Immigrants, Minorities & Hate Crimes
Panel
The
prevailing demonization of Latinos as criminal illegal aliens generates a
breeding ground which frequently serve as a catalyst for violent hate crimes.
In 2008 the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that FBI statistics identified
a 40% increase in reported hate crimes against Latinos from 2003 to 2007. Though Latinos constitute a relatively
smaller portion of total victims of hate crimes, these hate crimes are likely
to continue increasing, motivated by popular anti-immigrant politicians and
policies, such as Arizona’s infamous SB 1070. From the violent murder of
Marcelo Lucero in Patchogue, Long Island to the tragic killing of 9-year old
Brisenia Flores in Tuscon, Arizona, hate crimes against Latinos continue to
plague the richness and diversity of our community. This panel will discuss our collective
responsibility to police the incendiary and unbridled anti-immigrant rhetoric
justifying discriminatory legislation, the complexities of addressing various
forms of anti-immigrant actions, and how we, as legal advocates, can contribute
to restoring respect and dignity to the Latino and broader immigrant
communities, and foster a sense of renewed faith in our branches of government.
PANELISTS:
Christina Iturralde
Legal Fellow
and Associate Counsel, LatinoJustice PRLDEF
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.
Jose Luis Morin
Professor,
Latin American and Latino Studies Dept, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
José Luis
Morín is Professor in the Latin American and Latina/o Studies Department and a
member of the faculty in the Doctoral Program in Criminal Justice at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. His areas of
specialization include domestic and international criminal justice, civil
rights and international human rights law, race and ethnicity in the United
States, Latina/o studies, and Latin American Studies.
Currently,
Professor Morín is Director of the Puerto Rican Research and Public Policy
Initiative, a project of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College
(CUNY) that promotes research on the social conditions of Puerto Rican in the
United States with the goal of advancing public policy change. He has
also been engaged in developing criminal justice-related educational programs
in the Dominican Republic. An updated and expanded second edition of his
book, Latino/a Rights and Justice in the United States: Perspectives and
Approaches (Carolina Academic Press) was released in 2009 with a foreword by
Professor Richard Delgado. He is presently completing another book,
Latinas/os and Criminal Justice: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press), scheduled
for release in 2010. His article “Latinas/os and U.S. Prisons: Trends and
Challenges” published in Latino Studies in 2008 was reprinted in Behind Bars:
Latino/as and Prison in the United States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Mariela Palomino Herring
ADA Queens,
Bureau Chief of Gang Violence and Hate Crimes
ADA Herring
pursued her goal of becoming an attorney at Fordham University School of Law
where she received her juris doctorate in 1984 and then began her prosecutorial
career in 1985 when she was hired by the Queens District Attorney’s Office. ADA
Herring soon thereafter rose through the ranks from criminal court to the trial
bureau and was then selected to the inaugural class of District Attorney
Brown’s Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau where she prosecuted homicide,
robbery, rape, assault and narcotics cases.
In 1994, ADA
Herring was appointed Chief of District Attorney Brown’s Gang Violence &
Hate Crimes Bureau. This bureau specializes in the prosecution and detection of
criminal activities committed by youth gang members. It also covers hate
crimes, school violence, graffiti and juvenile crimes with gang-related
criminal activity accounting for most of its caseload.
