Author: mopress

Immigration Judge Dietrich Sims has scheduled a pretrial conference in the Ibrahim family asylum case for 7 June 2007 at 12:30. At that time he is expected to schedule a final hearing on the merits.

John Wheat Gibson

Report from a Raided Neighborhood

By Susan Van Haitsma

Austin American Statesman

Texas French Bread is my neighborhood bakery. The homegrown business opened the year I moved to Austin, so our histories share a common starting point.

At the flagship Texas French Bread on the corner of 29th Street and Rio Grande, people meet to visit and conduct business as well as to eat. Even
when I stop in for a just a minute, I usually run into someone I know. Regulars include quietly focused writers and students along with groups of
schoolchildren holding lively discussions over muffins and juice. It’s a place that makes you feel comfortable whether you’re alone or with a table
full of friends.

On Saturday, June 3, the Austin American-Statesman reported that armed federal agents entered the bakery at 7:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 1 and
arrested 5 kitchen workers, 4 of whom were summarily deported to Mexico.

The bakery’s owner said that all of the arrested workers, who range in age from 28 to 59, have children and have been long-term employees – 10 years, in one case. “These people paid taxes. They worked like crazy,” the owner said.

I didn’t know these workers, but I should have, because they worked like crazy to provide the food I appreciated so much. When I read the news of
their arrest and deportation, I felt sick inside, a feeling that contrasted with the satisfied feeling their food always gave me. I felt sick because
the sudden deportations meant great loss and hardship for them, their families and their employer, and also because the raid signified a cruel
inversion of the hospitality the bakery represents.

Having freshly baked goods for breakfast is a luxury made possible only because there are bakers willing to work through the wee hours at wages
probably lower than my own. As a US citizen, I wonder if I enjoy this good food at the expense of those who prepare it. NAFTA policies undercut
Mexican staples such as corn and beans, forcing Mexican farmers to leave their land and head north to the treacherous border. Young men leave families behind, sacrificing parental involvement for critical monetary support.

The raid of a neighborhood establishment alerts me to the privilege my New York birth certificate allows in contrast to a false work visa and to how much more false that privilege feels right now. I am as much a migrant to Texas as anyone else. Despite the message on the Statue of Liberty, it is deemed a crime for certain people to seek work to support themselves and their families, and certain human beings are casually termed “illegals.”

Sending more soldiers and surveillance cameras to the border and deporting workers are false maneuvers that punish the wrong people, capitalize on security concerns and sidestep the root causes of northward labor flow.

When Governor Perry says, “A stronger border is what the American people want,” he doesn’t speak for me. He doesn’t speak for the thousands of people who have rallied in recent weeks for immigrant rights. Security will increase when our public treasury is used to improve education, health care, energy efficiency, habitat protection and transportation alternatives, not
when it is used to separate us from our neighbors and to separate family members from one another.

People gather at bakeries because human beings live by both bread and brotherhood. We cross the threshold to satisfy a natural hunger for food
and each another, and borders are crossed for these reasons, too. Making fences higher and stronger is a mean trick that hurts people instead of
addressing the hurtful trade practices that governors and presidents must acknowledge and reform.

Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth.

By Greg Moses

Dallas Blog

No doubt there is a growing problem with organized criminal activity along the border with Mexico, and innocent people are being murdered. No doubt there is a problem also with terrorist organizations who lash out in deadly ways. But today there is a bigger problem than these. The bigger problem lies with well-organized political machines who could be actually doing something about violent crime or terrorism but who instead simply exploit public fear to prey upon innocent victims, one more time.
Take for instance the recent immigration raid on the French Bread Bakery in Austin. What did that use of force have to do with fighting violent crime at the border or interdicting terrorist plots? I mean seriously. What ethic of state power did that little stunt display, rounding up bakery workers and tossing them out of the country because allegedly they may have used fake I.D.’s to find work?

Now I understand that fake I.D.’s can be used by gangsters and terrorists, and I understand that walking across the Texas border is sometimes against the law. But I also understand that fake I.D.’s can be used as pretexts by politicians running for re-election.

If it’s stopping violent crime and terrorism that needs doing, then do it. And brag about it if you want to. Show us the pictures. But stop picking on the migrant workers. Meanwhile, the people have some stopping to do, that is, stopping the rising tide of storm-trooper politics, which has come up to neck deep, and which never fails to name violent crime and terrorism as what must be stopped.

