By Stephanie Leutert

Every day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers send individuals into Mexican border cities, including the city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, across the border from Laredo, Texas. These individuals leave the United States through deportations, Title 42 expulsions via the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) COVID-19 order, or as part of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which sends people to Mexico to wait during their U.S. immigration proceedings. Immediately upon entering Nuevo Laredo, these individuals are at high risk for kidnapping and serve as a source of income for organized crime. Migrant kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo are not a new phenomenon. For more than a decade, organized crime in the city has made migrant kidnapping a component of its income generating activities. Members of organized crime kidnap both migrants traveling north for a chance to enter the United States and people sent back to the city. However, recent U.S. policies that return individuals and families to Nuevo Laredo—such as MPP and Title 42—have added new, lucrative populations for the criminal activity. This report focuses on migrant kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo due to the crime’s high frequency and its systematic nature. Migrant kidnappings are largely concentrated in a few sites around the city, and kidnappings follow a similar modus operandi. In fact, the practice is so common that members of organized crime in Nuevo Laredo allegedly refer to migrant kidnappings as “passing through the office.” Migrant kidnappings also commonly take place in other cities along the U.S.-Mexico border, but none follow quite the same systematic pattern as in Nuevo Laredo. To analyze migrant kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo, this report uses a mixed methodology. The analysis is based on an original dataset of 154 separate kidnappings in the city between 2018 and 2021, involving 352 people. This dataset was compiled through open-source records and legal intake forms. It includes 65 kidnapping cases (139 people) that occurred in Nuevo Laredo after CBP returned the individuals through MPP and 16 kidnapping cases (39 people) that occurred after CBP returned the individuals through Title 42. The additional cases involve people who were kidnapped prior to being returned to Mexico and cases where it was not specifically stated that the person was expelled under Title 42 or placed in MPP. The dataset does not attempt to be a comprehensive account of migrant kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo. Rather, it attempts to shed light on recent migrant kidnappings in the city, particularly as U.S. policies continue to send people back. The dataset was supplemented by information obtained through content analysis and semi structured interviews with civil society members, legal service providers, and journalists who are familiar with recent migrant kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo.

Austin, TX> Strauss Center for International Security and Law at The University of Texas at Austin, 2021. 17p.

By Sarah Decker and Anthony Enrique, et al.

“When they took us from the border, we were shackled, head to toe. Then they told us we were going to Louisiana. We all started shaking with fear. We knew we were about to lose our freedom, our rights, even our humanity. We knew we were going to the Black Hole.”

The United States maintains the world’s largest immigrant incarceration regime, imprisoning an average of over 35,000 people a day undergoing administrative proceedings to determine if they will be deported.2 Over 6,000 of those people, a mix of recently-arrived asylum seekers and long-term U.S. residents, are detained in Louisiana, the second-largest state for immigrant detention behind Texas.3 The explosion of immigrant incarceration in Louisiana occurred in the late 2010s and largely benefitted private prison companies, which run eight of the nine immigration jails in the state, profiting off of the abuses described in this report.4

This report documents systemic human rights abuses carried out by or under the supervision of the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office (“NOLA ICE”), the federal office that oversees immigration detention in Louisiana. NOLA ICE contracts with two private prison companies and a local sheriff’s office to operate Louisiana’s nine immigration jails.5 Inside those jails, officials rampantly violate detained peoples’ human and civil rights, locking them away in punitive conditions indistinguishable from those in criminal jails and prisons, in some cases for prolonged periods lasting years.6 In some instances, the abuses that detained people describe firsthand in this report meet the definitions of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights treaties to which the United States is a party.7

The information contained in this report comes from two years of visits to nine immigration jails in Louisiana beginning in April 2022, all told comprising interviews with 6,384 people from 59 jail visits and information from seven jail tours conducted by NOLA ICE officials. During these visits, attorneys and legal workers gave Know Your Rights presentations and conducted legal interviews with detained people. Their testimony reveals that NOLA ICE officials routinely violate ICE’s own minimum standards of care and state, federal, and international law and legal standards. Abuses inflicted include:

• DENIAL OF LANGUAGE ACCESS: including interpretation and translation access, resulting in language-related denials of medical and mental health care; due process in preparation of legal materials; and protection against abusive treatment and coercion.

