Christina Iturralde is the Legal Fellow at LatinoJustice PRLDEF (formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund). LJ PRLDEF is one of the leading Latino civil rights organizations in the country, serving the pan-Latino community. While at LJ PRLDEF, Iturralde has worked on cases of critical importance in the on-going immigration debate, including Lozano, et al., v. City of Hazleton , Valdez, et al., v. Town of Brookhaven, and Aguilar et al., v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In her studies at UC, Hastings College of Law, Iturralde focused on Immigration and International Human Rights Law. While at law school, she interned at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, where she worked on developing gender based asylum cases and helped promote a policy campaign focused on combating violence against women in Guatemala. She also interned at Human Rights First’s Asylum Project, in Washington, DC and at the Department of Justice, Executive Office of Immigration Review (Immigration Court), in San Francisco. While a clinical volunteer at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant's Asylum Program in Berkeley, CA, she also represented individuals in the asylum application process.

How long have you been dealing with hate crimes?
All of our work focuses on Latino justice issues. We have a variety of different cases including the home rights case that we’re working on against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We also have worked on housing-related cases dealing with overnight evictions of day laborers. We had heard about Shenandoah through our colleagues that work in Pennsylvania, from when we were working on the Hazelton case. It was kind of a shock, after working so hard to prevent this kind of anti-Latino legislation. That was the first time we had heard about this kind of incident and then we became a little more tuned into what some of our colleagues around the country have known about maybe, and been more in tune with, a little bit longer than we have.

When the incident happened in Patchogue , I was immediately called upon by some of the community advocates I work closely with, out on Long Island. One of the things I do here at LatinoJustice is that I focus a lot of my attention on Long Island, specifically. When that incident occurred, I was called to an emergency meeting. I think it was the day after it happened. I was trying to assist as best as I could, through my capacity as a lawyer, to make sure that the community advocates that are closely involved were getting the support they needed. In addition, I reached out to the Ecuadorean Consulate and made sure that the family’s needs were addressed. Although I wasn’t the first one to approach the family, I want to say that I helped at least to make sure that the family was taken care of properly throughout the process. We specifically wanted to assist the Consulate in understanding the dynamics of what would happen right after the crime occurred. For example, going to the District Attorney was part of what we did with the Consulate. We had meetings with the DA and talked about how this was going to be handled and what charges would be brought.

How do you think the anti-illegal immigrant movement is related to the rise in hate crimes?
It’s funny that you ask, because we actually laid out our argument best in our Inter-American Petition that we filed in December. I’m the lead attorney here on the Petition. It just so happens that what we’ve seen, as an organization, for a very long time now is that the rhetoric that goes on the immigration debate, whether it’s a politician, Lou Dobbs or it’s another news outlet that’s discussing the issue, there’s this trickle down effect that’s occurring. Unfortunately, what we’re seeing in these hate crimes is that our youth are getting a horrible signal—that it’s ok, one, to discriminate against undocumented persons, and two, to cause harm to them. We’re very concerned that this is one of the consequences we’re seeing as a result of irresponsible debates or irresponsible discussions on the issue of immigration. Specifically, this is what we’ve seen in the incidents not only in Patchogue, but this recent incident that’s happened in NJ just a couple weeks ago—the attack on a man named Wilter Sanchez , in North Plainfield NJ. In that incident, youths violently beat up a person, randomly on the street. It sounds to us like there is a definite pattern happening here, where we have the signal that it’s ok to do this kind of thing.

I think, over the past few years, that immigration enforcement officials have not necessarily stuck to their obligations under our constitution to make sure they don’t discriminate. They’re also obviously very proud of the fact that they’ve picked up what they believe are criminal aliens and unfortunately, they’ve blurred the lines between a criminal alien and an undocumented person. What they’re doing is signaling to society that this is ok. You know, we are picking up these persons and we’re getting rid of them. It’s almost as though these human beings are treated as objects that can be turned back to their countries. And so, if they’re doing that, young people who may not be finding other ways to express themselves, might be getting the message that, “hey, these are objects. We can do whatever we want to them.” Now we’re seeing these horrific instances of violence, which are very scary.

