© Copyright Newsday http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--deportation-misca0214feb14,0,6633070.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

NY immigrant advocates protest treatment of woman who miscarried

By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer
February 14, 2006

NEW YORK -- Advocates for immigrants' rights demonstrated in front of the federal building on Tuesday to protest the treatment of a Chinese woman who says she miscarried twins while in the custody of authorities who were trying to deport her.

Zhenxing Jiang, who is in the United States illegally, suffered a miscarriage on Feb. 7 after reporting to immigration authorities in Philadelphia, where she and her husband own a Chinese restaurant, for a regularly scheduled appointment, according to advocates and her brother-in-law, Zhang Tianchen. (Ed. Note: See 2nd story below: Her petition had never been ruled on its merits but had been turned down for improper filing time.)

"Within minutes of her arriving for her appointment she was whisked off into a van, driven from Philadelphia straight to JFK airport in New York, and after several hours of waiting in the airport Ms. Jiang began to complain of stomach pains and of back pains," New York City Councilman John Liu said.

Liu, a Queens Democrat, said Jiang asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who were escorting her to let her see a doctor but they ignored her requests and told her she was "not going to get out of this" and would have to have her babies in China.

After someone called 911 (Ed. Note: It was not immigration officials but other passengers) an ambulance arrived and the immigration officers let Jiang go to a hospital, Liu said. An ultrasound showed her twin fetuses were dead, he said.

"The issue is how on Earth could law enforcement officers in the United States stand by and ignore a crying pregnant woman in pain," Liu said. "And not only ignore her but belittle and mock her."

In a statement issued Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said suggestions that Jiang was mistreated while in its custody were "categorically false."

The agency said officials "took special care in handling her" after learning that she was pregnant, allowing her to travel unrestrained and offering her food, water and the chance to use rest rooms on the trip from Philadelphia to New York.

(Ed. Note: See second story below. They took her away leaving her husband and two children in the Philadelphia office sitting all day without even telling him they had taken her to New York. At the end of the day they told him to come back tomorrow.)

The statement said Jiang did not express a need for medical attention until after she arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport and just before she was to board the flight to China, when she said she needed an ambulance and was taken to a hospital.

"Once Ms. Jiang is cleared by medical officials, efforts to remove her will resume pursuant to the court order issued by the immigration judge," the statement said.

ICE said the case would be investigated by its office of professional responsibility.

Zhang, who is acting as the family spokesman, said his brother, Zhang Tianxiao, and sister-in-law are hardworking people with two sons ages 6 and 4. He said Jiang has been in the United States since 1996, her husband since 1994, and they met at work.

"They shared the same dream: to build a happy family together, on this land of freedom; to have two, maybe three children laughing and running around at home; to stand on their own feet and be proud of themselves," he said.

The executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, Chung-Wha Hong, said, "What happened should have never happened to anyone in America. A pregnant woman who was pleading for medical help should have been allowed to go to the hospital."

Under immigration law, Jiang could have been deported any time after 2002, when she exhausted her appeals on the denial of her application for political asylum based on China's one-child policy.

But her lawyer, Richard Bortnick, said she had been allowed to report routinely to immigration authorities in Philadelphia until last week.

© Copyright Philadelphia Daily News http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/opinion/13939433.htm

When family values go AWOL

Thu, Feb. 23, 2006
By DEBORAH LEAVY

ZHENXING JIANG is missing. So is conservative outrage over her case, which should have those espousing "family values" rushing to her aid.

Ms. Jiang fled China and came to this country, illegally, 11 years ago. She and her husband, Tien Xiao Zhang, have lived the American dream, working hard at their South Philadelphia restaurant, paying taxes and raising two sons, 4 and 7, who are U.S. citizens.

After she entered the United States, Jiang applied for asylum. The family was keeping their regular appointment at the immigration office here when Jiang was taken into a separate room and told her asylum appeals had been exhausted. (In fact, her application, based on the fact that she would be persecuted if returned to China for violating the government's "one child" rule, has never been decided on the merits but was ruled "untimely filed.")

Immigration officers told Jiang she was to be deported immediately. Unknown to her family, they took her out a back door and allegedly pushed her into a van to be whisked to Kennedy Airport for a flight to back to China. Jiang was pregnant with twins, and she believes authorities didn't want her babies to be born as U.S. citizens.

According to her lawyer, Richard Bortnick of Cozen O'Connor, Jiang was bruised and her abdomen bumped when the officers forced her into the van. On the way to Kennedy, Jiang said, the officers stopped for lunch but gave her nothing to eat or drink, and cursed at her. (Immigration officials say she was given crackers and water and treated properly.)

Jiang says the officers ignored her pleas that she was having abdominal pain until someone in the public waiting area at the airport called an ambulance. She was taken to Jamaica Hospital, where she miscarried. The hospital hasn't determined if rough treatment or fear brought on her miscarriage, but the very possibility is alarming.

What kind of family values would tear a pregnant woman from her husband and young children to face persecution - and a forced abortion - if she was returned to the country she fled?

Conservatives who think they have cornered the market on "family values" are curiously silent.

The story was reported by Mary Flannery in this newspaper, and also ran in the Inquirer, New York Times, New York Post, and New York Daily News. Yet not a peep from any of the right-wing blogs I checked, though a progressive blog, DMI, was outraged.

Jiang's lawyer contacted the offices of Sens. Santorum (speaking of family values) and Specter asking for help. Both offices promised me a response but never called back.

