WWYW #30: Immigration Detention Reform; Financial Reform and the SEC

Panel: Immigration Detention Reform

The sheer number of immigrants being held in centers across the country is staggering - nearly 30,000 on any given day - three times the amount during the late 1990s. Once released, some detainees tell of shocking treatment while incarcerated. While the Obama administration has trumpeted progress in this area, transparency and human rights advocates say that the U.S. needs to do a better job to ensure humane treatment, provide detainees better legal access, and that treatment standards must be established and followed.

With us to discuss this issue are David Shapiro, a staff attorney with the ACLU's National Prison Project, and Brittney Nystrom, Director of Policy and Legal Affairs at the National Immigration Forum.

Financial Reform and the SEC: Interview with Jason Zuckerman

The Security and Exchange Commission hasn't done a good job of listening to whistleblowers over the last several years. Numerous whistleblowers have tried to contact the agency over the last decade, only to be ignored, rebuffed, and marginalized. Now that the public has seen the ramifications of the agency's ignoring of whsitleblowers - most notably the Bernie Madoff scandal - Congress has acted. The recently passed financial reform bill provides the SEC the ability to distribute financial rewards for whistleblowers whose original disclosures of fraud lead to the recovery of over $1 million. The SEC is writing the rules for this reward system - and they want the whistleblowers to come straight to the agency, bypassing their corrupt bosses. Corporations are crying foul and pushing back, calling the program unfair. With the rules set to be finalized next April, this key provision is up in the air. With us to discuss this issue is Jason Zuckerman, a whistleblower attorney at the Employment Law Group, a Washington, D.C. based law firm.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• SEC
• financial reform
• dodd-frank
• wall street
• immigration
• detention
• ICE