Can you talk about how the anti-illegal immigrant movement affects legal immigrants and even those born here?
Well I think it is quite alarming and you could connect the dots definitely here in the Northeast where these instances are happening. You do see a fervent anti-immigrant push, whether it’s passing an ordinance or whether it’s instituting or pushing for a 287g Agreement with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). In Eastern Long Island, you have a lot of discussion by local legislators and the county executive about wanting to cooperate more fully with immigration enforcement. They’ve proposed a number of legislation that try to eradicate the perceived problem out there on their streets. We’ve had anti-solicitation bills that have been proposed by legislators out in Eastern Long Island. That means, for instance, that they’ve been trying to address day laborers on the street to make sure they cannot look for work on the main county roads out in Suffolk County. I think that legislation failed last year but those types of things are constantly being proposed. You have this very vocal debate happening and Newsday and other media groups are covering these issues, so it’s constantly in the news. I can’t imagine that residents are shutting their eyes or closing their ears to what’s happening at the legislative level. When I’ve attended some of these hearings for various legislation, you have a very concerted effort by the anti-immigrant groups out in the community showing up and talking about how bad it is in their neighborhoods. It gives you this eerie sense, if you’re undocumented and you live in Long Island, you’re being watched by your neighbors. People are taking notes down if you have a volleyball game happening in your backyard. It’s terrible. I can’t imagine feeling welcomed in that community, not only if you’re undocumented, but even if you’re a Latino [a citizen or legal resident]. Because unfortunately, folks don’t know how to differentiate someone based on their status when they look at you. I think there is a lot of race discrimination going on.

How has the Department of Justice responded to your Petition alleging that the US has violated the human rights of Latinos?
Well, the Petition goes to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; then the Commission sends it to the State Department. We have written a letter of complaint to the Department of Justice (DOJ) through their civil rights arm, so that went directly from us to them. In that letter, we outline more specifically what we perceive to be the problem in Suffolk County. I don’t know if we have anything in writing from them but they answered our complaint immediately. We are very confident that the DOJ is going to fully investigate what’s happening out there, basically how victims are being treated after they experience a hate crime or hate incident. I know actively that they are interviewing a number of folks. We’re confident and we’re hopeful that they will issue some kind of report or eventually, something more. The DOJ has the power to file lawsuits against localities if they find that they are taking discriminatory actions. So if they find that to be the case, we’re hopeful that they’ll take that action, as well.

What are your thoughts about why there has been this 40% increase in hate crime against Latinos over the last five years or so?
It’s been escalating over time. I can’t put my finger on it and I don’t think we’ve issued any kind of broad policy statements on this issue. But we definitely see a link, because through our work we have seen where localities try to take action against members of their communities, these kinds of crimes are happening. That’s clearly the case here in Patchogue and it’s clearly the case in Shenandoah. We definitely see the same happening in North Plainfield, because we’ve actually been involved in Plainfield, as well, where there are tensions between the immigrant community and the established community there. We definitely see trends where people are coming in and trying to make a life for themselves. They are sometimes not necessarily welcome and we hope that will change as people become more cognizant of why it is. Obviously, a downturn in the economy will probably make people more sensitive to the issues domestically. But we also have to open our eyes to what is happening internationally. People are coming to our country because things are dire elsewhere, as well.

Obviously, we’re very hopeful as an organization, that with the new Administration in Washington, we’ll see a change in the discussion. We definitely are very hopeful on that front that immigrants’ rights will be treated as human rights, for a change. And some of the policies that come from the head of our nation will be more in tune with the reality that all of us experience as families and as individuals here in this country.

Past Close Up Articles

Anene Ejikeme Assistant Professor, Trinity University
Alexander Verkhovsky, Director, SOVA Center for Information and Analysis (Moscow)
Innokenty Grekov, Human Rights First
Paul St. Clair, Executive Director, Roma Community Centre
Rev. Allan Ramirez, Latino Advocate
Dr. Agapito López, M.D.
Bill Habern, defense attorney
Anya Cordell, activist
Rais Bhuiyan, survivor
Allison Moore, Volunteer