti-trafficking policy and restrictions on technology to police already marginalised people.

Anti-Trafficking Review, (14), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.201220148

The Homelessness Prevention Unit: A Proactive Approach to Preventing Homelessness in Los Angeles County

By BRIAN BLACKWELL, COLIN CAPRARA, JANEY ROUNTREE, ROBERT SANTILLANO, DANA VANDERFORD, CLAIRE BATTIS

Homelessness continues to be a major problem in California, and new approaches to addressing it are urgently needed. This report brings to light an innovative predictive model for homelessness prevention that is showing promising results. The data reveals that this approach — being used for the first time in California and the United States — reaches individuals who are outside of the usual preventive safety net at critical junctures in their lives. Timing is everything — and the Homelessness Prevention Unit connects at-risk people to crucial services and support that could help them avoid homelessness. Consider the scope of the problem: more than 75,000 people experience homelessness in Los Angeles County on any given night in 2024. This represents a 9% increase since 2022 and a 43% increase since 2018. Clearly, long-term solutions to homelessness require not just housing people experiencing homelessness but also preventing homelessness before it occurs. A statewide survey in California revealed that most people experiencing homelessness believe that a one-time payment of $5,000 to $10,000 would have resolved their rapidly escalating financial crises and prevented them from experiencing homelessness. Existing homelessness prevention programs typically include one-time cash assistance ranging on average between $1,000 to $5,000 and short-term direct services such as legal assistance. Several studies have found this approach to be effective at reducing homelessness. Yet research also highlights how difficult it is to ensure that scarce prevention resources primarily reach people who will experience homelessness if they do not receive this help. In partnership with Los Angeles County, the California Policy Lab (CPL) is researching strategies to address this challenge, including developing a data-driven predictive model that can proactively identify people at highest risk of experiencing homelessness. In many prevention programs, participants self-identify as being at risk of homelessness and are then screened into programs based on eligibility criteria or surveys that ask questions about risk factors. CPL’s predictive model, however, analyzes de-identified data to proactively identify people at high risk of homelessness. Our research finds that people identified by the predictive model are not connected to typical prevention programs, indicating that both approaches are valuable and reach different people. To test whether this model could be used to better target prevention resources, in 2020, Los Angeles County created the Homelessness Prevention Unit (HPU) operating out of the Housing for Health division of the Department of Health Services (DHS) in close collaboration with the Chief Information Office (CIO) and Department of Mental Health (DMH). A County seed funding investment in the HPU made it possible to pilot an innovative approach to homelessness prevention that offers flexible cash assistance and tailored case management to individuals and families predicted by CPL’s model to be at the highest risk of experiencing homelessness. Because the HPU is located within the Los Angeles County health system, CPL’s model is focused on people who recently received DHS or DMH services and who are observed as stably housed in County administrative data. This group includes nearly 100,000 people over the course of a year (the “eligible population”). CPL uses the model to produce lists multiple times a year of people with the highest risk of homelessness. The lists are anonymized and rank-ordered from highest to lowest risk of homelessness. CPL sends the high-risk lists to the CIO, where County staff match each person’s anonymized record to a County medical record ID. The CIO then transfers the lists to the HPU so that they can identify names, addresses, and contact info of the patients listed. HPU staff then screen out some people on the risk lists that other data sources indicate are currently experiencing homelessness and are therefore ineligible. For eligible individuals, HPU staff attempt to contact them, and, if they are willing, enroll them in the intervention. The HPU serves between 400 to 600 people per year. The intervention includes rapidly delivered, flexible cash assistance, tailored case management, and referrals to other services, such as mental health care, workforce development, and legal services. This policy report provides an overview of: (1) CPL’s predictive model, including data sources and engineering; (2) the equity of the predictive model; (3) outreach and enrollment in the HPU; (4) the HPU’s design and service model; and (5) how CPL will evaluate the impact of the HPU program in a randomized control trial

Los Angeles: The California Policy Lab , 2024. 50p.

Policy action to address technology-facilitated trafficking in human beings

By Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

In the digital age, technology serves as both a powerful tool for empowerment and a potential instrument for criminal activities, particularly in human trafficking. Traffickers exploit technological advancements for purposes such as online recruitment, victim control, and transferring illicit proceeds. However, these same technologies present opportunities for law enforcement and civil society to combat trafficking and protect victims. This report summarizes a set of policy recommendations discussed and made by anti-trafficking stakeholders from OSCE participating States during a series of sub-regional workshops organized in 2023 by the Office of the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings.These policy recommendations aim at leveraging technology effectively to counter trafficking.

Vienna: OSCE, 2024. 22p.

Encampments and Legal Obligations: Evolving Rights and Relationships

By Alexandra Flynn, Estair van Wagner, Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark

Encampments are a vivid illustration of the failure of governments in Canada to meet their human rights obligations to ensure everyone has access to adequate housing. The 2020-2022 point-in-time count showed a 20% increase in homelessness overall and an 88% increase in unsheltered homelessness from 2018. The right to housing is inherently linked with the fulfillment of other human rights and with basic human dignity. Thus, where the right to housing is violated, other human rights are often violated. Advocacy for the human rights of encampment residents then necessarily implicates a wider set of human rights. Legal advocacy is therefore a necessary part of a broader movement to realize human rights for all people. Canadian jurisprudence has centered on the right to life, liberty and security of the person protected by section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, interpreted as freedom from government actions such as encampment removals. However, the rights involved draw from other sources of laws, including Indigenous and international legal frameworks. In this report we focus on the existing case law and legal strategies. Our objective is to identify arguments used to date, as well as opportunities for future legal advocacy on the issue of encampments.

