[Author]by David Bacon[/Author]

Under the Fourth Amendment, the people of the United States are not supposed to be subject to random and arbitrary stops and searches. But within 100 miles of a U.S. border, these rules don’t apply.

Last July, a worker phoned Alejandro Valenzuela, a young staff member at the Southside Workers Center in Tucson, Arizona. The police were at his home, the worker said, and were detaining him for deportation. Valenzuela and a friend drove over to observe – “to make sure his rights were being respected.” Over the next half hour the police grew increasingly hostile, demanding identification from Valenzuela, despite the fact that he was not driving the car, which was parked at the curb. They then detained Valenzuela and the worker.

Police then drove the two to Border Patrol headquarters. Neither was ever arrested or accused of a crime. Valenzuela was detained and intensively questioned for five hours, and finally released only when he could show he qualified for Deferred Action, which allows undocumented young people (DREAMers) to apply for deferred deportation and work authorization. The worker was eventually deported.

“On the street we get stopped and questioned because of the way we look,” Valenzuela charges. “It’s racial profiling.” On his behalf the ACLU filed the first challenge to section 2B of Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 “Show me your papers” law, which went into effect in September 2012. It authorizes police to enforce immigration law, and the ACLU argues it “unconstitutionally authorizes and encourages illegal police practices … the South Tucson police officers’ actions amounted to false arrest, violated Alex’s right to equal protection of the law and trampled his right to be free from unreasonable seizures.”

Tucson is 60 miles from the Mexican border, within a 100-mile zone where immigration authorities say important due process rights can be suspended. “SB 1070 interacts with this 100-mile area to enable these rights violations,” explains James Lyall, ACLU staff attorney in Tucson.

“It’s easy for police to stop people on a pretext, detain them longer than permitted, and turn them over to the Border Patrol.” The Valenzuela suit was one of the first actions taken by the ACLU Border Litigation Project, launched to document and litigate civil and human rights cases on the U.S. Mexico border.

Enforcing the “Zone”

Outside of communities like Tucson, the existence of a 100-mile “Constitution-free zone” is not well known. “There, the longstanding view [established in court rulings] is that the normal rules do not apply,” according to the ACLU. “For example, the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a ‘routine search.’” As of 2008, the zone potentially covered a staggering 197.4 million people-two-thirds of the U.S. population, including nine of the country’s 10 largest cities.

In Arizona, the impact is magnified by Federal enforcement and state legislation. Isabel Garcia, Legal Defender for Pima County (which includes Tucson), explains, “In Arizona we’ve become a laboratory for every kind of anti-immigrant, anti-human [rights] piece of legislation.” She points to Proposition 100 that amended the state constitution in November 2006 to permit the detention without bail of any undocumented immigrant accused of a felony. Under state legislation, a felony now includes using a fictitious document or a Social Security number belonging to another person.

The Project has documented other instances of immigration-related police misconduct beyond the 100-mile zone. They include an elderly Latino citizen jailed by Mesa police after picking a bottle from a trashcan, a passenger in a car stopped for a broken taillight taken to immigration authorities by Casa Grande police, a woman interrogated about immigration status after calling Tucson police about domestic violence, and a legal resident questioned about his status by Phoenix police while picking up his impounded car.

The ACLU of Arizona made 20 recommendations for changes in Tucson’s police practices. The most basic were to prohibit police “from questioning crime victims and witnesses about their immigration status,” from “extending any stop or detention solely to await a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or ICE response,” requiring officers to contact their supervisors before questioning people about immigration status, and to document “the reasons such questioning is believed necessary.” According to Arizona Public Media, the council unanimously approved council member Regina Romero’s motion to ask police to put public safety above checking immigration status.

Detained and Demeaned

In October, the ACLU demanded an investigation of the Border Patrol, citing five examples of unlawful stops by roving patrols within the 100-mile zone. Although U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims broad authority to conduct searches here, the ACLU complaint responds that “the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to protect against unlawful investigatory stops.” Some of the documented mistreatment clearly exceeds this standard.

