Immigration Quandary: A Mother Torn From Her Baby

Read entire article from NYTIMES  ***Federal immigration agents were searching a house in Ohio last month when they found a young Honduran woman nursing her baby.

Scott Shaw for The New York Times

Saída Umanzor, an illegal immigrant who was detained last month and separated from her 9-month-old, Brittney Bejarano.

 Back Story With The Times’s Julia Preston (mp3)

The woman, Saída Umanzor, is an illegal immigrant and was taken to jail to await deportation. Her 9-month-old daughter, Brittney Bejarano, who was born in the United States and is a citizen, was put in the care of social workers.  *** About two-thirds of the children of the illegal immigrants detained in immigration raids in the past year were born in the United States, according to a study by the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute, groups that have pushed for gentler deportation policies for immigrant families.Based on that finding, at least 13,000 American children have seen one or both parents deported in the past two years after round-ups in factories and neighborhoods. The figures are expected to grow. Over all, about 3.1 million American children have at least one parent who is an illegal immigrant, according to a widely accepted estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.Under the 14th Amendment, any child born in the United States is a citizen and cannot be deported. But with very rare exceptions, immigration law does not allow United States citizen children to confer legal status on parents who are illegal immigrants, until the children are 18 years old. While the federal government does not keep statistics on the children of deportees, immigration lawyers said that most immigrants who are deported take their children with them, even if the children are American citizens. *** 

Court: Druggists May Deny Emergency Pill

CURT WOODWARD

Associated Press Writer (Via FindLaw)

(AP) – SEATTLE-A federal judge has suspended Washington state’s requirement that pharmacists sell “morning-after” birth control pills, a victory for druggists who claim their moral objections to the drug are being bulldozed by the government.

In an injunction signed Thursday, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton said pharmacists can refuse to sell the morning-after pill if they refer the customer to another nearby source. Pharmacists’ employers also are protected by the order.

The emergency contraception sold as Plan B is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills. It can dramatically lower the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Critics consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.

Under pressure from Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, state regulators this year ruled that druggists couldn’t withhold any prescription because of their personal objections.

Two pharmacists and a drugstore owner sued the state in July over the new rule, saying it violates their civil rights. They asked the judge to halt forced Plan B sales while the lawsuit is in play.

“On the issue of free exercise of religion alone, the evidence before the court convinces it that plaintiffs … have demonstrated both a likelihood of success on the merits and the possibility of irreparable injury,” Leighton wrote.

 

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RELIGION

Via National School Boards Association “LegalClips” Newsletter (sign up for free subscription)The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (KY, MI, OH, TN), in 2-1 panel decision, has ruled that a student stated a valid First Amendment free speech claim that a school district’s anti-harassment policy had a “chilling effect” on his expressing his religious views about homosexuality. The suit has its roots in a 2003 consent decree the Boyd County school district entered into as a result of a federal Equal Access Act lawsuit by a group of Boyd County High School (BCHS) students who had been denied permission to start a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). The consent decree required the district to adopt policies prohibiting harassment based on sexual orientation and to provide mandatory anti-harassment training to all students. The school board adopted the anti-harassment policy, and BCHS implemented a student code of conduct based on the policy. In addition, the district created two training videos, one for middle school students and one for high school students. In response, in 2005 parents of some students filed a new lawsuit, claiming the policies and the mandatory training would infringe on their right to express their religious beliefs regarding homosexuality. In August 2005, while the suit was still pending, the school board revised its policy and the BCHS code to make clear that there was no outright ban on anti-homosexual speech. In February 2006, the U.S. district court upheld these revisions, declining to address the constitutionality of the previous policy and code on the ground they were no longer in effect. The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ claim for nominal damages, finding the claim “unsupported by any factual allegations.”      On appeal to the Sixth Circuit, the plaintiffs’ claim for nominal damages was premised on BCHS student Timothy Morrison’s speech having been “chilled” during the 2004-05 school year. The appeals court limited its review to Timothy’s free speech claim for nominal damages and identified the threshold issues as whether a past “chill” on a student’s speech was sufficient injury to confer legal standing for a suit and, if so, whether nominal damages would be sufficient to redress such this harm. For this inquiry the court applied a three-part test: whether there was (1) an injury-in-fact; (2) that was fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct; and (3) that was likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. The court found ample support for the notion that a past “chill” constitutes an injury in fact in the case law from the Second, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits. Finding that the second and third prongs of the test were also satisfied by the case, the court held that the claim for nominal damages based on a past chill on speech could proceed.      Moving to the merits of the claim, the court remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings to resolve two factual questions. First, there was a question about which policy applied to Timothy during the 2004-05 school year. Although the school board insisted that the student could not have been disciplined under its new policy because the policy contained a clause that it did not “apply to speech otherwise protected under the state or federal constitutions,” the BCHS student code conduct contained no such clause. In addition, it was unclear to what extent the training video represented BCHS policy; the video’s prohibition appeared broader than the one in the code. Second, even if the board’s policy violated the First Amendment on its face, that fact alone would be insufficient to establish a past chill on the student’s speech without any proof that the policy had been applied to him.      The dissent took issue with the majority’s reasoning that a past chill based on a policy that had been revised and had never been applied to the student was worthy of litigation. Whether Timothy would have been disciplined was speculative and, as such, did not constitute an injury in fact. The dissent failed to see “how nominal damages would redress an injury of ‘past chill’” and characterized the relief sought as nothing more than a declaratory judgment, which the dissent said was rendered unnecessary when the school board revised the policy and the student conduct code.Morrison v. Board of Educ. of Boyd County, No. 06-5380 (6th Cir. Oct. 26, 2007)[Editor’s Note: The past developments in this saga are summarized starting below.]NSBA School Law pages on Morrison v. Board of Educ. of Boyd County

“The Rwandan Genocide: A Personal Overview and a Look Ahead”-Extra Credit

Alain Hareliman, a native of Rwanda and current Delhi resident, will speak on “The Rwandan Genocide: A Personal Overview and a Look Ahead” onWednesday, November 14, at 7:00 p.m. in 104 Evenden Tower. Anyone who attends this event and presents a brief oral report at the next class will receive 10 points extra credit on their last assignment.  

RFID Chips in School Uniforms Track Students

Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:16AM EDT

See Comments (636)

How would feel about this: Tracking chips in kids’ school clothing so that school officials can know their whereabouts during the school day?

Oh, it’s happening. Ten students in a secondary school in the United Kingdom are being tracked through RFID implants in their school uniforms in a pilot program. Information Week reports that the kids attend Hungerhill School for ages 11-16 in Edenthorpe, England. 

Add the RFID chips to increased video surveillance and fingerprinting of kids, and this is a heavily tracked generation—for safety’s sake.

That extra peace of mind for adults comes with a heavy loss of privacy for kids. Do you agree with David Clouter, a parent and founder of the children’s advocacy groupLeave Them Kids Alone, who says taking all these precautions has the effect of treating kids like criminals? Or do you agree with the parents who have OKed the pilot program who do not find it egregiously intrusive?

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CONSTITUTION DAY ESSAY CONTEST

  In celebration of U.S. Constitution Day, students are invited to compete in an essay contest.  Deadline for submissions is Friday, November 16, 2007.