Given the context of colonial dispossession and the vast overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in the unhoused population we highlight the relationship between the right to housing and Indigenous rights, both from a colonial Canadian legal perspective and from an Indigenous legal perspective. While we point to opportunities to engage with legal tools within the Canadian colonial legal system where they may be strategic and useful, we acknowledge the limitations of these tools. Therefore, we also highlight opportunities to connect advocacy about encampments with Indigenous legal orders and jurisdiction, including work being done by groups engaged in or considering litigation or advocacy on encampments. While there is limited research on the role of Indigenous law in encampments at present, in our view, this is an urgent area of advocacy to find long-term, sustainable, and human rights-compliant solutions to homelessness.

This report starts from the recognition that encampment residents are rights-bearers and must be centered in discussions on how to move forward. While it does not include testimony from those with lived experience it is informed by the long history of advocacy inside and outside of courtrooms by people unhoused people themselves and in partnership. This is critical in the context of encampments: when unhoused people claim public or private space to meet their basic needs it is essential that we acknowledge and respect their dignity and agency. Encampment residents are experts in their own lives. As we explain, meaningful engagement is the foundation of any human rights-based response. This includes respecting the structures of decision making that emerge in encampments, the trusted advocacy relationships developed with those around them, and principles of fairness that guarantee particular rights.

This report has been drafted to help inform legal practitioners and advocates about the state of jurisprudence in Canada relevant to homeless encampments. It highlights some of the limitations of jurisprudence to date and points to opportunities for future legal advocacy, highlighting the need to integrate Indigenous legal traditions.

Part One provides a background on the meaning of a human rights approach and the regulation of encampments in Canada.

First, we detail the connections between the right to housing and encampments in the Canadian context. We define what we mean by adequate housing, where the progressive realization of the right to housing comes from under Canadian and Indigenous legal frameworks, and provide a three-part framework for considering the right to adequate housing.

Second, we outline the current system of regulation of encampments in Canada. We explore the regulation of encampments based on international and domestic laws, highlighting that jurisdictionally fractured set of rules each seek to govern encampment residents, exacerbating their vulnerability. In this section, we distinguish between constitutional protections, legislation and bylaws that protect encampment residents, and those that seek to displace them.

Part Two sets out advocacy and litigation strategies in relation to encampments.

Third, we outline advocacy efforts in relation to encampments. In this section we explain the many ways in which advocates are seeking change in local policy-making, law reform, and enforcement. These efforts may - but do not always - rely on court decisions, and legal challenges are but one tactic used to advance the interests of encampment residents.

Next, we set out the case law concerning encampments, explaining the different approaches that have been taken since the seminal case, Adams v Victoria, was decided in 2009 setting out the current framework used by the courts. We explain court decisions in relation to injunction applications mainly brought by municipalities, Charter arguments, judicial review applications, shelter standards, public private property distinctions, and challenging enforcement. These cases were all decided between Adams and 2022.

We conclude by summarizing the legal framework related to encampments, with the gaps and opportunities for realizing a right to housing for those experiencing the most profound violation of that right, homelessness.

Ottawa: Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, Canadian Human Rights Commission, 2024. 56p.

The Non-radicalisation of Muslims in Southern Europe: Migration and Integration in Italy, Greece, and Spain

By Tina Magazzini, Marina Eleftheriadou, Anna Triandafyllidou

This open access book explains why southern European countries with significant Muslim communities have experienced few religiously inspired violent attacks – or have avoided the kind of securitised response to such attacks seen in many other Western states. The authors provide a unique contribution to the literature on violent extremism – which has traditionally focused on countries such as France, the US and the UK – by studying the causes of relatively low rates of radicalisation in Greece, Italy and Spain. The book explores many of the dynamics between (non) radicalisation and issues such as socioeconomic inequality, experiences of conflict, and systemic racism and other forms of discrimination. It establishes a new analytical framework for the development of, and resilience against, violent radicalisation in the region and beyond.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2024. 133p.

Birthright Citizenship in the United States

By American Immigration Council

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship to every child born "within the jurisdiction of the United States.” The 1898 Supreme Court case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark established an important precedent in its interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that it cemented birthright citizenship for children of all immigrants. For over a century, anyone born on U.S. soil has automatically been conferred citizenship at birth regardless of their parents’ immigration or citizenship status. While most legal scholars across the political spectrum have maintained that the Fourteenth Amendment interpreted through Wong Kim Ark unequivocally extends birthright citizenship to anyone born in the United States, anti-immigrant political factions have pushed to restrict birthright citizenship—primarily, attempting to deny it to children born in the United States to undocumented immigrant parents. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced to reporters that he was looking “very seriously” at ending birthright citizenship, a warning that lacked details and did not come to fruition.

This fact sheet explains:

  • What Is Birthright Citizenship?

  • The Fourteenth Amendment and Its Interpretations.

  • Who is Eligible for Birthright Citizenship?

  • Can Birthright Citizenship Be Taken Away?

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2024. 12p.

Findings from the Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery National Minimum Dataset pilot, July to December 2022

By Alexandra Gannoni and Samantha Bricknell

The Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery National Minimum Dataset (HTMS NMDS) is a national data collection on suspected victim‑survivors and perpetrators of modern slavery in Australia. This report describes the findings of the HTMS NMDS pilot data collection, conducted over six months from 1 July to 31 December 2022.  

Statistical Report no. 48. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.2024. 41p.