In May, Clarisa Christiansen was stopped by the Border Patrol n the desert west of Tucson, 40 miles north of the border, while driving her five- and seven-year-old children home from school. All are citizens, yet she was threatened with a Taser and knife, forced from her vehicle, interrogated, and left beside the road with a slashed tire.

In April, a American Indian woman was tailgated by a Border Patrol vehicle, dragged from her pickup, threatened and manhandled, interrogated and ridiculed, and detained for over an hour on the Tohono O’odham reservation. Other Native Americans have told her of similar treatment.

In March, a tourist from Oregon was threatened, detained and falsely accused of drug possession after hiking at the Fort Bowie Historical Site. A drug-sniffing dog did hundreds of dollars of damage to his car, but when his insurance company sought reimbursement, the CBP claimed the Federal Tort Claims Act “bars recovery for property damaged by CBP employees while the property is under detention.”

In May, a Latino citizen farmer was followed and detained on his property by Border Patrol agents holding automatic weapons. Agents trespass frequently, the family complains.

Two years ago, Suzanne Aldridge was stopped just outside of Bisbee, Arizona, 30 miles from the border, dragged from her car, handcuffed, and groped by a Border Patrol agent. Ten vans of agents, police and sheriffs searched her car with a drug-sniffing dog without her consent. She tried to file a complaint, but was given the runaround by CBP representatives.

In September, the ACLU of Washington and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project settled a lawsuit challenging CBP’s roving patrols on the Olympic peninsula, which lies within the 100-mile zone. As in Arizona, the Border Patrol conducted arbitrary vehicle stops, prolonged detentions and other forms of mistreatment. Fourth Amendment protections still apply, the settlement says.  “Border Patrol officially agreed to follow the Constitution and not racially profile Latinos and other minorities … People should not have to fear that they could be stopped and questioned without reason any time they drive or are passengers in cars,” said Sarah Dunne, legal director of the ACLU-WA?

The ACLU testimony made seven recommendations for humane reform. They include increasing CBP oversight, preventing excessive use of force, reducing the high number of border crossing deaths, increasing detention standards and inspections, discouraging local and state authorities’ involvement in immigration enforcement, abolishing the Operation Streamline court, and reducing CBP’s “zone of authority” from 100 miles to 25 miles from the border.

Let Them Go!

In December, Tucson Congressman Raul Grijalva was one of 27 signing a letter to President Obama opposing mass deportations. “Criminalizing American families or giving local law enforcement the responsibility to choose who stays and who goes is not the right option,” they said. Whether in court, in Congress or in the streets, the denial of rights in Arizona is being challenged and that challenge is growing.

Three facts about the Constitution-Free Zone

Fact 1

In the “Constitution-free zone,” Border Patrol agents don’t need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a “routine search.” All travelers crossing a border are assigned a risk assessment score that will be retained for 40 years.

Fact 2

The Border Patrol can put a checkpoint anywhere in the Constitution-free zone (think Fifth Avenue!). “One hundred air miles is still, technically, the border,” says Leslie Lawson from the Nogales Border Patrol Station. Everyone at a checkpoint must answer questions about citizenship status.

Fact 3

The Constitution-free zone extends 100 miles from any U.S. border. Two-thirds of the U.S. population (197.4 million in 2008) lives within this zone, which includes nine of the 10 largest metropolitan areas, and the entire populations of: Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island; and over 90 percent of: California, Maryland, New York, Vermont and Washington.

[Author]By: Christina Johnson
                                     UC Newsroom[/Author]

Thousands of well-educated foreign-trained physicians in California face daunting barriers to becoming doctors here, and UC San Diego School of Medicine physicians are trying to help – out of altruism and to improve patient care in San Diego County.

A group of doctors in the UC San Diego Department of Family and Preventive Medicine recently hosted a forum for approximately 50 local foreign-trained doctors, during which they explained and fielded questions about the U.S. primary health care system and its residency acceptance criteria.

