Immigration Law Lecture (Soka University of America)

Friday, February 11, 5 p.m.

Soka University of America, 1 University Avenue, Aliso Viejo, California

Grand Reading Room, Ikeda Building, Room 400

A conversation with Professor Marisa S. Cianciarulo, Associate Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law

Screening of Sin País (dir. Theo Rigby, 2010, 20 min.)

Professor Cianciarulo is a specialist in clinical teaching and immigration law with a human rights focus. She is the Director of Chapman’s Family Violence Clinic, which she launched in 2007. Professor Cianciarulo taught in the Villanova Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services for three years prior to joining the faculty at Chapman. She previously served as a Staff Attorney with the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration in Washington, D.C., was a partner in a law firm specializing in immigration matters, and served as interim legal director of a non-profit immigration services provider in Arlington, Virginia. Professor Cianciarulo received her B.A. from the Catholic University of America, her Juris Doctor from American University Washington College of Law, and her M.A. from American University School of International Service. She teaches the Family Violence Clinic, Gender & the Law, Refugee Law and Remedies. She publishes on the intersection of gender and immigration with an emphasis on vulnerable immigrant populations.

Courses Taught: Family Violence Clinic and Gender & the Law, Refugee Law and Remedies

Sin Pais (Without Country), dir. Theo Rigby

Sin País (Without Country) attempts to get beyond the partisan politics and mainstream media’s ‘talking point’ approach to immigration issues by exploring one family’s complex and emotional journey involving deportation.

In 1992, Sam and Elida Mejia left Guatemala during a violent civil war and brought their one-year old son, Gilbert, to California. The Mejia’s settled in the Bay Area, and for the past 17 years they have worked multiple jobs to support their family, paid their taxes, and saved enough to buy a home. They had two more children, Helen and Dulce, who are both U.S. citizens. Two years ago, immigration agents stormed the Mejia’s house looking for someone who didn’t live there. Sam, Elida, and Gilbert were all undocumented and became deeply entangled in the U.S. immigration system.

Sin País begins two weeks before Sam and Elida’s scheduled deportation date. After a passionate fight to keep the family together, Sam and Elida are deported and take Dulce with them back to Guatemala.

With intimate access and striking imagery, Sin País explores the complexities of the Mejia’s new reality of a separated family–parents without their children, and children without their parents.

http://sinpaisfilm.com/

Que suene la calle (Let the street be heard), dir. Itzel Martínez del Cañizo

Que Suene la Calle

Tuesday, January 17th, Ghandi 303, 7 p.m.

Que suene la calle es un video documental que se adentra en la dinámica de una ciudad como Tijuana, a través de la perspectiva de sus adolescentes que viven en la calle. Cuatro mujeres menores de edad nos cuentan sus historias, nos relatan sus vivencias y comparten con nosotros sus sueños y deseos.
Son ellas quienes toman las cámaras y actúan para mostrarnos su realidad y revivir los momentos más representativos de su vida en pequeñas historias de video. Cada una desde su barrio, desde su espacio personal y urbano, nos adentra a un lado desconocido de esta ciudad fronteriza para hacernos ver la complejidad de crecer y hacerse adulto bajo esas circunstancias.

Director: Itzel Martínez del Cañizo
Producción: Yonke Art, inSite_05, PACMYC, FOECA BC, UABC Escuela de Humanidades, Solo Por Ayudar AC
Año: 2006
País: México

Festivales:
International Documentary Film Festival Ámsterdam (2006), Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia (México 2006), Gira Documental Ambulante (México 2007), Latin American Film Festival Ultrech (Holanda 2007), VIVA 13th Spanish and Latin Film Festival (Manchester 2007), Kosmorama Trondheim International Film Festival (Noruega 2007), Sguardi Altrove Film Festival (Milan 07), Festival Internacional de Mujeres en el Cine y la TV (México 06).

Premios:
Premio del Jurado, San Diego Women Film Festival 2006; Mención Honorífica y Premio Signis de la Comunicación en el Encuentro Hispanoamericano de Documental Contra el Silencio Todas las Voces 2004.

http://revista.cinedocumental.com.ar/2/articulos_04.html

http://www.polenaudiovisual.com/News.html

Señorita Extraviada, Dir. Lourdes Portillo, 2001

Wednesday, January 12, 2011, Game Room, 7 p.m. Soka University of America

Señorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman tells the story of the hundreds of kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico. The murders first came to light in 1993 and young women continue to "disappear" to this day (2005) without any hope of bringing the perpetrators to justice. Who are these women from all walks of life and why are they getting murdered so brutally?

The documentary moves like the unsolved mystery it is, and the filmmaker poetically investigates the circumstances of the murders and the horror, fear and courage of the families whose children have been taken. Yet it is also the story of a city of the future; it is the story of the underbelly of our global economy.

For more information about the film visit Lourdes Portillo's website:

http://www.lourdesportillo.com/senoritaextraviada/index.html

Photo essay by Maiko Miura

El Lugar del Nopal

Chilpancingo

Chilpancingo

Maquila tour

Residential area near the border

Art work along the fence

Fence

San Diego side of border

Hiking to the border

At a bar in Downtown Tijuana

Final Report

To be published on February 3rd, 2011.

“Human Trafficking and Protections for Undocumented Victims in the United States," David A. Shirk and Alexandra T. Webber, annotated bibliography

Norito Hagino

There are two types of human trafficking according to the authors: forced labor and commercial sex. Human traffickers target undocumented migrants by promising “safe passage” and “employment” in the U.S. and later exploit them for commercial sex and forced labor. It is difficult to combat human trafficking in the U.S. For example, authority goes into a prostitute ring that uses and holds human trafficking victims in custody but the traffickers escape (pg. 172). In most cases, the victims will not give any information about the traffickers because they fear punishment. They will be deported immediately.