In the opening paragraph of the Texas Republican Party platform on Border Security, passed out of committee Thursday night, we were assured that “illegal aliens, organized crime, and potential terrorists” must be stopped from flowing across the border. Next day the Republican-led authorities of Texas made good on their promise by militarizing the border and deporting a few so-called “illegal aliens” who were working at a bakery. But what about “organized crime” or “potential terrorists”? What did the Party do about either of these? Fighting terrorism and organized crime are not what troops do best.

Are we going to fall for this shell game of power and rhetoric? I say not. And that means we have to see this phrase — “illegal aliens, organized crime, and potential terrorists” — for the setup that it is. If a Party wants to address organized crime and terrorism, they may speak and write about it in one sentence, maybe even supported down the page by a paragraph of precise techniques. Then, they may deal with that problem actually where it is to be found, in ways that are effective, with photo ops and headlines.

Then if the Party wants to address the issue of migrant workers who are “working their asses off” everywhere we look, it is time to begin a new paragraph and a new issue. In that paragraph the Party might want to discuss its historical connection to the state processes that are moving people where they don’t really prefer to go and how the Party intends to address those state processes.

For example, the Party might talk about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the way it pulled the rug from under Mexican peasant farmers. Talk about right-to-work laws in Texas and how growing labor pools can erode wage structures where workers have no rights to begin with. The paragraph on migrant workers could get quite long, but it’s a different issue than “organized crime” and “potential terrorism”, and so it should be treated under a different head, because “working your ass off” in Texas is another kind of crime altogether, and we will not be fooled into thinking that because you deport workers or import troops you are making the world either safer or more prosperous.

When the Texas Republican Party promises to bring “order to the border”; when its Party platform packs migrant workers into short phrases about terrorism and deadly crime; when Party officials the next day crack down on a lil-ole bakery in the nearest Democratic precinct they can find; and oh yes when that Party’s leader plays a well-oiled part in a world-historic militarization of the border between the USA and Mexico; when we follow a Party like that — you know what I’m saying? Soon enough at the bakery, we’ll all be sitting with our backs to the wall.

PRESS RELEASE

from Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (www.CUADP.org)
on behalf of Doctors Freedman, Groner and Halpern

For Immediate Release – June 4, 2006

Physician Ethicists Call on the American Medical
Association to Launch a National Educational
Campaign on the Ethical Guidelines for Physician Involvement in Executions.

Contact:
Jonathan I. Groner MD,
Associate Professor of Surgery,
The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health

The following statement is attributable to these individuals:

* Alfred M. Freedman MD, Professor and Chairman Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, New York Medical College, and past president of the American Psychiatric Association

* Jonathan I. Groner MD, Associate Professor of Surgery at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health

* Abraham L. Halpern MD, Professor emeritus of psychiatry, New York Medical College. and past president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law In advance of the upcoming American Medical
Association House of Delegates meeting in
Chicago, which begins on June 10, Dr.s Freedman,
Groner, and Halpern have issued the following statement:

“A total of six lethal injection executions are
scheduled this month in Oklahoma, Texas, and
Virginia, and a physician will be in the death
chamber at each execution. In fact, in the last
3 years, 99% of executions were carried out by
lethal injection, and it is likely that a
physician was present at most, if not all, of these executions.

“For over a decade, the AMAs ethics guidelines
have forbidden physician participation in lethal
injection. However, these guidelines have never
been properly publicized, and only a small
minority of physicians are even aware of their existence.

“Therefore, we call on the AMA house of delegates
to support a resolution to launch a national
educational campaign on the ethical guidelines
for physician involvement in executions.

The proposed resolution:

SUBJECT: Ethics and Physician Participation in Legal Executions

Whereas, there is widespread participation by
physicians in legally authorized executions,
notwithstanding the Code of Medical Ethics,
specifically, CEJA Opinion 2.06; and

Whereas, there is a lack of knowledge by
physicians of the Code of Medical Ethics, in
regard to physician participation in executions; and

Whereas, in many instances the unethical
participation of physicians in executions is the
result of lack of knowledge and awareness of
ethical standards for physicians taking part in executions; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that our American Medical Association
launch a campaign of education, in collaboration
with State and County Medical Societies,
concerning actions allowed and disallowed by the
Code of Medical Ethics in connection with physician involvement in
executions.