• DEPRIVATION OF HUMAN NECESSITIES: including minimally nutritious food and potable drinking water; sanitary conditions of confinement; access to basic hygiene supplies; protection from extreme temperatures; and access to sunlight and outdoor time.

• ABUSIVE & DISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT: including physical abuse; sexual abuse; torturous solitary confinement; humiliating and degrading speech; and retaliation against and suppression of speech and religious worship protected by the First Amendment.

• MEDICAL ABUSE & NEGLECT: including denial of medical care for chronic, urgent, and emergency conditions; provision of ineffective or non-responsive care for serious health conditions; denial of the right to informed consent to treatment; disruption of ongoing care due to sudden transfers in custody; denial of dental care; denial of reproductive health care; mental health neglect; medical neglect of people with disabilities; and fatal deficiencies in medical care.

Taken together, the abuses inflicted by NOLA ICE officials deprive detained people of due process in their immigration proceedings. In NOLA ICE detention, officials isolate people with viable defenses to deportation from the legal and language resources needed to fairly present their claims. And they use abusive treatment in punitive conditions to coerce people into renouncing those claims and accepting deportation to escape the misery of detention.

The record of documented abuses in NOLA ICE jails predating this report is so extensive that in December 2021, the Department of Homeland Security’s oversight agency, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, opened an investigation into the entire network of NOLA ICE jails, the first-ever field-office wide investigation.8 But as the findings of this report show, oversight bodies have failed to hold NOLA ICE accountable, permitting the continued abuse of detained people with impunity

New Orleans: ACLU of Louisiana, 2024. 108p.

By Human Rights Watch

Adequate housing is an internationally protected human right. But the United States, which has been treating housing primarily as a commodity, is failing to protect this right for large numbers of people, with houselessness a pervasive problem. In the US city of Los Angeles, California, where the monetary value of property has risen to extreme heights while wages at the lower end of the economic spectrum have stagnated for decades, houselessness has exploded into public view. Policymakers addressing the issue publicly acknowledge the necessity of increased housing to solve houselessness, but their primary response on the ground has been criminalization of those without it. The criminalization of houselessness means treating people who live on the streets as criminals and directing resources towards arresting and citing them, institutionalizing them, removing them from visible public spaces, denying them basic services and sanitation, confiscating and destroying their property, and pressuring them into substandard shelter situations that share some characteristics with jails. Criminalization is expensive, but temporarily removes signs of houselessness and extreme poverty from the view of the housed public. Criminalization is ineffective because it punishes people for living in poverty while ignoring and even reaffirming the causes of that poverty embedded in the economic system and the incentives that drive housing development and underdevelopment. Criminalization is cruel. Criminalization effectively destroys lives and property based on race and economic class. It is a set of policies that prioritizes the needs and values of the wealthy, property owners, and business elites, at the expense of the rights of people living in poverty to an adequate standard of living. As a consequence of historical and present policies and practices that discriminate against Black and other BIPOC people, these groups receive the brunt of criminalization. Arrests and citations as the direct mode of criminalization have decreased substantially over the past several years in Los Angeles. But authorities use the threat of arrest to support the relentless taking and destruction of unhoused people’s property through sanitation “sweeps” and people’s removal from certain public spaces. Criminalization has simply taken a different primary form, though punitive criminal enforcement always looms.

