ASSOCIATE AG WEST DELIVERS REMARKS AT PROGRESSIVE NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Associate Attorney General Tony West Delivers Remarks at the Progressive National Baptist Convention

Fort Lauderdale, Florida ~ Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Dr. [Carroll] Baltimore, for that kind introduction.  I salute you for your leadership of this convention and I congratulate you on this successful convening.

I have to say, I feel very much at home here, being the great-grandson of two South Florida Baptist preachers – although clearly, the program organizers were unaware of my Baptist pedigree as they only allotted me 10 minutes to speak.

It is such an honor to address this convention.  I was thinking on the way down here about the living history that this convention represents: About the fact that this was the denominational home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; about how we cannot talk about the Civil Rights Movement and not in the same breath speak of this organization, and about the leadership of Dr. Taylor, Rev. Booth, Rev. Chambers and so many others.

And I thought about how much I owe to this convention, as an African-American man: too young to remember first-hand the Civil Rights Movement’s most dramatic, seminal moments; yet too old not to feel the weight of responsibility for preserving, protecting, defending and promoting the movement's legacy in the public service I am now privileged to perform.

We’re in a time when we're celebrating a number of significant anniversaries – milestones that make all the more salient the historic centrality of this great, Progressive National Baptist Convention:

Fifty years since they came by the hundreds of thousands to gather peacefully on the Washington Mall, marching for jobs and freedom;

Since college students, black and white, boarded buses in the North and rode them deep into the South, riding with the certainty of danger but the faith of Paul;

Since the ’64 Civil Rights Act and Mississippi’s “Freedom Summer.”

And as we think about the those anniversaries, we have reason to rejoice in the great progress forged by ordinary men and women in shattering boundaries once thought unbreakable – enormous change wrought in the short space of five decades.

And yet, I am struck by the fact that at the heart of what Dr. King, his contemporaries and this convention were grappling with back then remain, fundamentally, the same challenges facing us today:

How do we build a society that allows all people the freedom to realize fully their own potential?

How do we ensure that, in Dr. King’s words, “[l]aw and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice” and not as “dams that block the flow of social progress?”

How do we make certain that this bold experiment in self-government is inclusive, responsive and maintains its legitimacy in the eyes of those it serves?

The opening lines of our story as one nation begin with a promise:  a promise that we are all created equal.  And nowhere is this promise manifest more tangibly than in the right to vote.

That sacred franchise – the right to choose who will speak and act in our names; the right to express sovereignty over our government; a right that is, to paraphrase Lincoln, the foundation on which the temple of liberty is built because it protects all other rights – that right, more than any other, is what defines us as joint and equal members of this unique, democratic idea called the United States of America.

And next year, we’ll mark 50 years since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  You know, after President Lyndon signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, there were those – many of them his close allies – who told him to wait, to slow down; that it was too soon to start work on another major piece of civil rights legislation.

But President Johnson knew that 100 years after the franchise had been promised to African-Americans – a commitment forged by Civil War and consummated by constitutional amendment – Johnson knew that the time for waiting had run out.

Instead of waiting, Johnson acted, saying, “About this there can and should be no argument.  Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.”

So it is a sad irony that five decades later, we find ourselves working overtime to hold onto to that promise.  It is ironic that 50 years later, we are battling efforts that make it harder, not easier, for people to cast their votes.  It is ironic that in 2014, we must litigate against laws that impede voter registration that curtail democratic participation; or impose restrictive voter ID requirements that we know have a disproportionate effect on poor people and people of color, making it harder for them to exercise the franchise.

Now, I don’t want there to be any confusion about this so let me be clear: where there’s evidence of voter fraud, we won’t tolerate it.  Voter fraud undermines our democracy.  Nobody believes we should accept that.

But public policy studies from across the political spectrum come to the same conclusion that in-person voter fraud is extremely rare.  Too often, the fervor surrounding voter ID laws seems more like a solution in search of a problem.  And so we need to be mindful that “the real voter fraud,” as the president says, “is people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud.”

The right to vote faces other challenges, as well.  Repeatedly, a bipartisan Congress of the United States reauthorized Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act – most recently in 2006 with unanimous support in the Senate and near-unanimous support in the House.  And repeatedly, Republican and Democratic Administrations used these provisions to secure the franchise for all American citizens.

Yet notwithstanding this bipartisan history, last year we lost an important tool in our anti-discrimination toolbox when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key part of the Voting Rights Act.

So, on the eve of the 50 th anniversary of the ’65 Voting Rights Act – in the middle of a season where we remember Mississippi’s “Freedom Summer” – we know that our work is far from done.  We know that the perennial lesson of history is that the triumphs won by Dr. King, by Fannie Lou Hamer, by the Progressive National Baptist Convention and by so many others – those triumphs must be won anew in this generation, because the hard reality is that the right to vote faces threats today as stark and serious and urgent as any it faced 50 years ago.

