A/HRC/7/12/Add.2 page 6 4. In Tucson, Arizona, the Special Rapporteur met with advocates and lawyers who informed him of the practice of subjecting immigrants to disproportionate criminal charges in addition to civil charges for violation of the immigration laws of the United States. In particular, the Special Rapporteur learned that immigration authorities and federal prosecutors are now charging some non-citizens with civil violations for being in the country illegally, as well as for the overly-broad charge of “self-smuggling” themselves into the country. This latter criminal charge is defined as a felony and therefore the migrant can be sentenced to prison upon conviction. 5. In Atlanta, Georgia, the Special Rapporteur attended a regional NGO briefing, “Directly Impacted Community Members Briefing and Press Conference”, organized by the National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights and its member organizations the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), the Latin American and Caribbean Community Center (LACCC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of both Georgia and New York. He also attended a reception in Atlanta where he was able to meet with Georgia State Representatives and Senators. During the NGO briefings in Atlanta, the Special Rapporteur heard from migrants and migrant human rights advocates from different organizations and who travelled from across the southern United States, including the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA), the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Queer Progressive Agenda (QPA), Raksha (South Asian community organization), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the Georgia Department of Education Program, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta. Migrants and NGO advocates from these and other organization informed the Special Rapporteur of the plight of migrants in the south of the United States, where the migrant population is booming. 6. The Special Rapporteur also attended a public hearing in New York on the rights of migrants organized by the ACLU of New York, regional NGOs and grass-roots organizations. In New York, the Special Rapporteur heard several individuals testify about the post-9/11 backlash, including the experiences of the some 750 migrants arrested and subjected to arbitrary and lengthy detention subsequent to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. 7. The visit concluded with meetings with senior officials of the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department in Washington, D.C. On the last day of his visit, the Special Rapporteur was informed that the cancellation of his visits to the detention facilities in Texas and New Jersey was due to a pending lawsuit filed against both facilities, in which the United States Government was not allowed to interfere. A statement was subsequently published in the press suggesting that the cancellation was because the “Special Rapporteur declined the invitation”; the Special Rapporteur made clear that this latter allegation was false. 8. Migrant rights issues raised in these various meetings included, but were not limited to, the following: indefinite detention; arbitrary detention; mandatory detention; deportation without due process; family separation; anti-immigrant legislation; racial profiling; linguistic, racial, ethnic, gender and sexual-orientation discrimination; State violence; wage theft; forced labour; limited access to health and education; the growing anti-immigrant climate (including the post-9/11 backlash); and significant limitations on due process and judicial oversight. Most of these issues are addressed in this report.