It’s hoped the event, “An Evening with UCSD Family Medicine Doctors,” will plant the seed for greater UC San Diego involvement in re-training international medical school graduates, and that sustained involvement in such an effort will eventually help supply the county’s growing immigrant and refugee communities with much-needed multi-lingual, “culturally competent” family doctors.

“We hear these heartbreaking stories of people who were heads of departments and are now almost ashamed in front of their families about being unemployed,” said Dr. Wael Al-Delaimy, professor and chief of the Division of Global Health in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and the forum’s moderator. “These people’s stories are so compelling, but we also need and are in short supply of people with their training and cultural reference points.”

Studies show that patients fare better when they are treated by physicians who speak their language and have shared cultural backgrounds.

“We know that cultural competency is a huge piece of the racial and ethnic divide in health care outcomes,” said Gail Patterson, a project manager at Welcome Back Center, a non-profit at Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District that offers educational programs to internationally trained health care professionals and co-sponsored the forum.

There is also evidence, she said, that foreign-trained doctors who become licensed in California are more likely to become primary care physicians in underserved communities.

This has particular relevance for patient care in San Diego County, which has become a major hub for refugee resettlement.

More refugees arrived in San Diego County than any other county in the state between October 2008 and September 2013 – an estimated 15,308 refugees, compared with 9,611 refugees in Los Angeles County, the second highest county. In comparison, over the same five-year period, just four refugees resettled in Santa Cruz County, seven in San Luis Obispo County and 11 in Santa Barbara County.

San Diego’s refugee community is populous and also educated, in large part because of the high proportion of Iraqi refugees, who fled the country’s sectarian violence and were disproportionally part of the country’s cultural elite. By one estimate (PDF), 63 percent of all recent Iraqi refugees in America are college-educated. About 30 percent of Americans older than 25 hold bachelor’s degrees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“After World War II, the term was ‘brain drain,’ but there is a new phrase, ‘brain waste,’” Patterson said. “I know a neurosurgeon who is driving a cab. The stories go on and on.”

The path to becoming medically licensed in the U.S. is long and difficult for a reason – to protect and maintain the quality of the nation’s health care. Some doctors and immigrant advocates, however, say the standards are duplicative, outdated and unduly expensive.

Fahima Nadi, a refugee from Afghanistan who completed seven years of medical school and a year of residency training in Kabul before fleeing the country in 2009, can attest to the cost of re-establishing herself professionally. She says she has spent about $1,200 to have her diplomas and transcripts verified and to take the first of three exams required to obtain medical licensure in the U.S.

Her biggest fear, though, is failing to get matched into a medical residency program. “I will become a doctor and help people no matter where they are from,” said Nadi, who attended the doctors’ forum. “The only concern is I hear people saying that they give priority to U.S. medical graduates.”

All doctors, no matter what their status abroad, unless they are from Canada, must complete a 3-plus-year residency program at an American academic health system. During this residency period, doctors are trained in their medical specialty, before going on to take medical licensing boards.

Nadi’s concerns about being placed into a residency program are grounded in statistical reality, as foreign medical graduates are about half as likely to land a residency as those from U.S. medical schools. This year, for example, 49.5 percent of foreign-trained immigrant doctors were matched in a U.S. residency program, compared with 94.4 percent of U.S. medical school seniors.

Al-Delaimy, an Iraqi native who came to the U.S. from New Zealand to accept a post-doctoral position at Harvard, said that “our plan is to develop a structured academic-community partnership to retrain highly selected candidates and offer them curricular material about the U.S. health system, patient-doctor relationship, case studies and simulated patients, as well as financial support to sit for the qualifying exams.”

One of the main benefits of a structured program would be that the foreign doctors would be able to formally network with UC San Diego doctors and obtain letters of recommendation for medical residency training. “This would be a huge step forward for foreign doctors,” he said.

He and colleagues believe that society cannot afford to let the refugees’ medical training go to waste, especially in light of the growing shortage of family doctors in some underserved communities.

“A newly graduating medical student costs around $250,000 to educate, while retraining a skilled international graduate might not cost more than $25,000,” Al-Delaimy said. “We are looking at a win-win situation if they get licensed.”