And that is why we must continue to act.  That is why protecting the fundamental right to vote for all Americans remains one of the Justice Department’s highest priorities.  Because standing by as the voices of some Americans are shut out of the democratic process is simply not an option.

So at the Department of Justice, we are continuing to monitor jurisdictions around the country, and we're watching for changes in their voting laws that may hamper voting rights.

Our message is unequivocal: we will use every legal tool that remains available to us, against any jurisdiction that seeks to hinder eligible citizens’ full and free right to vote.

When we see something that causes us concern, we won't hesitate to make it plain.  In Texas, we have gone to court to challenge a voter ID law and a congressional redistricting map that we contend discriminate against Latino voters.  In North Carolina, we have sued the state over discriminatory voting laws that restrict access to the polling place and make it harder for voters to case their ballots.

Last week, we submitted filings in voting rights cases in two different states: Wisconsin and Ohio.  In Wisconsin, we're contending that the federal judge there got it right when she struck down Wisconsin’s strict photo voter ID requirement due to its adverse effects on minority voters under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

In Ohio, in a case challenging that state’s law curtailing early voting and same-day registration, we filed a statement in support of the NAACP's position, arguing that Ohio has misinterpreted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in defending its law.

And while we will continue to use all the legal authority we have to protect vigorously the right to vote, the fact is there is no substitute – as the president has made clear – for strong congressional action which guarantees that every American has equal access to the polls.  That is why the Justice Department is providing assistance to Congress to formulate potential legislative proposals to address voting rights discrimination.

And, importantly, this work is bipartisan, because the fundamental right to vote must be above party or partisanship – too much hard work has been done, too much blood has been shed, too many lives lost and voices silenced for this to be simply about partisan politics.

No, this is about something much deeper, much more important.  We know what this is about.  It’s about who we are as a nation – who we are as a free and fair democratic society.

Because if a government of, by and for the people means anything at all, it means that a ballot has the power to give equal voice to the high and the low; the weak and the strong; those at the bottom as well as the top.  It means that in the polling place, the line is just as long for the richest among us as it is for those who often work the hardest but have the least.

And just as in 1965, those of us in the federal government – we cannot win this battle alone.  We will need your help.  We will need your hands.  We will need your voices to help us walk and not grow faint; to push us on and not get discouraged; to lift us up and carry us forward.  We will need your leadership to help us pull our nation out of its acquiescence and, in the proud tradition of this great convention, push it into action once again.

Thank you and God bless you.

ASSOCIATE AG WEST'S REMARKS AT JUVENILE JUSTICE COORDINATING COUNCIL

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks by Associate Attorney General Tony West at the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council

Washington, D.C. ~ Monday, July 28, 2014

As Prepared for Delivery

Thank you, Kathi. As always, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate in this meeting with you, our federal and practitioner members, as we explore ways we can better address the critical needs of our nation ’ s youth and their families.

Just a few minutes ago, I had the chance to spend some time with Starcia Ague and Osbert Duoa.  You'll hear from them directly in a moment, and I think you'll find their life journeys as compelling as did I when I first read about them.  But meeting with them helped to remind me of the essence of why we've gathered here this morning.

Of course, we're here as part of the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, and in particular in response to Attorney General Holder 's call to this Council four years ago that we make juvenile reentry a priority.

We're here because all of you heeded that call and have been actively engaged in the type of effective interagency collaboration that is producing real results and making a positive difference in the lives of so many youth.  Because while fewer youth are coming into contact with the justice system -- a development made possible thanks in no small measure to the efforts of folks around this table, as well as supportive private foundations such as MacArthur and Annie E. Casey -- we know that notwithstanding that, the recidivism rates for those youth who do come under systems supervision are often quite high.

We're here because, even though the last two decades have produced remarkable changes in state and local juvenile justice systems -- with juvenile arrest rates, including those for violent crimes, falling by over 50 percent from 1997 to 2011 (their lowest level in over 30 years) and youth confinement rates declining by half during that same period --- even with our success, we're here because 60,000 young people are still confined in juvenile detention and correction facilities on any given day and when they are released they will need support to successfully make that transition to productive adulthood and stable lives.