Criminalization responds in destructive and ineffective ways to legitimize concerns about the impact of houselessness on individuals and their communities. Rather than improving conditions and leading towards a solution, criminalization diverts vast public resources into moving people from one place to another without addressing the underlying problem. In contrast to criminalization, housing solves houselessness. Policies that have proven effective include the development of affordable housing—with services for those who need them—preserving existing tenancies and providing government subsidies that help people maintain their housing. This report takes an in-depth look at houselessness in Los Angeles and at city policies towards unhoused people in recent years, with reference to historical practices. It looks at criminalization enforced by police and the sanitation department and explores how homeless services agencies and the interim housing and shelter systems sometimes support and cover for that criminalization. The report features the perspectives of people with lived experience on the streets and have directly experienced criminalization in all its forms. Human Rights Watch spoke to over 100 unhoused or formerly unhoused people, whose stories and insights inform every aspect of this report. The report features analysis of data obtained from various city agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Los Angeles Department of Sanitation (LASAN), Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), and the Mayor’s office, that exposes the extent and futility of policies of criminalization. The report looks at the underlying causes of Los Angeles’ large scale houselessness, primarily the lack of affordable housing. It explains how racist policies over the decades have created a houselessness crisis in the Black community. The report also discusses the proven effectiveness of preserving and providing housing as a solution to houselessness, including examples of people who faced criminalization on the streets and whose lives have dramatically improved once housed. Finally, the report makes recommendations for policies that end criminalization and that move towards solving the crisis and realizing the international human right to housing in Los Angeles.

New York; HRW, 2024. 344p.

By Naomi Schaefer Riley and Rafael A. Mangual

Every year, more than 2,000 children in the U.S. die of maltreatment—and, in most of these cases, the child’s family is known to child welfare or law enforcement before the fatal incidents. Most Americans agree that the main goal of the child welfare system should be to prevent these tragedies—by closing the gaps that lead to children being left in the custody of guardians who abuse and neglect them. Balancing the safety and well-being of children with the rights of parents is no easy feat. A nationally representative poll conducted last year by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) shows that the public is sensitive to this tension: a majority (58%) favored parents’ authority to raise their children as they see fit, over the government’s authority to intervene—but nearly the same percentage of respondents (57%) did not believe that the child welfare system is engaged in government overreach. Alarmingly, a small group of increasingly vocal activists are trying to upset this balance by pushing a radical policy agenda that would all but eliminate the government’s role in child protection. Not only is this agenda wholly incongruous with the broader American public’s views regarding the appropriate scope of child welfare systems; it also undermines the well-being of at-risk children across the country. Illustrative of this broader push to weaken, if not wholly abolish, the child welfare system is a recent report issued by the New York Advisory Committee (NYSAC) to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “Examining New York Child Welfare System and Its Impact on Black Children and Families.” One of the coauthors of this brief, Rafael Mangual, resigned from NYSAC in April 2024—after serving nearly four years on the committee—ahead of its final vote to approve its report on child welfare.

The NYSAC report offers a litany of policy recommendations that would make it more difficult for child abuse and neglect to be reported and investigated. The report calls for a “new paradigm of child welfare” that deemphasizes “reporting, investigating, surveillance, and family separation,” and it recommends that “federal, State and Local government offices and agencies” enact “legislation, policies and practices” prohibiting “the conflation of the consequences of poverty [including ‘parental/pregnancy substance use’] with child maltreatment” (emphasis added). The report also calls for federal law to be amended to:

• Eliminate or severely restrict mandatory and anonymous reporting of suspected child abuse or neglect

• Make it easier for convicted felons to become foster parents

Revise the definition of neglect to exclude parental drug abuse (including while pregnant) And for New York State law to be amended to:

• Prohibit routine drug screenings of pregnant women and newborns

• Establish a universal basic income

NYSAC’s proposals are ultimately premised on three false claims about the child welfare system: (1) what is often termed child neglect is often a consequence of poverty, which cannot justify traditional child welfare interventions; (2) parental drug abuse is an inadequate reason for intervention; and (3) racial disparities in child welfare enforcement in NY prove that the system is characterized by unlawful discrimination—particularly against black families. This issue brief provides an overview of the child welfare system’s central role, responds to each of these three claims, and highlights the dangers invited by the recommendations made in the NYSAC report.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2024. 10p.

