Category: Detention

Email from Jay Johnson-Castro:

Mornin’ amigos…

John Neck and I will be doing an new walk…starting next week.

It is a five day Bayview-Raymondville prison camps walk. Starting next week…Wednesday, March 21…the walk will leave from Brownsville . We will arrive at the Bayview prison camp on Thursday, March 22. From there, I will head west to Harlingen and then north to the Raymondville concentration camp…a tent camp for Latin American, mostly Mexican National refugees. We will arrive at the Raymondville camp on Sunday, March 25th. More details about this walk will be forth coming.
From my first Border Wall-K last October…I learned about these camps. This led me to protest against the Hutto prison camp, which imprisons innocent children from upwards of some 29 countries. Then last week we did a walk to the Haskell prison camp in Gov. Silent Perry’s home town. I have told everyone who knows me that I would go back to the southern tip of Texas and walk against those facilities…including a facility that also has children that are detained without their parents.

Right now, the current Bush schematic is to terrorize our own country…and rip families and communities apart in the process. This is to destabilize all of America. He uses his henchman Chertoff the ICE forces to accomplish the objective. And why do they do this? It is a front to siphon tax dollars…our tax dollars…down to for-profit prison companies. It’s all done in secrecy…so we the American masses live in ignorance of their deeds.

For anyone who believes in the scriptures, there’s a principle that would be most applicable. “For there is nothing hidden that will not become manifest, neither anything carefully concealed that will never become known and never come into the open” (Lu. 8:17). By means of “We the people” along with the genuine free press which is above being complicit with this administration and Chertoff…things are not only becoming known and into the open. They are becoming manifest.

Look at the numbers that have come into the open. Upwards of $7,000 of our taxpayers’ money…per month…per immigrant…goes to private for-profit prison companies. That’s what is being funneled to these companies…on the pretext of “illegal” and “national security”. That’s only for the imprisonment of these victims. That doesn’t count the salaries of the militarized forces within our country…like ICE. That doesn’t count the billions of dollars that go to the industrial complex for orchestrated domestic terror…as Bush and Chertoff war against its own citizens on American soil.

As things become more in the open…it is obvious that everything about this American tragedy centers on two things. Money and what’s legal versus what is discriminately categorized as “illegal”. It is legal for ICE to ruin lives…and to work in behalf of for-profit prisons that dehumanize humble immigrants for money. It’s NOT at all about right versus wrong…humane versus inhumane…moral versus immoral. And…who makes someone illegal? The same people who are profiting.

So…if it’s about money…our money…where do we the taxpayers come in? Don’t we have a right to know the facts?

What does it cost us to fund ICE and their raids? What does it cost our country to rip desperate people’s lives apart? What does it cost us to have assault teams rip immigrants out of their homes and communities and rip them away from their children…or their children away from them? What happens to their homes and property…and personal possessions and documents?

Let’s not talk about “illegal” immigrants…when what ICE is doing to them is inhumane and criminal. Why is it in this country that the most demented criminals walk free and often hold high office…while the lowly victimized masses yearning to be free live in constant terror…and are nothing more than a commodity to funnel money to the greedy?

Ultimately…the demented architects of our country’s ICE (immigration and customs enforcement)…are a malignant evil. They now reign over our country using sinister tactics not dissimilar to what we observed in frightening eras of human history such as in Germany and Yugoslavia. A reign of terror and fear…backed by cruel and inhumane raids on humans is crippling everything that we Americans want our country to be.

We the people have had enough of this. Our history is glutted with evils that we have fought to overcome. From slavery and racist treatment of the Africans. To the genocide and reservation-concentration camps for the Native Americans. The slave labor of the Chinese. The internment of the Japanese.

And the malignancy lives on. The extraction of the Arab Americans and the oppression of the Latino on a continental scale. Militarizing our border…literally doubling the military forces…against a friendly nation. All the while…and by doing so…making money! The same supremacist racist forces are back in the saddle.

Their greatest con job has been to dupe the American public into thinking that this all has to do with upholding the law. Anyone can look and see that they themselves have stripped us of Constitutional rights. And why? To control us ALL. These racist supremacist elitists rule…not only the world…but our own country. How many Americans are now wondering if their phones and e-mails are tapped. If mine is….they’re getting an earful of how I’m going to use what’s left of my freedoms to oppose their tyranny. I’m going to use my freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of press to oppose what I see as clearly cruel and criminal rule. In America …there is no legal basis for a ruling class. We are a democracy…a democracy that is about to get a revival.