We're here because of young adults like Osbert and Starcia.  They remind us that at the end of all of the policy discussions and interagency collaborations, there are actual young lives that depend on folks around this table getting it right.  They remind us that each of these young lives has something of value to offer -- something unique to express to the world -- and through the work we do in these and other sessions -- by working to expand the support that will reduce recidivism and enhance post-juvenile systems education, job-training, parenting skills, counseling and health care -- we can maximize the opportunities for young people to express and be who they truly are; to find that inner strength, so clearly evidenced by Starcia, Osbert and so many others, to rise above circumstance and, as the English poet wrote, "open[] out a way/Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape."

So that's what brings us -- and keeps us -- around this table.  And today, we'll talk about effective strategies that should be applied as soon as youth come into contact with the juvenile and criminal justice systems and approaches that involve meaningful engagement with families and caregivers, as well as multiple service systems.

We will hear from our partners around the table, including the Council of State Governments Justice Center, regarding their activities that can help state and local juvenile justice systems to positively impact the well-being of transitioning youth.  And the department ’ s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) will discuss its strategic plan to position state and local governments in their efforts to support youth transition to a healthy, crime-free, and productive adulthood.

And it's important to note that our conversations today take place against a backdrop of sustained commitment to these efforts by this Administration.  As many of you know, just last week, the White House announced the Youth Opportunity AmeriCorps program that is jointly funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and OJJDP.  It's an effort that supports the My Brother ’ s Keeper Initiative and will enroll disconnected youth in national service programs such as AmeriCorps over the next three years, backed by funding of up to $10 million.  We are pleased that Melissa Bradley and Kim Mansaray from CNCS are here with us today and we thank the Corporation for its commitment to this innovative initiative.

I started my remarks by mentioning Osbert and Starcia.  And as remarkable as those two individuals are, we know that nobody makes it in this world alone.  So I also want to acknowledge Osbert ’ s mother, Saygba Carl, and Osbert's mentor , Chef Jennifer Stott, who are both here with us today.

Thank you all for joining us.  It's now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason.

AG HOLDER HOLDS PRESS CONFERENCE TO ANNOUNCE $4 BILLION FINANCIAL FRAUD SETTLEMENT

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Attorney General Holder Speaks at Press Conference Announcing Major Financial Fraud

Washington, D.C. ~ Monday, July 14, 2014

Good morning – and thank you all for being here.  Today, I am joined by Associate Attorney General [Tony] West; United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York [Loretta] Lynch; United States Attorney for the District of Colorado [John] Walsh; and Acting Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency [Michael] Stephens – as we announce a significant step in our ongoing effort to hold accountable those whose actions have threatened the integrity of our financial markets and undermined the stability of our economy.

Today, the Justice Department attained a landmark civil resolution with Citigroup totaling $7 billion in fines and consumer relief to address the bank’s involvement in a scheme to sell fraudulent securities that were backed by toxic loans.  This total includes a civil penalty of $4 billion, the largest penalty to date of its kind.

The penalty is appropriate given the strength of the evidence of the wrongdoing committed by Citi.  Despite the fact that Citigroup learned of serious and widespread defects among the increasingly risky loans they were securitizing, the bank and its employees concealed these defects.  They misrepresented the facts, including the level of risk.  They sold defective loans to countless investors, including federally-insured financial institutions.  And they made false statements to investors, in marketing materials, and even in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  They led investors and the public to believe that these financial products had been originated in compliance with the law and key underwriting guidelines when this was often not the case.

The bank’s misconduct was egregious.  And under the terms of this settlement, the bank has admitted to its misdeeds in great detail.  The bank’s activities shattered lives and livelihoods throughout the country and around the world.  They contributed mightily to the financial crisis that devastated our economy in 2008.  While Citigroup was not alone in its willingness to ignore internal warnings and disregard the law in order to defraud consumers and investors, as a result of their assurances that toxic financial products were sound, Citigroup was able to expand its market share and increase profits.  They did so at the expense of millions of ordinary Americans and investors of all types – including other financial institutions, universities and pension funds, cities and towns, and even hospitals and religious charities.  Ultimately, these investors suffered billions of dollars in losses when Citi’s false and fraudulent claims came crashing down.

Today, we hold the bank accountable for this wrongdoing – which had devastating ripple effects that cascaded through economies and financial institutions across the globe.  I want to thank U.S. Attorneys Lynch and Walsh, along with their dedicated staff members, for their leadership in making this resolution possible.  Alongside attorneys, analysts, and other committed public servants assigned to the RMBS Working Group – part of the President’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which I am proud to chair – they questioned a succession of witnesses, sifted through terabytes of data, and reviewed millions of documents.

In addition to the historic $4 billion penalty assessed against Citi, this resolution also includes $2.5 billion in relief that will be provided to those homeowners and communities affected by the bank’s fraudulent activities.  This assistance has become a must-have element in our agreements with banks that contributed to the mortgage crisis.  It will remain so.

