Recommendations for Providing Full Legal Access to Migrants Everywhere

1. Although noncitizen migrants face a grim reality in the Pacific Northwest

region of the United States, there are existing organizations and campaigns
that regularly challenge the lack of legal protection and access for migrants,
and that are charting paths toward equal protection of the laws more
broadly. These groups include PCUN, SOAR Immigration Legal Services,
Unete Oregon, the Washington Immigration Solidarity Network (WAISN),
and Carecen SF, which are only a few examples of the grassroots efforts that
are facilitating legal access for migrants in the Pacific Northwest. Localism
alone cannot solve global migration, unequal access, and unequal protection
problems, but global approaches to change must be shaped by and
responsive to grass-roots organizations and networks of people on the front
lines of the human rights abuses faced by noncitizen migrants. The solutions
must incorporate the work and perspectives of migrants to meet their needs
as they see them.

2. The United States has not ratified any international human rights treaties in
over two decades when it ratified two optional protocols to the Convention on
the Rights of the Child. First and foremost, FLAME-PNW urges the United
States to sign and ratify the International Convention on the Protection of
the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families, the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Discrimination against Women, including Amendment to article
20, paragraph 1, ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and, sign and
ratify the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

These and other key treaties that the US has yet to ratify protect some of the
world's most vulnerable populations, including noncitizen migrant women
and children. The ratification and enforcement of these treaties could help a
 woman seeking protection by the police from an abusive or threatening
partner, spouse, or boss, in addition to laying the groundwork to provide
effective legal counsel to noncitizen migrants facing deportation. The treaties
promulgate values of non-discrimination, due process, and equal treatment
of the laws that most Americans unquestionably support. Further, the
treaties are largely consistent with existing US law and practice.1

3. FLAME-PNW additionally recommends the following to United Nations

Member States:

4. Sign and ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights
of All Migrant Workers and Members of their families.

5. Adopt the Model Law on the Right to Counsel for Noncitizen Migrants in
Civil Removal and Deportation Proceedings.

6. Prioritize equitable access to the courts and legal information for noncitizen
migrants, particularly women and children, who are the most vulnerable to
human rights abuses. This can include providing access to law libraries for
all and hosting Know Your Rights trainings at labor camps in multiple
different languages in which migrants can fluently understand and
communicate. Migrants and refugees should be provided with the requisite
legal and substantive protections, especially in countries with historic
responsibility for labor abuses and racial inequity like the United States.
States and other stakeholders must also ensure human rights-compliant data
collection on the treatment and equal protection of noncitizen migrants.

7. Systematically hold private individuals, corporations, and governments

accountable for violations of human rights law, particularly as it relates to
discrimination and inequitable access to justice for migrants.

8. Institutionalize meaningful participation and decision-making in the legal

process of noncitizen migrants including women, gender non-binary persons,
persons with disabilities, refugees, and stateless persons.

1
Human Rights Watch, United States Ratification of International Human Rights Treaties (2009),
https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/07/24/united-states-ratification-international-human-rights-treaties