Background information:

Like many other execution methods, lethal injection was designed with
physician input. However, unlike other methods, lethal injection was
intended to mimic a medical procedure: the intravenous induction of
general anesthesia.

For over a decade, The AMA has published a
well-articulated position against physician
participation against capital punishment in its
Code of Medical Ethics. However, this position
has never been publicized. In fact, a 2001 study
showed that only 3% of doctors surveyed were even aware of these guidelines.

The AMA guidelines forbid physicians from
monitoring vital signs, meaning that a physician
cannot pronounce death (since pronouncing death
involves examining for the presence or absence of
vital signs). The guidelines also forbid
physicians from making recommendations on how an execution should be
performed:

Physician participation in an execution includes,
but is not limited to, the following actions:
prescribing or administering tranquilizers and
other psychotropic agents and medications that
are part of the execution procedure; monitoring
vital signs on site or remotely (including
monitoring electrocardiograms); attending or
observing an execution as a physician; and
rendering of technical advice regarding execution.

With regard to lethal injection, the AMA guidelines state:

In the case where the method of execution is
lethal injection, the following actions by the
physician would also constitute physician
participation in execution: selecting injection
sites; starting intravenous lines as a port for a
lethal injection device; prescribing, preparing,
administering, or supervising injection drugs or
their doses or types; inspecting, testing, or
maintaining lethal injection devices; and
consulting with or supervising lethal injection personnel.

Recently, litigation by death row inmates has
sought to establish that lethal injection is
cruel and unusual (and therefore
unconstitutional) because it is a sophisticated
medical procedure performed by individuals with
no medical training. In response, prison
officials have made physicians even more integral
to the execution process. For example, the
lethal injections in Missouri in the early 1990s
were supervised by the head of prison
maintenance. Now they are performed by a surgeon
and a nurse. Several doctors have been involved
in Georgias executions. In Connecticut, a
licensed and practicing physician must assess
the qualifications of those inserting the IVs and
administering the drugs. And in two recent court
cases — in California and North Carolina a
judge demanded that anesthesiologists be present
to monitor the execution and intervene if
necessary. In the California case, the
anesthesiologists refused and the execution did
not occur. In North Carolina, the prison
officials used a brain wave monitor on the inmate
during the lethal injection. The judge permitted
the substitution of the monitor for the anesthesiologist.

In addition, there have been calls in the press
to make lethal injection “better” by bringing
more medical expertise to the death chamber (see
June 2, 2006 editorial in the Austin-American
Statesman, which calls for prison officials to
“seek expertise or advice from medical
professionals” in order to improve the Texas
execution protocol). This clearly constitutes
rendering technical advice and is not ethical
according to the AMA guidelines. Hence, we have
the “Hippocratic paradox” where the only way to
make lethal injection better is to force
physicians to violate their ethical principles.

The proposed AMA resolution seeks to promote
public dissemination of the AMA guidelines so
that every physician will know his or her ethical
obligations concerning legal executions. When
doctors participate in executions, it disgraces
the entire medical community. Even death penalty
supporters are often dismayed (if not horrified)
to learn that there are doctors who care for
people during the day and kill them during the night.

***************

SENT BY:

Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
http://www.CUADP.org
800-973-6548

The D.R.I.V.E. Movement:
Resources for Education and Action
Prepared by the Austin Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Introduction

What follows is a discussion of facts and strategy associated with the horrific conditions on Texas’ death row at the Polunksy Unit in Livingston. The men warehoused at this unit, aside from being sentenced to death by an unjust system, are living in conditions that, by any decent standards of human rights, constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Several of these inmates have heroically launched a non-violent protest against these conditions and have been met with a disproportionately violent response from the Polunsky administration and staff. It befalls all abolitionists and others committed to justice to stand in solidarity with these brave men. What follows, we hope, will serve as tools toward that end.