Importantly, this agreement does not in any way absolve Citigroup or its individual employees from facing any possible criminal charges in the future.

Taken together, we believe the size and scope of this resolution goes beyond what could be considered the mere cost of doing business.  In fact, it was not at all inevitable in these last few weeks that this case would be resolved out of court.  But in all of its cases, the Justice Department is committed to delivering outcomes that are commensurate with the misconduct at issue.

This action is merely the latest step in our active and ongoing pursuit of those whose activities defrauded the American people and inflicted grave damage on our financial markets.  Citi is not the first financial institution to be held accountable by this Justice Department, and it will certainly not be the last.  In the investigations that remain open, we will continue to move forward – guided by the facts and the law – to achieve justice for those affected by the financial crisis.  These investigations are not only about holding those who violate the public trust to account; they are also intended to deter banks from engaging in this type of conduct in the future.

Now I’d like to turn things over to Associate Attorney General Tony West, who will provide additional details on today’s announcement.

ASSOCIATE AG WEST'S REMARKS ON ACCESS TO LEGAL AID FOR CRIMINALS

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Associate Attorney General West Delivers Remarks at the International Conference on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems

~ Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Thank you, Jennifer [Smith of the International Legal Foundation] for your kind words.  On behalf of the United States, it is a privilege to be here with all of you today at this historic international convening on criminal legal aid.  I want to thank Minister [of Justice and Correctional Services Michael] Masutha, Judge President Mlambo, the Government of the Republic of South Africa, Legal Aid South Africa, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, the United Nations Development Programme, and the International Legal Foundation, for coordinating this important gathering so that we may, together, explore how to strengthen and improve access to criminal legal aid around the world.

And equally important, I want to thank all of you -- the gathered Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Attorneys General, Supreme Court Justices, and criminal legal aid providers and experts -- for participating in this conference.  Your presence here epitomizes the dual truths that all free people, wherever they may live, lay valid claim to equality in the eyes of the law, and that the majesty of the law finds its best and highest use in the service of justice.

Two years ago, I had the privilege of being in New York, during the opening of the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, to participate in a side-event to the High-Level Meeting on the Rule of Law hosted by the Permanent Mission to the U.N. of the Republic of South Africa.  And during that event, I was honored to express the United States' strong support for the U.N. Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems.  The principles articulated in that document affirm that criminal legal aid “is an essential element of a fair, humane and efficient criminal justice system that is based on the rule of law.”

And now we have come here, to the land of Madiba and in the spirit of Ubuntu, to rededicate ourselves to the urgent task of making real the principle at the core of the U.N. Principles, articulated in the Lilongwe Declaration a decade ago, and reiterated in so many of your national constitutions, as well as mine: a criminal justice system is not just if it fails to guarantee a right to competent counsel through legal aid.

For the United States, that constitutional right to counsel is a cornerstone of the U.S. criminal justice system.  And my country's best articulation of this fundamental principle originated not with an august conference of learned judges and justice ministers, or by a declaration of universal rights and aspirations; its origins were much more humble than that.  It started with the arrest of a man once described as a drifter and petty thief.

His name was Clarence Gideon.  And in 1961, he was arrested for breaking into a pool hall and stealing about five U.S. dollars in change from a cigarette vending machine.  At his trial, Gideon asked the judge for a lawyer, saying he was too poor to hire one himself.  The presiding judge denied Gideon’s request, and, after representing himself at trial, Gideon lost and was convicted and sentenced to five years.

From the confines of his jail cell, Gideon wrote a simple, five-page plea asking the United States Supreme Court to grant him a new trial with appointed counsel.  “It makes no difference how old I am or what color I am or what church I belong to if any,” Gideon wrote.  “The question,” he said, “is very simple.  I did not get a fair trial.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately heard Gideon's plea and, in a milestone judicial opinion that bears his name, the justices established the principle that our Constitution guarantees defendants in criminal cases the right to a lawyer whether that person can afford one or not.  Gideon received a new trial – this time with the assistance of a court-appointed lawyer – and this time, he was acquitted.

I think it speaks volumes that if you visit Washington D.C. today -- and I know that many of your countries will be represented in Washington soon for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit that President Obama is hosting in August -- you will find Gideon’s humble, handwritten five-page petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, penciled on prison stationary, sitting in our National Archives, alongside our Nation's most treasured documents: the Declaration of Independence that created our country; the Bill of Rights which protected our liberty; and the Emancipation Proclamation that eradicated the scourge of slavery from our land.

And in the five decades since the Gideon case was decided, the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to refine this important and basic right -- expanding the right to counsel to juveniles and in certain misdemeanor cases.