By Tambini Stollwerck EA, Sarikaya I, Yen K, Friederich H-Christoph, Nikendei C

Torture seeks to undermine not only the physical and emotional well-being of an individual, but to damage the coherence of entire communities. Thus, torture and state repression are used to weaken entire subpopulations. After the failed coup d’état in Türkiye in 2016 and during the subsequently following state of emergency that lasted until 2018, allegations of torture and other degrading treatment in Türkiye spread widely. Since then, the number of asylum-seekers in Germany has risen considerably. This paper analyses the reports of twenty Turkish citizens that fled to Germany to seek asylum in the aftermath of the events. In semi-structured interviews held in Turkish, we assessed the experiences of torture and state repression, psychological consequences, and the current well-being and living situation. All interviewees described illicit violence of state authorities and government supporters, especially while under arrest. Though the methods varied, there was a constant pattern of imbalance of power. The psychological impact of these methods were present after relocation to Germany and included signs of PTSD, anxiety disorders, and major depression. The reports of torture, state repression, and their psychological impact emphasise the importance for policy makers to address the prevention of human rights violations and support the needs of survivors.

PLOS Glob Public Health 4(7): e0002561.2024. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pgph.0002561

By Rebecca Gambler, United States, Government Accountability Office

ICE, within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is responsible for enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. Citing limited resources, ICE states that it cannot respond to all immigration violations or act on all persons determined to be removable from the U.S. It therefore prioritizes its enforcement actions. GAO was asked to review ICE immigration enforcement priorities. This report examines, among other things, (1) ICE data on immigration enforcement actions from 2019 through 2022, and the extent to which ICE is reporting data on all immigration detentions; (2) ICE’s implementation of immigration enforcement policies; and (3) ICE data on detentions of select vulnerable populations. GAO analyzed ICE enforcement action data for calendar years 2019 through 2022 (2022 being the most recent year that data were available). GAO also reviewed ICE policies and procedures, and interviewed agency officials. What GAO Recommends GAO is recommending that ICE publicly report (1) data on all detentions of individuals in ICE detention facilities, and (2) its explanation of the methodology used to report detention statistics. DHS did not concur with the recommendations, stating ICE already reports sufficient information. GAO continues to believe ICE should report complete and transparent information on its annual detentions

Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office 2024. 61p.

By Lucia Bird

Efforts to counter the COVID-19 pandemic have seen unprecedented restrictions on movement being imposed in many countries, both at borders and within countries. Some communities and policymakers have adopted increasingly hostile attitudes towards migrants, whom they perceive as contagion risks. Barriers to movement are therefore not only state-imposed but can also be community led.

While these measures are reducing migration and the smuggling business in many regions in the short term, they are also heightening migrant-protection risks.

Such measures are also likely to swell the profits of the smuggling industry in the medium term. COVID-19, and the measures introduced to control it are likely to increase the drivers for movement; the vulnerability of migrants at any point in their journey; the militarization of borders; and the further reduction of safe and legal routes.

As the policy environment becomes more hostile to migration, the operating risks and prices of smuggling look set to rise. This may drive out operators with a lower risk appetite and attract organized-crime groups, who are more likely to exploit migrants for ever greater profit.

To avoid emerging into a post-pandemic landscape characterized by a dramatically more severe migrant crisis and a more lucrative and professionalized smuggling market controlled by organized crime, it is key to monitor and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on migrants and refugees throughout the pandemic.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2020. 34p.