In order to prevent this dilemma, the government initiated the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). This grants a T-visa to victims of severe form of human trafficking. The T-visa gives an individual a temporary non-immigration status and public benefits (food, insurance, housing, etc.). This is beneficial for the government in the sense that the victims will have time to assist in the prosecution of their traffickers. However, the weakness of the TVPA is that even though it allows 5000 T-visas to be passed per year but only about 150 is passed every year (pg. 176). Furthermore, the conditions for an undocumented immigrant to be passed for a T-visa are too strict, according to the authors. It is argued that numerical estimates and types of human trafficking cases must be re-evaluated by the government, at the same time reconsidering the criteria at which undocumented immigrants are passed for T-visas (pg. 181). The government’s actions of the TVPA and T-visa are new steps towards legalizing illegal immigrants in the U.S. but it can be said that at this point, the program is still incomplete.

The Border Within: NAFTA and the New World Border, annotated bibliography

Ty Iwamoto

NAFTA increases the prosperity of some, ruins the subsistence of others, brings more immigrants to the United States, sends more gangs and drugs across the border, enhances the quality of life for many natives and many strangers, burdens schools and hospitals, and binds countries together in ways that will become all the more astounding.

Mexican American historian Douglas Monroy analyzes the historical and cultural relationship between Mexico and the U.S. surrounding NAFTA and transmigration. NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement) was a utopian idea that sought to benefit both countries by eliminating tariff on imported products from the other country which would allow both sides to sell more of its products to each other. In the case of corn trade, which has always been Mexico’s staple, its inclusion under NAFTA increased the export of corn by the US. This consequently destroyed the domestic economy of Mexico, costing the welfare of corn producers and forcing Mexican citizens to migrate and look for job across/near the border, ‘developing underdevelopment.’ The transnational migration of workers led to gangs, drug-trafficking, and making Mexico more American. The economical and cultural relations between Mexico and the US today call for greater attention.

Human Rights Along the US - Mexican Border, annotated biblography

Eric Cheung

Human Rights Along the US - Mexican Border discusses the major issues of sexual violence, human trafficking and indifference of governments along the borders of Mexico. Migrants short on money and legal documents are often victims of sexual violence when trying to cross borders. Olivia T. Ruiz Marrujo, the author of the chapter stresses the importance of recognizing the intensity of sexual violence towards migrants and the increasing trend of femicide along borders.

Distinct from sexual violence of willing migrants, human trafficking involves forced labor and sexual exploitations. Desperate migrants are put into compromising situations in attempts to coerce the victims to be exploited. This leads to many migrants being trafficked across borders to become forced laborers or prostitutes. The biggest issue that encompasses both sexual violence and human trafficking across borders is the government’s inability to handle the issues. Among sexual violence cases, many incidents have been overlooked, undocumented, and the sentence of convicted crimes have been lenient. The same could be said for incidents of human trafficking.

The most important idea the three chapters that Human Rights Along the US - Mexican Border focus on is methods of resolving the issues. Victims have to recognize their civil and personal human rights and should not be afraid to seek authorities to denounce crimes. Governments must recognize these crimes and be readily able to provide help to victims and justly convict the criminals responsible.

Global Village or Global Pillage, Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, annotated bibliography

Hiroko Yoshimura, Akiko Toya, and Masanobu Okada

The main argument of the reading is how globalization has resulted to benefit the developed countries by exploiting the labors and resources of the developing countries. The author first explains how the global competition of business came about (p. 143-145). In the 19th century, old businesses, including shoemakers and hatmakers started competing against each other. When the globalization came about, such competition began involving developing countries, using their cheap labors. As a result, we see factories such as Maquiladoras, in which people’s labor is exploited and their human rights are taken away. (Hiroko)

As growing globalization of business, advanced countries tend to take advantage of developing countries. For example, since companies in advanced countries are trying to sell product as much as they can at low price, they force labors in developing countries to produce product by working at law wage, unreasonable length of time and treatment in bad work environment. To combat such a situation, the authors introduce the concept of “Grand Bargain” (p. 110). This is an idea of mutual negotiation done by both the advanced and developing countries to come to the solution that benefits both groups. Examples of this type of negotiation are “Earth Summit” and “Social Summit,” formal dialogues about environmental and social issues by many of the representatives of both advanced and developing countries (p. 111). (Akiko)

The world is in the midst of the unstoppable flow of globalization. The main question Jeremy and Tim posed in the essay is “how can those who oppose downward leveling do so effectively?” (Jeremy, Tim 105). Because there is no global government to legislate on behalf of the world’s people, the flow of globalization seems to be in stuck and bring considerable problems. Jeremy and Tim regard the system of nation-based economies as the core cause of the issues. In the essay, they propose the concept which might be silver bullet: transnational citizen action. They believe that this transnational citizen action can call on genuine democracy at bath local and national level depending upon people organizing themselves and acting independently of government. In doing so, the idea they call “Lilliput Strategy” is effective to be applied. Lilliput, described in the story Gulliver’s travel, succeeded to capture and control giant Gulliver by trying him down with hundreds of tiny threads. As this metaphor demonstrates, Jeremy and Tim state that people need to establish the dense network of threads tied around the world which can control the speed and degree of the globalization. If people succeed to do this, they can “utilize the relatively modest sources of power available to them” and “combine them with often quite different power to other participants” in order to deal with seemingly powerful global forces and institutions (106). (Masa)