So for the United States, the right to counsel is a principle that represents the most basic notions of fundamental fairness.  But it also reflects the aspirations of a Nation that is still very much a work in progress.

Because the challenge of effective criminal legal aid and fairness in the criminal justice system are issues that the United States has been grappling with since its founding.  At times, we have made great strides, committing resources, energy and ideas to the task.  At times, we have fallen short of our own ideals.  And with each triumph and setback, we are reminded that justice is as much a journey as it is a destination -- as much a process as it is an outcome -- and that the fairest criminal justice system gives equal attention to both.

Addressing this challenge is something that our nation's Attorney General, Eric Holder, has made a priority of his tenure in office.  In his first year, he launched the Access to Justice Initiative -- an effort that I oversee at the U.S. Department of Justice and which seeks to ensure basic legal services are available, affordable and accessible to everyone in the United States regardless of wealth or status.   Much of the work of this initiative is directed at strengthening criminal defense for the poor by focusing on many of the same values outlined in the U.N. Principles and Guidelines.

Our work through the Access to Justice Initiative has helped to raise awareness about the urgent need that exists in indigent criminal defense in the United States.  The lawyers who provide legal aid to criminal defendants -- we call them public defenders -- too often they are overworked, underpaid, and overwhelmed by the need for criminal defense services among the poor.

In response, the Access to Justice Initiative -- which is fortunate to have the leadership of Maha Jweied, the Acting Deputy Counselor of Access to Justice and a participant in this week's conference -- has supported piloting programs that test innovative indigent criminal defender services throughout our country and identified best practices that can improve the way we serve indigent clients who need legal representation.

There are other steps we've taken to make real our commitment to legal aid in the criminal justice system.  One of the most comprehensive is an effort launched by our Attorney General aimed at reforming and improving our criminal justice system in ways that not only improve access to justice and public safety, but also saves money and more effectively deploys our limited criminal justice resources.

We call it the "Smart on Crime" initiative.  It's a reform effort based on the premise that while aggressive enforcement of our criminal statutes remains our Justice Department's central law enforcement mission, experience teaches us that we cannot arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation.  Over the last three decades, the United States has enjoyed great success -- for a variety of reasons -- in bringing down violent crime rates.  Yet over that same time period, our prison populations have exploded by more than 800 percent, requiring the commitment of greater and greater resources.

And for those offenders who are non-violent and low-level, it's not clear that spending increasing amounts of our nation's treasure to incarcerate them is a sound investment in public safety; indeed, there may be better, less expensive ways of keeping our communities safe while at the same time holding offenders like these accountable and reducing the likelihood they will return to prison after they've been released.

So to truly be effective, our Smart on Crime initiative encourages our law enforcement officials at both the federal and state levels to focus on other aspects of criminal justice, like crime prevention, reducing over-incarceration and facilitating the successful reentry of individuals back into their communities after release.

Because if our experience in the United States teaches us anything, it is that building a better criminal justice system is always unfinished business.  Like our nation itself, our criminal justice system is in a state of constant self-evaluation, constant self-improvement, constant reform.  And our participation in this important conference is but one part of that infinite process.

So let me close where I began: by thanking all of you for your participation in this conference.  Because at the end of the day, after all of the keynote speeches are forgotten and resolutions adopted; after the outcome document is written and this conference center is empty, what will be left is the hard work of engaging in what I call "doing justice":  building criminal and civil legal systems that deliver the promise of dignity and equality before the law for every individual, regardless of who they are, their color or class, the god they worship or the person they love.

"Doing justice" means embracing the aspirations expressed in the U.N. Principles and Guidelines while at the same time being honest with ourselves about addressing those areas where we fall short, where we can learn from one another, and where we can do better.  It's about becoming, to paraphrase an American statesman,  a society whose greatness is measured not by how it treats those at the top, but how it treats those who dance in the dawn of life, those who rest in the sunset of life, and those who struggle in the shadows of life; those who often work the hardest but have the least; those who know not the mainstream but life's margins.

And honorable guests, our hands -- yours and mine -- we must do that work.  We come here from the perches of privilege -- the privilege of being servants of the people we represent, and whose dreams and aspirations we strive to realize.  We must make the persuasive arguments in the halls of power for those who find no voice there.  We must take the bold steps, make the hard choices and, yes, even at times accept the political risks, because that is what building the future of fair and effective justice systems requires.

And I am thankful to you because I know you are up to the task, or you would not be here today.  And I am grateful for the opportunity to be your partner in this endeavor, for there is much we can learn from you, much we can share with you, and so much we can achieve working with you; as we, in the writer's words, float "as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold -- brothers who know now that they are truly brothers,"  bound together by a shared commitment to the majesty that is the law and the justice that it must always serve.