Bob Casey's spokesman, who could've helped his boss score points with both sides of the choice issue, didn't think the case was relevant because "This is a political campaign."

In fact, no politician has stood up except state Rep. Curtis Thomas, who is expected to be at a press conference tomorrow, according to Helen Gym of Asian Americans United.

Nor has the "pro-life" movement done anything to help. The Pennsylvania Pro Life Federation had no comment. The Pro Life Union of Southeastern PA was unfamiliar with the situation.

Days after I informed them, neither group had contacted Asian Americans United, which, along with the Hoyu Chinese American Association, is building up a coalition of Jiang supporters.

Will any federal officials be investigating whether the immigration officers might have violated the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, a law Rick Santorum cosponsored in the Senate?

"When it's convenient to the administration's policy goals they advocate for the unborn, but they advocate quite selectively," said Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, who offered assistance to Jiang's lawyer.

Indeed, the administration has just proposed cutting funds for birth control information and contraceptives for foreign groups that help vulnerable Third World women avoid abortion where it may be unsafe or illegal.

I have always found it peculiarly hypocritical that those who trumpet "family values" loudest are often the same ones who vote to cut programs like these that benefit working families.

It's this same mindset that would tear a family apart over a missed filing date.

Human Rights Should Anchor Homeland Security

© Copyright Pacific News Service
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=8ae048b43989f55e41fcb629135a17c0

New America Media, Commentary, Krishanti Dharmaraj and Sara Hossaini, Feb 22, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO – A recent immigration case in Philadelphia reminds us of how important it is to protect human rights for all, that to insist that human rights be granted to all regardless of immigration status will in the long haul protect all Americans.

Recently a Chinese woman living in Philadelphia became the victim of this terrible, destructive confusion. Zhenxing Jiang came to the United States from China seeking asylum, which was eventually denied. She had been allowed to stay in the country and help run the family take-out business because her husband's asylum case is still ongoing. For the past ten years, they have continued to pay taxes and raise two young American-born sons, who are citizens. For years, Jiang had been appearing, without fail, at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for regularly scheduled appointments.

That is, until February 7, when federal immigration officers tried to forcibly deport her after learning just that morning that she was pregnant with twins. The New York Times reports that Jiang was immediately hustled to a New York airport where concerned travelers, not immigration officers, finally called an ambulance after hearing her pleas for help and complaints of extreme abdominal pain. Jiang's lawyer reports that the officers pushed and bruised her, ignored her complaints of stomach pain and offered her nothing to eat during the entire eight-hour ordeal. By the time she arrived at the hospital, her two twin fetuses were dead.

Meanwhile, Jiang's family unknowingly waited hours for her return just outside her interview room, as her requests to take her children, or at least speak to her family were denied. Her husband reports that when he inquired about her long absence, immigration officers told him to "come back tomorrow at 9 a.m., and maybe we'll tell you." Immigration officials treated Jiang this way on the grounds that they could not allow another two children onto U.S. soil. Jiang was released from the hospital this week and is now in hiding, mourning her loss.

Immigration officers denied Jiang such basic, inherent and inalienable rights as the right to found a family and to family unity, as well as freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and arbitrary detention or exile. It's interesting to note that there are only three civil rights which don't automatically apply to everyone within our borders, regardless of how they got here; these include the right to vote, attain political office and the "right to enter" freely.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its agents violated this inherent right to dignity and humanity because they did not take Jiang’s humanity into consideration. We know from our own histories and experiences that allowing certain groups to deviate from the well-established legal and moral definition of being human – to allow them to decide for themselves who qualifies – has resulted in genocide, torture, disappearances and executions.

It may be helpful to remember now that the United States was once at the forefront of Human Rights recognition. Eleanor Roosevelt was a major player in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The United States has ratified several United Nations treaties protecting against torture, genocide and racial discrimination.

Unfortunately, we have retreated from these ideals. The United States has never held itself accountable to the standards it demands from other countries, and we have paid dearly. In 1987, the United States and Israel were the only two countries to oppose a major UN resolution condemning terrorism and calling on governments to act forcefully to overcome it. We are the only industrialized nation not to ratify important human rights treaties specifically designed to protect women, children and migrant workers.

In the current political environment of fear and xenophobia, things may get worse for people like Jiang, and for us all. Under the guise of national security, many people are taking action to perpetuate the erosion of the human rights of noncitizens. Outrageous legislation like the "Border Security and Interior Enforcement Improvement Act of 2005," a similar bill to one recently passed in the House, will allow local law enforcement to act as immigration officials, authorizing them to question, demand "papers" and detain anyone who cannot immediately prove his/her legal status.

The bill also defines any relative, employer, coworker, co-congregant or friend as an "alien smuggler," even if you did not know the person was undocumented. This classification extends to a teacher of undocumented children, or a domestic abuse counselor who assists an undocumented woman.

The U.S. government is informing us that it will provide us security at the expense of freedom, but the real choice is between a country where human rights are protected regardless of identity and a country in which no one is safe.

We must oppose bringing the behavior recently exemplified by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency into our neighborhoods. It is time for citizens to ask their senators to pressure the Senate Judiciary Committee to stop the Border Security and Interior Enforcement Improvement Act of 2005 in its tracks. Jiang's sad story is a striking reminder that any effort to strengthen security must incorporate human rights standards.

Krishanti Dharmaraj is the executive director and Sara Hossaini the director of communications and outreach for Women’s Institute for Leadership Development for Human Rights.