Category: Detention

Thanks to Jay Johnson-Castro for alerting us to this story.–gm

IMMIGRATION

Family divided at U.S. border reunited in Miami

A Cuban man has an emotional airport reunion after his Venezuelan-born wife and children are released from a Texas immigration detention center.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

Immigration authorities Friday abruptly released the Venezuelan-born wife and children of a Cuban refugee who was paroled into the country on the same day his family was put in deportation proceedings at the Texas-Mexico border.

An emotional Ocdalis Gómez, 22, and her children Abel, 2, and Winnelis, 6, immediately boarded a plane in Austin, Texas, bound for Miami, where they rejoined Abel Gómez, 30 — the Cuban migrant who for weeks desperately tried to gain freedom for his family.

When Abel and Ocdalis reunited at Miami International Airport, the husband and wife held each other tightly for a few seconds while their children stared in awe at the television cameras trained on the family. Then Abel Gómez picked up the children, hugged and kissed them and proudly displayed one on each arm for the cameras.

”I’m immensely happy,” he said when he finally was able to speak, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Thanks to God, I am now next to my family again.”

The Gómez family showed up June 11 at a U.S.-Mexico border crossing near McAllen, Texas. As a Cuban, Abel was paroled into the country under the wet foot/dry foot policy, but Ocdalis and the children were detained and placed in deportation proceedings because they were non-Cuban foreign nationals arriving without papers.

Gómez is among an increasing number of Cubans arriving through the Mexican border. Figures released last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed that 84 percent of all Cuban migrants last year came through Mexico rather than the Florida Straits. Cuban arrivals at the Mexican border have increased year by year amid intensified Coast Guard interdictions in waters between Cuba and Florida.

With a wide smile on her face, Ocdalis said Friday she was happy to be with her husband in Miami — but added she also felt deep sorrow for other foreign families she came to know at the detention center who were left behind while she was freed.

”I am extremely happy, of course,” she told reporters gathered at MIA. “But I also feel sadness.”

She paused for several seconds and then burst into tears. ”Some people qualify for bond and release, but because they don’t have money for bond they are deported with their children,” Ocdalis said, sobbing as she spoke. “It’s very hard being there.”

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Freedom Walk from Heritage Park, Taylor, Aug. 18 at noon

Activists will gather once again from San Antonio, Fort Worth, Austin, and surrounding areas. Beginning at Heritage Park (4th and Main) at noon, we will proceed south on Main over the railroad overpass (Main /Hwy 95). After crossing the I-95 overpass we’ll turn right onto Martin Luther King /Walnut, right on South Doak and left on Welch to the prison where we will hold a vigil and protest.

Antonio Diaz says “Our Freedom Walk will symbolize a “Freedom Bridge” that we are traversing in order to Free the Children. Dr. King reminded the people that everything done in Nazi Germany was legal. In this case, our government is violating International Law.” Our government is violating its own law as well; a 1993 Supreme Court decree requires ICE to keep children and parents together if possible and hold minors in a nonrestrictive setting.

The Showdown between American Democracy and American Tyranny of the ICE age…

Friday, April 13

9am – Press Conference at Texas Capitol, Speaker’s Committee Rm 2w.6

10am – Depart Capitol Steps

Route: Turn left, walk east on 11th Street to Rosewood; Turn left, walk past ACLU’s office. Continue on Rosewood which turns into Oak Springs Drive; Turn left, walk north on Springdale Rd; Stop at Springdale and 290.

Saturday, April 14

9:30am: Begin at Manor City Hall in downtown Manor (W. Parsons and S. Burnet); North on Old TX-20 which is also Hwy. 973; North on 973 to Rice’s Crossing (Hwy. 973 and FM 1660)

Sunday, April 15

9:30am, Start at Rice’s Crossing (Hwy. 973 and FM 1660); Turn right on 79; Turn left on S. Main; Turn left on Rio Grande Rd.; Turn left on Doak St .; Turn left on Welch St. to the Hutto Vigil VII in front of the Hutto prison camp;

Hutto Vigil VII: until 8:00pm. Like some previous Hutto Vigils…this will be a Sunset-Candlelight vigil. Let’s break the ICE. Let’s turn up the heat and melt the ICE.

Email from Jay J. Johnson-Castro.

On April 13th we held the press conference at the Capitol…and did the first day of Hutto Walk II…to protest ICE and CCA’s imprisonment of innocent children in Taylor, TX. Not until today did I learn that Michele Adams, Policy Specialist for the Texas Department of Family and Child Protective Services EXEMPTED CCA and Hutto from the laws that protect families and children in Texas.

But…thanks to a young journalist of the San Antonio Current…we now know. He shared the attached with me…as I now share them with you.

As we endeavor to get the House Committee of State Affairs to allow a public hearing on HCR 64…it becomes even more sinister how corrupted this system is in protecting the immoral and criminal treatment of the children and their mothers from some 30 countries at the Hutto prison camp.

Anyone who is remotely aware of how Hutto was prior to the Hutto Walk and Vigil in December, prior to the suit by the Texas Civil Rights Project, prior to the ACLU law suits, prior to the Women’s Commission’s condemnation of Hutto, prior to the editorial boards of the Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle…compare the attached letters. You’ll see flagrant and willful dishonesty. But…at least we have it in writing. And we have a copy of the DFPS in writing…just two weeks old.

It is gut wrenching when one thinks of the Ibrahim family and the fact that the children had no access to their pregnant mother at night. I suspect that when some of you sift through this…there will be an outrages so hot that the Lege will feel the heat of spontaneous combustion.

Is it yet time for an investigation by the Texas Attorney General, the Texas Rangers? How about the FBI? Who has the courage and the moral fiber to stand up to this immoral activity?

I know some of you will know exactly what to do and with whom to share this information. I, for one, have said all along that anyone who is complicit with the imprisonment of these little children…should be indicted and serve in one of those cells in Hutto.

Jay
“No Child Left Behind Bars”
FREE the CHILDREN
jay@villadelrio.com
(830)768-0768

Concluding paragraphs to a March 22 ruling issued by Austin Federal Judge Sam Sparks–gm

The court is troubled by the evidence presented at yesterday’s hearing, in particular by the evidence that Plaintiff’s right to private consultation with their attorneys is severely limited. Even in the penitentiary, lawyers can see their clients privately. Whatever the inconvenience may be to ICE, CCA, or any other organization in the alphabet soup responsible for the Hutto facility, this court finds it hard to imagine a legitimate reason for rules giving immigrant detainees fewer rights to counsel than federal felons.

IT IS ORDERED that the restrictions on the number of clients that an attorney can see per visit and the requirement that children attend their parents’ attorney visits be REMOVED immediately.