Background

From 1965 to 1999, Texas’ death row was housed in the Ellis Unit. Inmates were allowed group exercise time and had access to the same resources as other prisoners. However, in 1999, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) voted to move all condemned male inmates to Livingston. The official rationale for this decision was overcrowding at the Ellis Unit, as several death row inmates were sharing single occupancy cells. However, there was also considerable political motivation. In 1998, seven men attempted to escape the Ellis Unit and one, Martin Gurule, succeeded (though he was found drowned shortly thereafter). This was the first successful escape on death row in 64 years. While a prison board investigation blamed negligent correctional officers, they also commented that group recreation and work time provided opportunities to plan such escapes. The TBCJ subsequently voted to make the move to Livingston.

Life on the Polunsky Unit

After being moved to Polunsky, the men on Texas’ death row lost virtually all the privileges they enjoyed at the Ellis Unit. The new facility keeps the inmates in 23-hour administrative segregation inside 60 square foot cells with sealed steel doors. They have lost all group recreation, work programs, television access (some inmates are allowed radios), and religious services. There are no contact visits allowed at Polunsky, meaning that the men on death row will never make physical contact with anyone other than prison staff as they move toward their execution date. Inmates are only allowed one five minute phone call every six months, their mail is often censored, the quality of food is particularly low, and they are given inadequate health and dental services.

The fact that such conditions can have profoundly negative psychological impacts on inmates is well-documented. Many of these men are losing their minds, attempting suicide, and abandoning appeals. Such conditions also set a bad precedent for conditions across the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).

The D.R.I.V.E. Movement

The Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement (D.R.I.V.E.) consists of several (approximately seven) men housed on death row at the Polunsky Unit. Through a variety of non-violent strategies, they have begun launching protests against the conditions at Polunsky, in particular, and capital punishment, in general. The following is taken from the D.R.I.V.E. website (http://www.drivemovement.org) and summarizes the strategy the inmates have been using:

* Actively seek to consistently voice complaints to the administration
* Actively seek to organize grievance filing to address problems
* Occupy feeding slots when feeding procedures are improperly done (Lack of sanitation by officers) and when food is improperly prepared (meager, malnourished portions: under cooked, spoiled) until changed
* Occupy day rooms when there is an act of abuse of authority by guards (verbal abuse; physical abuse; meals/recreations or showers being wrongly denied; unsanitary day rooms and showers being allowed to persist; medical being denied; paper work being denied; refusing to contact higher rank to address the problems and complaints) and when retaliation (thefts, denials, destruction of property; food restrictions; wrongful denials of visits; abuse of inmates) is carried out in response to our grievances, outside support and collective protest:
*Initiate sit-ins in visiting rooms, hallways, pod runs and recreation yards (when the above takes place)
*Deploy the use of Polunsky Unit video cameras so that protest may be documented (which can be accessed by the public)
*Non-violently refuse to evacuate cells when the above mentioned problems occur. Occupation will persist until change is implemented
*Seek to organize supporters on the outside to write petitions, letters, make phone calls, e-mail and send faxes to address problems and abuses at hand (and protests in front of the prison when possible)
*Educate prisoners to intelligently handle cases of abuse, attacks and oppression

Barriers to Victory

The D.R.I.V.E. movement constitutes a bold challenge to the powers-that-be in the TDCJ and the Texas state government as a whole. However, these men face significant repression and other barriers, making it absolutely crucial that activists on the outside mobilize around this important cause.

Officials at the Polunsky Unit have reacted harshly to these protests. When the D.R.I.V.E. activists occupy a space in protest of a fixable problem, they are often met by a SWAT team and tear gas. Often, when gassed, the men are not allowed to shower until a number of days after the incident, allowing the gas to corrode their skin. Other forms of repression include seizing of clothes, bedding, and other possessions from cells. A particularly disgusting punitive measure practiced in administrative segregation units throughout Texas is the food loaf. Rather than a standard meal, the inmate is given a baked lump of the day’s cafeteria leftovers. By all accounts, it is inedible.

Beyond these direct acts of repression, the TDCJ continues to turn a deaf ear to these protests. Officials are quick to claim that the D.R.I.V.E. protest has little to do with the conditions on the Polunsky Unit and essentially amount to nothing more than an anti-death penalty protest. TDCJ employees are also stubbornly committed to their job descriptions, drawing a very clear line between the issues they are qualified to address and those they are not. Throughout the Texas state government, one finds a number of convenient escape routes for officials, elected and otherwise, who would rather not address such uncomfortable issues. Diffusion of responsibility is common practice throughout the power structure in the state of Texas.

