The 2006 Human Rights Day Conference
“In the Shadows: Non-citizens and U.S. violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”

In 2006, The Advocates for Human Rights celebrated International Human Rights Day by hosting an afternoon conference, reception and evening film around the issue of refugees and immigrants in the U.S. and the violation of their human rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 

In collaboration with the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota, The Advocates held an afternoon conference that addressed the scope of the ICCPR, mechanisms for enforcement, and U.S. compliance, and included a discussion on how to advocate for clients using this system.  The conference highlighted the findings of a Shadow Report to the U.N. Human Rights Committee on U.S. Violations of the Rights of Non-Citizens authored by a national team of human rights and immigration lawyers, including staff of The Advocates. 

A film showing of “Crossing Arizona" followed by a panel discussion took place that evening at the University of Minnesota Law School. The movie examines how heightened security in California and Texas has pushed illegal border-crossers into the treacherous Arizona desert in unprecedented numbers – an estimated 4,500 a day.  Most are Mexican men in search of work, but increasingly the border-crossers are women and children. The flow of migrants and the rising death toll have elicited complicated feelings about human rights, culture, class, labor and national security. 

Co-sponsored by The Advocates for Human Rights, the University of Minnesota Human Rights Center, the University of Minnesota Human Rights Program, the Maria Inamagua Campaign for Justice, and the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Image Gallery: Human Rights Day 2006