By Brandon L. Garrett

Immigration laws are not just criminally enforced against individuals, but also corporations. For individuals, “crimmigration” is pervasive, as federal immigration prosecutions are a mass phenomenon. More than a third of the federal criminal docket—nearly 40,000 cases each year—con sists of prosecutions of persons charged with violations of immigration rules. In contrast, prosecutors rarely charge corporations, which are required to verify the citizenship status of employees. This Article sheds light on this unexplored area of corporate criminal law, including by presenting new empirical data. In the early 2000s, corporate immigration enforcement for the first time increased in prominence. During the Obama Administration, this trend accelerated, with a total of 101 corporate immigration prosecutions brought, and record penalties imposed. Under the Trump Administration so far, however, there have been just seven corporate immigration prosecutions, and the only large cases have been legacy matters from the prior Administration. This Article does not suggest that workplace immigration screening and enforcement, much less criminal enforcement, is desirable. Instead, this Article explores how corporate charging dynamics may exacerbate tensions inherent in criminalizing immigration in the workplace. This Article contrasts the mass prosecution of individuals, under strict zero-tolerance rules, with the leniency-oriented approach towards firms that carefully considers collateral consequences, to shed light on internally conflicted federal policy at the intersection of corporate and immigration law. Now that the federal criminal dockets have become dominated by immigration enforcement, the problem of “corporate crimmigration” deserves more urgent attention.

360 I. II. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW TABLE OF CONTENTS [Vol. 2021]

By Jo Spangaro, Nigel Spence, Jacqui Cameron, Kelsey Hegarty, et al.

Around one third of refugee women in Australia are estimated to have experienced domestic violence (DV) and many face multiple post-migration challenges. Universal screening for domestic violence, and response, is recommended for women in priority populations and has been implemented in health services across diverse jurisdictions. Universal screening for domestic violence involves asking all women a small number of standardised and validated questions about experiences of violence at home. Asking women directly about experiences of abuse increases disclosure and creates opportunity for supportive intervention. However, this is untested with refugee women accessing settlement services.

The Safety and Health after Arrival (SAHAR) study introduced and evaluated a culturally tailored DV identification and response strategy with women accessing five refugee settlement services in NSW, Australia, four in the greater Sydney area and one regional NSW site.

This report finds the SAHAR intervention was effectively implemented by the settlement service providers. The relatively high disclosure rate, and high levels of acceptance of the intervention with both refugee women and settlement staff, demonstrate the feasibility of culturally tailored, universal DV screening and response in settlement services. Successful implementation of DV screening and response requires: planning and preparation, organisational commitment, training, translated tools and resources, staff support during implementation, guidelines and referral protocols.

Wollongong, AUS: University of Wollongong 2024. 34p.

By Nancy Foner

A comparative analysis of the U.S.'s contemporary immigrants to those who arrived a century ago. According to the 2000 census, more than 10% of U.S. residents were foreign-born; together with their American-born children, this group constitutes one-fifth of the nation's population. What does this mass immigration mean for America? Leading immigration studies scholar, Nancy Foner, answers this question in her study of comparative immigration. Drawing on the rich history of American immigrants and current statistical and ethnographic data, In a New Land compares today’s new immigrants with the past influxes of Europeans to the United States and across cities and regions within the United States. Foner looks at immigration across nation-states, and over different periods, offering a comprehensive assessment and analysis. This original approach to the study of recent U.S. immigration focuses on race and ethnicity, gender, and transnational connections. Centering her analysis on the groups that have come through and significantly shaped New York City, Foner compares today’s Latin American, Asian, and Caribbean newcomers with eastern and southern European immigrants a century ago and with immigrants in other major U.S. cities. Looking beyond the United States, Foner compares West Indian immigrants in New York with those in London. And, more generally, the book views the process of immigrants’ integration in New York against other recent immigrant destinations in Europe. Drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary research, and written in a clear and lively style, In a New Land provides fresh insights into the dynamics of immigration today and the implications for where we are headed in the future.

New York: NYU Press, 2005.

By Marie Segrave, Shih Joo Tan, Rebecca Wickes, Chloe Keel, Nuria Alarcón Lopez

This report presents the findings of research on migrant and refugee women’s attitudes about, experiences of and responses to workplace sexual harassment, highlighting the complexity of what it means to be “safe” at work and illustrating the ways in which sexual harassment intersects with other forms of workplace harms, such as racial discrimination and exploitative work conditions.