Furthermore, the TDCJ is accountable only to itself. Prisons in the United States are under no legal mandate to submit to independent oversight, though most seek some form of accreditation. Texas, however, monitors itself, meaning that they create their own standards and determine whether or not they are following them. Ultimately, it is clear that the TDCJ and the state of Texas as a whole have constructed a system in which they need only answer to themselves.

Toward Solidarity

So, what is to be done? The anti-death penalty movement has a significant interest in challenging the horrendous conditions at Polunsky and the violent repression taking place there. The period leading to execution is a part of the death sentence and, thus, demands our attention. Furthermore, any demand for the rights of the condemned affirms what the state of Texas wishes to deny, the humanity of the people they have chosen to kill. Solidarity with D.R.I.V.E., thus, becomes an important intervention in the prevailing discourse surrounding the death penalty. Moreover, the conditions on death row are symptomatic of a broader prison industrial complex that is rotten to its very core, both in Texas and
nationally.

The first step we can all take is to build a coalition around living conditions on death row. The Austin chapter of Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) invites all Texas anti-death penalty groups, as well as other organizations interested in human rights, criminal justice reform, racial equality, and other struggles for justice to join us in voicing our outrage at what the condemned are forced to withstand on a daily basis. It is crucial that we begin organizing and communicating in the interest of challenging this grotesque expression of state power. If you are interested, please contact the CEDP at cedpaustin@gmail.com.

Both as a coalition and as individual groups, we must put the TDCJ and Texas state government on notice. Nothing will change at Polunsky as long as those in power are convinced they can continue in this fashion with impunity. Individuals worth contacting include TDCJ Executive Director Brad Livingston, Texas Board of Criminal Justice Chair Christina Melton Crain, Correctional Institutions Division Director Doug Dretke, the Correctional Institutions Division Ombudsman, Polunsky Senior Warden, Lloyd Massey, and elected officials. While most of these people will deny it, they are all in positions to influence Texas’ policies and are, therefore, all viable targets for protest. We have provided specific contact information in an attached appendix.

Exploiting media resources is also important. Write letters to the editor to your local newspaper and encourage the editors to cover the horrors at Polunsky. As our coalition will ideally organize a number of events in solidarity with the D.R.I.V.E. movement, we should begin building good relationships with the media now.

Finally, we must work with the men inside Polunsky. Establishing pen-pal relationships with and visiting the men of D.R.I.V.E. is not only a welcome reminder to these brave activists that they are not alone in their struggle, but also allows us to join minds and strategies toward forming a broad movement that challenges injustice within the TDCJ. If you are interested in getting a pen-pal and/or visiting a D.R.I.V.E. inmate, please contact CEDP member Randi Jones at RandiJ42@satx.rr.com.

Conclusion

The conditions on the Polunsky Unit are unacceptable and should concern all activists committed to human rights. The anti-death penalty movement, in particular, is well-positioned to challenge an apathetic TDCJ and state government, joining in solidarity with the man of D.R.I.V.E. and letting the powers-that-be know that we will not sit idly by as they mock the very notion of justice.

Appendix: Contact Information

Brad Livingston, Executive Director
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
P.O. Box 99
Huntsville, Texas 77342-0099
936-437-2101
936-437-2123 (Fax)

Christina Melton Crain, Chair
Texas Board of Criminal Justice
P. O. Box 13084
Austin, Texas 78711
512-475-3250
512-305-9398 (Fax)

Doug Dretke, Director
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Correctional Institutions Division
P.O. Box 99
Huntsville, Texas 77342
936-437-2169
936-437-6325 (Fax)

Correctional Institutions Division Ombudsman Office
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
P.O. Box 99
Huntsville, TX 77342-0099
936-437-6791
936-437-6668 (Fax)

Lloyd Massey, Senior Warden
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston, Texas 77351
936-967-8082 Ext. 054

Campaign to End the Death Penalty – Austin
C/O Bryan McCann
924 E. 40th St. #204
Austin, TX 78751
309-310-5223
cedpaustin@gmail.com
http://cedpaustin.blogspot.net

Received via email from Bob Van Steenburg