ASSOCIATE AG WEST WELCOMES 700 NEW CITIZENS

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Associate Attorney General Tony West Delivers Remarks at USCIS Naturalization Ceremony

~ Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Thank you, Sarah [Taylor], for that kind introduction and for all that you and your colleagues have done to bring us together today.  I am so honored to be a part of this special occasion and to be among the first to congratulate the 700 men and women here on becoming our nation’s newest citizens.  Witnessing the call of countries and your oath of allegiance made me proud and grateful:  proud of this country which is now as much yours as it is mine; and grateful for the rich legacies you all bring to your new citizenship from your own corners of the world -- legacies that will make this a stronger, more vibrant, and better America.

By taking that oath, you are now, in about every way, on equal footing with your fellow citizens who were born in the United States.  Except there’s one difference that you might say gives you the edge -- you had to pass that exam.  You know what I’m talking about -- that naturalization exam, and some of those questions are not easy.  So you get some extra bragging rights.

But you know that becoming an American citizen is more than signing a paper or even passing an exam.  Being an American means that every day, you have the opportunity to embody the spirit of individual liberty and commitment to community that defines this country.

We are a nation not bound together by a shared race, or a single ethnicity, or a state-sanctioned religious faith.

The United States of America, our country, is bound together by a set of promises we make to ourselves and each other.  Freedom.  Equality.  Democracy.

You see, the United States is more than a place on the map -- it’s an idea; the idea that you are free to control your own destiny, for yourselves and your family; the idea that you are part of something larger than yourselves; that you have a chapter to write in the great story of our nation; the idea that no matter where you came from, or who your ancestors are, how you worship or what you look like, you have a role in shaping our shared future.

This is what people mean when they talk about "the American Experience."  And while it's not perfect, and sometimes reflects struggle and strife and sliding backward, it's an experience that is always unfolding, always reaching, always aspiring to become better.  And everyday, the dream of America is made more real and more perfect by its citizens, which now includes each of you.

Each of you has an important responsibility in helping to make real the promise of America.  That means staying informed and voicing your opinions; it means voting and serving on a jury if you’re called.  It means becoming active in your communities and contributing your talents to help your neighborhoods, your towns, and your country.  It means respecting different viewpoints and cultures, and educating your children to do the same.  It means recognizing that through our diversity comes strength, and that those common aspirations that bind us together are stronger than those differences which separate us.


Even before you took the oath today, many of you were living these ideals.  Each of you brings with you a unique set of talents that will enrich this country.  You are students and soldiers; teachers and parents; artists and engineers.  You own businesses, heal patients, construct buildings and raise families.

Some of you are new citizens like Corporal Jorge Luis Cuji Villacis , who came here from Ecuador when he was eleven years old, went to school, and then joined the U.S. Marine Corps because he wanted to make his family proud, serve this country, and become a better person.

Some of you have crossed the globe to get here, coming from countries like Afghanistan, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, India, China, Sri Lanka, and Japan.

Some of you have been our neighbors for generations, coming from Canada and Mexico.


And all of you represent the vast diversity that is America.


So wherever you come from, whatever your native tongue, familiar food or personal custom, I want you to know that today is a new beginning for you, for your families, and for America.  We are proud of you; we are happy for you; and we welcome you as fellow citizens embarked on this bold experiment in a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
And just in case you forget this anniversary, today is April 15 -- usually the day Americans pay their taxes.  So on this day in the years ahead, I hope you will smile as you remember this moment, the day you became an American citizen -- and then, of course, don’t forget to do your taxes.


Congratulations to you all, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share this incredible moment with you and your families.

ASSOCIATE AG WEST MAKES REMARKS AT NATIONAL INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ASSOCIATION MEETING

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Associate Attorney General Tony West Delivers Remarks at the National Indian Child Welfare Association’s Thirty-second Annual Protecting Our Children Conference

~ Monday, April 14, 2014

Thank you, Theodore and Alex, for that kind introduction and for inviting me to join you today at this conference.  It is wonderful to be here with so many friends, colleagues, and supporters.  And it is an honor to share the stage this morning with two great partners, Assistant Secretary Washburn and Associate Commissioner Chang.

I would especially like to thank NICWA and its members for the work that you do -- day in and day out -- to strengthen Indian tribes, to support Indian families, and to protect Indian children in both state child-welfare and private-adoption systems throughout our nation.

And I think it's fitting that what brings us together this morning, this week -- from communities across this country -- is our commitment to children, particularly Native children.  I think it was the French philosopher Camus who wrote about this being a world in which children suffer, but maybe, through our actions, we can lessen the number of suffering children.