Disempowerment and power imbalances, such as those related to race, gender, disability or sexuality, can amplify the impacts of workplace sexual harassment; despite this, little evidence exists to guide government and employers in preventing and addressing the specific harms of workplace sexual harassment for migrant and refugee women.

The first report from this project, released in 2023, surveyed 701 women who identified as migrant or refugee and found that 46 per cent of respondents had experienced workplace sexual harassment. This final report from the project brings together the survey data with the qualitative phase of the study. While the findings from this report are not generalisable, they offer important insights into migrant and refugee women’s experiences of safety in the workplace.

Key practice and policy recommendations

Reduce siloing of different policy areas that seek to address various forms of workplace harm for migrant and refugee women

Evaluate, redevelop and better align the existing reporting mechanisms that respond to aspects of unsafe or exploitative work practices

Invest in safe work services external to employers that can ensure culturally responsive approaches for working women in every state and territory.

Emphasise proactive and transparent action in response to workplace sexual harassment that ensures women can remain employed and their career progression unimpacted

Extend exit interviews and complaints timelines to capture longer periods following cessation of employment so that women have the opportunity to report once they feel safe in another job or have citizenship or permanent residency.

Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's SafetyANROWS, 2024.

By Thomas Mareite

While the literature on slave flight in nineteenth-century North America has commonly focused on fugitive slaves escaping to the U.S. North and Canada, Conditional Freedom provides new insights on the social and political geography of freedom and slavery in nineteenth-century North America by exploring the development of southern routes of escape from slavery in the U.S. South and the experiences of self-emancipated slaves in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. In Conditional Freedom, Thomas Mareite offers a social history of U.S. refugees from slavery and provides a political history of the clash between Mexican free soil and the spread of slavery west of the Mississippi Valley during the nineteenth century.

The Hague; Boston: Brill, 2022. 

By Kent A. Ono and Michael G. Lacy

According to many pundits and cultural commentators, the U.S. is enjoying a post-racial age, thanks in part to Barack Obama's rise to the presidency. This high gloss of optimism fails, however, to recognize that racism remains ever present and alive, spread by channels of media and circulated even in colloquial speech in ways that can be difficult to analyze. In this groundbreaking collection edited by Michael G. Lacy and Kent A. Ono, scholars seek to examine this complicated and contradictory terrain while moving the field of communication in a more intellectually productive direction. An outstanding group of contributors from a range of academic backgrounds challenges traditional definitions and applications of rhetoric. From the troubling media representations of black looters after Hurricane Katrina and rhetoric in news coverage about the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres to cinematic representations of race in Crash, Blood Diamond, and Quentin Tarantino’s films, these essays reveal complex intersections and constructions of racialized bodies and discourses, critiquing race in innovative and exciting ways. Critical Rhetorics of Race seeks not only to understand and navigate a world fraught with racism, but to change it, one word at a time.

New York: NYU Press, 2011.

By Darder, Antonia and Torres, Rodolfo D.

After Race pushes us beyond the old "race vs. class" debates to delve deeper into the structural conditions that spawn racism. Darder and Torres place the study of racism forthrightly within the context of contemporary capitalism. While agreeing with those who have argued that the concept of "race" does not have biological validity, they go further to insist that the concept also holds little political, symbolic, or descriptive value when employed in social science and policy research. Darder and Torres argue for the need to jettison the concept of "race," while calling adamantly for the critical study of racism. They maintain that an understanding of structural class inequality is fundamentally germane to comprehending the growing significance of racism in capitalist America.

New York: NYU Press, 2004.

