Jon Purizhansky | Buffalo News, New York

On December 18, 2019 the United Nations is celebrating International Migrants Day.  This is an important event marking a significant population that needs attention and awareness.  There are over 272 million migrants living throughout the world.  And while many of these people migrate by choice, many also migrate because they do not have a choice, reflects New York based Immigration Attorney Jon Purizhansky .  War, famine, political and religious oppression – has contributed to millions of people migrating around the world seeking refuge. Migration and labor is a closely monitored activity by the United Nations.  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres remarked all migrants are entitled to equal protection of all their human rights.  On this International Day, I urge leaders and people everywhere to bring the Global Compact to life, so that migration works for all. Migration is not a new concept.  It has been widely documente...

Corporations and governments throughout the world are working together to protect migrant workers.  On December 9 th , the Swedish clothing corporation, H&M Group, renewed its interest in this area by pledging to promote the ethical recruitment and protection of migrant workers in global supply chains.  The pledge was memorialized through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the United Nations agency International Organization for Migration (IOM). Numerous corporations have renewed their efforts to support the rights of migrant workers.  Many corporations make such pledges internally or with their customers, but it’s refreshing to see such a commitment as the H&M company has made with an inter-governmental agency, reflected New York based immigration attorney Jon Purizhansky . The H&M Group has a particular interest in around workers’ rights. They are a multinational clothing-retail company that operates in 62 countries with...

House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings severely criticized the current head of Homeland Security early this week, scolding Kevin McAleenan over the conditions of detention facilities for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Maryland Democrat grew emotional while discussing the packed centers migrants are being held in. Reading from a court document in which a federal judge determined that Homeland Security “did a better job of tracking immigrants’ personal property than their children,” Cummings repeatedly shut down McAleenan’s attempts to speak. “I’m talking about human beings,” Cummings raged. “I’m not talking about people that come from, as the president said, shitholes. These are human beings. Human beings. Just trying to live a better life.” Jon Purizhansky of Buffalo, NY recognizes the chairman’s passion and exhibits that same passion in his own work to improve the conditions of migrants anywhere he can. Cummings asked whether there is an “empathy defici...

Jon Purizhansky : The Mexican National Guard busted a caravan of refugees and migrants last Saturday. As the U.S and Mexico continue to limit options for migrants and asylum seekers, many have been held for months in Tapachula, a city in the southern Chiapas, hopeful for documentation that allows them to travel north through Mexico and into the U.S. Early Saturday morning over 1,000 migrants and asylum seekers from various Caribbean, African, and Central American nations departed together from Tapachula. Following in the footsteps of prior caravans, they intended to spend the first night in Huixtla, twenty-five miles north, but their journey was halted roughly 3/4 of the way there. Mexican immigration and security forces executed a major operation on Saturday afternoon to stop the caravan’s progress. National Guard troops gridlocked the highway, the main passageway for commercial traffic between Mexico and Guatemala, while other National Guard troops, federal...

Jon Purizhansky : Russian President Vladimir Putin looks to be exploiting ways immigration can undermine Western nations. Putin suggested to the West last month that the spreading havoc in Libya after nearlya decade of war should have been clear: “A flow of migrants went through Libya to Europe,” he said in an interview, noting the displacement of refugees that has reached critical levels in the past few years. “They have what they were warned about,” he said. This week, The New York Times noted the deployment into Libya of Russian hired guns. While Moscow refutes its participation, the situation resembles schemes Russia has successfully utilized in Syria and Ukraine to gain influence in chaotic war zones by sending out private forces Putin can disavow until the point of victory. The Russian leader’s warning about Libya, many experts believe, reflects an ambition to intercede in the conflict at least in part to regulate refugee flows into Europe, indicating a...

Jon Purizhansky : Italian mayor Susanna Ceccardi claimed that there are “no migrants” in Malta as countries continued to fight over the Mediterranean migrant crisis. She made these comments after countries came to an impasse over which nation would be responsible for 450 saved migrants. Susanna Ceccardi made the claims in front of the Prime Minister of Malta’s home. This claim that there are “no migrants” in Malta took place as the two nations continued their conflict over the Mediterranean refugee crisis. Susanna Ceccardi, this mayor from the far-right Lega Nord (Northern League) party, made the accusation that Europe was “emptying the barrel of migration onto Italy” as she made her address in front of the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s headquarters, the Auberge de Castille. “Walking around this island’s streets, you won’t see a single migrant,” she mentioned. “I’ve been here one day now and people I spoke to here tell me you won’t s...

Across Europe and the Americas, governments have gone to severe extents to halt migration. During a Thanksgiving Day conference with members of the U.S. military, President Donald Trump took his chance to revel in the increased militarization of the U.S.’s southern border in response to the incoming Central American migrant and refugee convoy. Trump stated “We have the concertina fencing and we have things that people don’t even believe. We took the old, broken wall and we wrapped it with barbed wire-plus… Jon Purizhansky :  We’re fighting for our country. If we don’t have borders, we don’t have a country”. Quite ironically, the U.S.’s ignoring of other nations’ borders is a large part of the reason Central American migration is occurring in the first place, as U.S. political and economic interfering in the region continues to increase violence and poverty. Now, the barbed wire ploy has caused a situation in which thousands of refugees are trapped on the Mexic...