Indeed, what brings us to Ft. Lauderdale is that promise we make to all of our children: that their safety and well-being is our highest priority; that they are sacred beings, gifts from the Creator to be cherished, cared for, and protected.

It was that promise that, nearly forty years ago, led Congress to hold a series of hearings that lifted the curtain and shed light on abusive child-welfare practices that were separating Native children from their families at staggering rates; uprooting them from their tribes and their culture.  Roughly one of every three or four Indian children, according to data presented at those hearings, had been taken from their birth families and placed with adoptive families, in foster care, or in institutions that had little or no connection to the child's tribe.

And in the face of that overwhelming evidence, a bipartisan Congress acted and passed the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.

And in the four decades since, as everyone here knows, ICWA has had a dramatic impact.  Families, tribes, social workers, and Indian foster and adoptive parents have invoked ICWA’s core protections to stem the most flagrant abuses.

Tribes no longer face the prospect that a quarter to a third of their children will simply disappear, shipped off to homes halfway across the country.  Today, in many places, tribes and states have developed productive working partnerships to implement ICWA – partnerships that ensure that Indian families and cultures are treated with the respect they deserve.

And while it is right for us to recognize the landmark achievement that is ICWA, we also know that there is much work left to do.  There is more work to do because, in some states, Native children are still removed from their families and tribes at disproportionately high rates.

There's more work to do because nationwide Indian children are still two to three times as likely as non-Indian children to end up in foster care; in some states the numbers are even larger.

There's more work to do because every time an Indian child is removed in violation of ICWA, it can mean a loss of all connection with family, with tribe, with culture.  And with that loss, studies show, comes an increased risk for mental health challenges, homelessness in later life, and, tragically, suicide.

So, as far as we have come since ICWA became law in 1978, we have farther still to go.

You all know this is true from both professional and personal experience.  And I want you to know that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder share your commitment to improving the welfare of Indian children and are committed to working with you to help achieve that goal.  Although ICWA speaks primarily to the responsibilities and roles of the states and the tribes, we believe there’s a constructive part for the federal government to play.

That's why the White House has directed the Departments of the Interior, Health and Human Services, and Justice to engage in an unprecedented collaboration to help ensure that ICWA is properly implemented.  I believe we will hear more about this effort from Assistant Secretary of the Interior Washburn in a few minutes.

For our part at the Justice Department, our main ICWA contributions have focused on precedent-setting litigation that can affect ICWA's reach and force.  One of ICWA’s most important provisions is its recognition that Indian tribes, as sovereigns, have presumptive jurisdiction over Indian child-custody proceedings.  And over the years we have worked hard to help protect this tribal jurisdiction by participating in federal and state court litigation as an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court.”

In Alaska, for example, we’ve participated in a line of cases over the last 20 years to ensure that Alaska tribes have jurisdiction over child-custody disputes.  Starting with the landmark John v. Baker case, we’ve filed multiple amicus briefs in the Alaska and U.S. Supreme Courts, successfully arguing that even tribes that lack “Indian country” retain jurisdiction to address child-custody disputes.

Of course, we've not always prevailed.  Last June's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, which narrowly interpreted ICWA and terminated the parental rights of a Cherokee father in connection with his daughter, was decided over our arguments in support of the father.

But even when we don't prevail, our legal arguments can have a major impact on the ultimate decision.  You'll recall that in Baby Girl, one of the arguments advanced by the adoptive couple was, essentially, that ICWA was unconstitutional -- that it "upset the federal-state balance," suggesting that Congress was prohibited from overriding state child-custody law when an Indian child was involved.

We countered that applying ICWA in that case raised no constitutional concerns, as Congress has plenary authority to protect Indian children from being improperly separated from Indian communities.  And on this point, we were successful:  even though we lost the ultimate issue and the High Court ruled against the Cherokee father, the Court did not rely on the adoptive couple's constitutional argument and did not rule that ICWA was unconstitutional.

Notwithstanding setbacks like the Baby Girl decision, we will continue to stand up for ICWA because, as we said in the Supreme Court, it's “a classic implementation of Congress’s plenary [trust] responsibility . . . for Indians.”  You see, for us, standing up for ICWA means standing strong for tribal sovereignty.  "Nothing could be more at the core of tribal self-determination and tribal survival,” we said during oral argument in the Baby Girl case, “than . . . [determining] tribal membership and . . .  [caring] about what happens to Indian children.”

This, of course, is completely consistent with the Administration's steadfast efforts to advance tribal sovereignty on a whole host of fronts.  It was our Nations’ Founding Fathers, the framers of our Constitution, who expressly acknowledged tribal sovereignty when they empowered Congress to regulate commerce not only “among the several States,” but also “with the Indian Tribes.”