By Elisabeth Weber

Kill Boxes addresses the legacy of US-sponsored torture, indefinite detention, and drone warfare by deciphering the shocks of recognition that humanistic and artistic responses to violence bring to consciousness if readers and viewers have eyes to face them. Beginning with an analysis of the ways in which the hooded man from Abu Ghraib became iconic, subsequent chapters take up less culturally visible scenes of massive violations of human rights to bring us face to face with these shocks and the forms of recognition that they enable and disavow. We are addressed in the photo of the hooded man, all the more so as he was brutally prevented, in our name, from returning the camera’s and thus our gaze. We are addressed in the screams that turn a person, tortured in our name, into howling flesh. We are addressed in poems written in the Guantánamo Prison camp, however much American authorities try to censor them, in our name. We are addressed by the victims of the US drone wars, however little American citizens may have heard the names of the places obliterated by the bombs for which their taxes pay. And we know that we are addressed in spite of a number of strategies of brutal refusal of heeding those calls. Providing intensive readings of philosophical texts by Jean Améry, Jacques Derrida, and Christian Thomasius, with poetic texts by Franz Kafka, Paul Muldoon, and the poet-detainees of Guantánamo Bay Prison Camp, and with artistic creations by Sallah Edine Sallat, the American artist collective Forkscrew and an international artist collective from Pakistan, France and the US, Kill Boxes demonstrates the complexity of humanistic responses to crimes committed in the name of national security. The conscious or unconscious knowledge that we are addressed by the victims of these crimes is a critical factor in discussions on torture, on indefinite detention without trial, as practiced in Guantánamo, and in debates on the strategies to circumvent the latter altogether, as practiced in drone warfare and its extrajudicial assassination program.

Brooklyn, NY: punctum books, 2017. 276p.

By Peter Nagle and Richard Summerrell

On 10 August 1987 the then Prime Minister, the Honourable R J L Hawke, announced the formation of a Royal Commission to investigate the causes of deaths of Aboriginals while held in State and Territory jails. The Royal Commission was established in response to a growing public concern that deaths in custody of Aboriginal people were too common and poorly explained. This Commonwealth Royal Commission was the 108th since Federation. The establishment of the Commission and the appointment of the Honourable Mr Justice Muirhead as Royal Commissioner had the support of all State and Territory governments….Access to records collected or created by government has always been subject to opposing pressures. Access to records is seen as providing a check on arbitrary government power, but privacy considerations and other sensitivities also need to be protected….”

National Archives of Australia. 1996. 85p.

By Maren Machles

“This is one of 16 deaths in custody detailed in a report the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) commissioned in 2021. The details of what took place and who this individual was are vague because the report was heavily redacted. The agency hired an outside contractor to review the investigations of 16 deaths that took place in a handful of the more than 90 detention centers the BIA operates and/or funds on tribal lands. The BIA has yet to publish the report. However, POGO’s analysis of a redacted version of the report, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), raises troubling questions about the BIA’s compliance with federal requirements around reporting deaths in custody, whether those deaths are being adequately counted and investigated by the agency, and whether proposed reforms would address why these deaths occur in the first place.”

Program on Government Oversight. POGO. June 27. 2023. 9p.

 By: Lauren Dunton,  Jill Khadduri,  Kimberly Burnett,  Nichole Fiore,  Will Yetvin 