It's a principle that was succinctly summed up by President Obama in 2009 when he observed:  "Tribal nations do better when they make their own decisions."

And for those of us privileged to serve in the Obama Administration, what does standing up for tribal sovereignty mean?

It means not only filing briefs in Indian-law cases that seek to preserve the victories tribes have won in the lower courts; but also seeking to change the law, where necessary.

Perhaps the best example of that is last year's fight to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA.  As you know, the same year Congress helped advance tribal sovereignty by passing ICWA, the Supreme Court, in the Oliphant case, held that tribes lacked criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians unless Congress said otherwise.  But for 35 years, Congress remained silent.

So even violent crimes committed by a non-Indian husband against his Indian wife -- in the presence of their Indian children, in their home on an Indian reservation -- he could not be prosecuted by the tribe.  So violent crimes went unprosecuted and unpunished, and violence against Native women escalated.

So in 2011, the Justice Department drafted federal legislation to fix this problem by restoring tribes’ criminal jurisdiction.  Last winter, that legislation was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama.  Today, the Justice Department and three Indian tribes -- the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon -- are all actively implementing the first pilot projects under VAWA 2013.

And while VAWA 2013 is the best example of our trying to change the law's balance in favor of tribal sovereignty, it's not the only one.  When the Supreme Court's decision in the Carcieri case made it harder for the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for some tribes, we stood with the tribes and repeatedly pushed Congress to pass the Carcieri fix, so that tribes could put their land into federal trust regardless of when they were recognized.

In addition, in response to Carcieri, the Interior Department has analyzed what tribes were under federal jurisdiction in 1934, which in turn has enabled Interior to make positive land-into-trust decisions for many tribes.  And the Justice Department is vigorously defending those decisions when they are challenged in court.

Standing up for tribal sovereignty also means extending the benefits of that government-to-government relationship to every legitimate Native American group in the United States.  That’s why the Interior Department is currently revising its federal acknowledgment regulations, so that tribes that have been terminated or otherwise denied their proper status as sovereign nations can reestablish a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

Standing up for tribal sovereignty means supporting the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as this Administration does, declaring that all “[i]ndigenous peoples have the right to self-determination . . . [and to] freely determine their political status.”

And it means not overlooking one of our country’s largest indigenous communities:  the Native Hawaiian people.  In 2010, Attorney General Holder and then-Secretary of the Interior Salazar took the historic step of expressing this Administration’s strong support for a proposal that would lead to reestablishing and maintaining a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community.

Tribal leaders in the continental United States have long proclaimed that Native Hawaiians deserve the same inherent rights to local self-government, self-determination, and economic self-sufficiency that other Native Americans enjoy.  And today we have a federal government willing to stand beside them and defend those core principles.

So standing up for tribal sovereignty means moving forward on all of these fronts, as well as many others, like continued support to improve public safety in tribal communities -- almost 1000 DOJ grant awards to tribes totaling nearly $400 million over the last four years.

Or working to identify ways to reduce the violence experienced by too many of our Native children, as our Task Force on American Indian/Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence is doing through convenings and listening sessions throughout the country, the next one occurring later this week here in Ft. Lauderdale.

Or improving the safety of tribal communities by more U.S. Attorney prosecutions of cases in Indian Country -- up by more than 50 percent in the last four years.

These are pragmatic, meaningful and significant measures in support of tribal sovereignty, and they are making a difference every day.

Let me close by saying this:  one of the great privileges of my office as the nation's Associate Attorney General has been the opportunity to delve into issues of tribal public safety and tribal sovereignty.  And over the last five years, my work has taken me to Indian Country more than a half-dozen times.

And for me, those visits are a reminder of the rich legacy that First Americans have bestowed upon this country, and that we are a stronger America because of that legacy.

They remind me of the important trust relationship between the United States and tribal nations, and that the struggle for tribal sovereignty and self-determination has too often been waged in the face of disruption and devastation caused by assimilation and termination policies pursued in the not-so-distant past.

They remind me of the Code Talkers, the Cold War Warriors, and the other Native American men and women who proudly wore the uniform and whose continued service today helps secure the freedoms we enjoy here, at this moment and in this place; and that, as important as is our shared history, so too is our common destiny: a future that is left in our hands to shape.

A future that can be defined by sovereignty and self-determination; by resilience and sustainability and economic opportunity; a future unclouded by violence, in which the Seventh Generation is healthy, happy and strong.

That is the vision of the future that unites all of us in this room.  It is our charge and our challenge; our collective mission.  And for all that you do to make real this promise to our children, know that I salute you, proudly stand with you, and will work alongside you, today and in all the days ahead.

Thank you very much.