The number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, defined in this report as living in a place not meant for human habitation, has grown to more than 200,000 in recent years. That increase is driven by individuals who are not experiencing chronic homelessness. While not all individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness reside in encampments, encampments have become emblematic of the rise in unsheltered homelessness. In particular, the number of unsheltered homeless individuals has increased since 2016. The problem is most acute in major cities, on the west coast, and in markets that have seen major spikes in housing prices. Even cities with declining unsheltered populations face pressure to address visible encampments in their communities. Exploring Homelessness Among People Living in Encampments and Associated Costs was launched as a joint effort between The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Office of Policy Development and Research and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This study is intended to help policymakers and practitioners understand the nature of encampments, strategies for responding to encampments, and the costs associated with those approaches. The study offers a literature review, summaries of the four study sites, and a comprehensive final report documenting the full scope of the costs associated with the responses to encampments in the included communities. Underscored throughout the report is an understanding that a complex set of factors around housing precarity have contributed to the growth of encampments. Unsheltered homelessness is the tragic result of the country’s affordable housing crisis that stems from a combination of increasing rates of deep poverty and a lack of deeply affordable housing. Due to the impacts of structural racism, the affordable housing crisis is especially dire for Blacks and Latinos who are overrepresented among the homeless population. Within the homelessness system, shortcomings in emergency shelter policies and practices, a sense of community and safety within encampments, and a desire for autonomy and privacy contribute to some people’s preferences for encampments over shelters. The report shows that the four study sites have coalesced around a strategy that involves clearance (removing structures and belongings from encampments) and closure (requiring that people leave encampments) with support (resource-intensive outreach to connect residents with services and to ensure every resident has a place to go upon closure). Although this is the dominant strategy, outreach workers in at least one city highlight that this strategy exacerbates the challenges of moving residents to shelters or permanent housing, which research shows is the most cost-effective and humane strategy, long-term. The report also indicates that responding to encampments is resource-intensive for local governments, costing cities between $1,672 and $6,208 per unsheltered individual per year and requiring coordination across government and non-governmental actors. Since HUD funding is largely not being used for encampment related activities, city governments cover the vast majority of these costs out of their own budgets. This study was conducted before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has likely worsened homelessness rates, while simultaneously increasing the urgency for finding safe housing for residents of encampments. At the same time, many homeless shelters have reduced capacity to abide by social distancing protocols, limiting options for those experiencing homelessness and potentially forcing more people into unsheltered homelessness and encampments. Future research on the characteristics and costs of encampments should integrate the perspectives of people with lived experiences in encampments. Research should also examine the racial inequities between those who live in encampments, how encampment residents are treated under the law, and who receives supports to enter shelters or housing. Finally, future research should seek to incorporate a fuller accounting of the cost to cities, including additional municipal costs (for example, from police, fire, and health departments), and the costs associated with residents’ trauma when faced with clearance and closure of encampments. This fuller accounting of the costs of encampments should also be compared to the cost of employing a Housing First approach to residents of encampments. Overall, this report reveals that communities need more resources and guidance for addressing encampments through a focus on outreach, engagement, and connection to housing with services. Suggested solutions in the report include expanding the capacity to place people experiencing homelessness into shelters and permanent housing. This suggestion aligns with the Administration’s belief in a Housing First approach that invests in homelessness prevention, rental assistance, supportive housing, and services to ensure stable housing acts as a platform for people to access employment, seek medical care, obtain care for behavioral health conditions like mental illness or addiction, and support children. This study provides useful information to help the field better understand a growing yet under-researched segment of the homeless population—information that we will incorporate into this Administration’s holistic vision for reducing homelessness.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 2020. 78p.

By Richard Wright

Historical Context: The book discusses the psychological and social impacts of Western colonization on Asian and African societies, highlighting the long-term effects of oppression and cultural disruption.

Psychological Reactions: It explores the psychological responses of oppressed people, including feelings of inferiority, resistance, and the complex dynamics of loyalty and identity.

Cultural Critique: The author critiques both Western and non-Western societies, emphasizing the need for mutual understanding and the dangers of cultural arrogance and ignorance.

References: The document includes numerous references to works by other authors and poets, illustrating the interconnectedness of cultural and literary expressions.

Doubleday, 1957, 190 pages

By John Stone

Historical Context: The study of race relations became central insociology post-World War II, influenced by decolonization and civilrights movements.

Power Dynamics: Minority groups' power and influence are crucial in understanding racial conflicts and social changes.

Global Perspective: Racial and ethnic conflicts are not limited to the West but are a global phenomenon, affecting socialist and capitalist societies alike.

Social Institutions: Race relations impact various social institutions, including education, employment, and legal systems, highlighting the complexity of achieving racial justice.

Fontana Press / Collins, 1985, 191 pages