Their second greatest con job by this regime is to convince us, the American public…and the victims of their abuse…that the victims are responsible for their victimization. Their being victims is their own doing…and therefore should be punished. Therefore they can be imprisoned for-profit! That’s like parents blaming a baby for the bruises all over its body…and beating some more for crying as the pain is being inflicted. In our county…the ultimate abuser is manifest by the actions of the current administration, Chertoff & ICE.

This can only stop…if “We the people of the United States ” exercise our conscience…and return to the fundamentals of democracy. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Not a government of greedy corporations and power hungry despots. Perhaps some law makers in Washington are willing to take the lead. But we do not yet see the innocent children and their mothers in the Hutto prison camp freed. One more day of incarceration is un-American, immoral and criminal.

Let’s use every moral means to take our country back and free the innocent victims of a depraved administration that does not feel answerable to anyone but their corporate sponsors. With our hearts, minds and conscience…we can make a change. We don’t need harmful weapons. We only need our passion and conviction.

So…I appeal to all Americans…

Anglo Americans

Asian Americans
African Americans
Arab Americans
Latin Americans
Native Americans
Heinz 57 Americans
Veteran Americans
Immigrant Americans
First Generation Americans
Second and Third Generation Americans
All decedents of immigrant Americans
All All-Americans

We have the moral and constitutional right…to take our country back. We have the right to let Liberty ’s invitation shine.

Give me your tired, you poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Bush, Chertoff and the ICE military are ravaging American soil in betrayal of that international promise. While Liberty shines her lamp to show the way to freedom, these despots see dollar signs and not future fellow Americans. They allow these people to be baited by the American promise of Liberty…only to be used as a commodity and be imprisoned with no due process…and “for-profit”.

Bush is sworn to protect the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic. Since he has defaulted on his presidential vow, ”WE”…the true government must protect the Constitution from the domestic enemies!

Without any violence…we draw a new line in the Texas sand. We want America back. We want desperate immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers…to be free and realize what our forefathers realized. Hope. That’s what made America … America . The tired, poor, huddled masses, the homeless and the tempest-tossed. We want to keep them coming to America . And from those who have already come…we want to free them from the despotism that would destroy their human dignity.

Will you join in this five day walk against for-profit prison camps that have hundreds and thousands of huddled masses yearning to be free? A day? A mile? Will you join in to free and protect the future of America ?

Jay

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Border Ambassador

Connecting.the.dots…making.a.difference…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

Del Rio, Texas, USA
Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila , Mexico

jay@villadelrio.com
http://www.villadelrio.com

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / UrukNet / DissidentVoice

For many miles of his protest walks, whether against border walls or children’s prisons, Jay Johnson-Castro has walked alone. His four-day walk from Abilene to Haskell, Texas this week may be no different, as he protests the cruel and unusual treatment of the Hazahza family and immigrant prisoners like them. But there are two things to remember about Jay’s walk this week. The first thing is how many people will be honking.

“There are literally thousands of people every day who honk, wave, and take photographs as they drive by,” Jay explains over the telephone from his home in Del Rio. “They don’t walk. Nobody wants to walk. But they honk in solidarity with no walls, with no prisons for children. By the time the walk against the wall got to McAllen and Brownsville, there was a chorus of horns nonstop from both directions. So if there is a perception that there is only one man walking, there is also the reality of the vast majority of people honking that they are offended and disgusted by a wall on American soil, or a prison for children.”

The second thing to remember is how cruel are the conditions at Haskell prison. It’s bad enough that convicted criminals are exported there from Wyoming. Who can justify such treatment for immigrant families whose only alleged wrongdoing is having an American address?
“Suzi Hazahza represents the kind of person we want in our country,” says Johnson-Castro. “Yet there is an element in our country that doesn’t want her here. That element is a minority, and lots of folks disagree with the way she has been treated by the highest powers in this country. Having her dignity violated physically, violated emotionally, violated intellectually, and having her family ripped apart by a country that’s for family values, this is a condition that cannot continue to exist. It will cease. And we the people will see to it that that it does cease.”

Ahmad Ibrahim agrees that the American people are going to oppose the harsh treatment of Suzi Hazahza at Haskell, just the way they opposed the treatment of his nieces and nephew at the T. Don Hutto prison. He tells two stories to make his point. On the one hand, there are Americans like the guards at Hutto prison who ate pizza in front of the children. When the children of Hutto put together some cash and asked the guards to order pizza for them, the guards told them no. The children would have to eat prison food.

“Those people are not only the minority in America,” says Ahmad Ibrahim, speaking by telephone from Dallas. “They are the minority of the minority. Most of the people would not treat children that way. Most of the people are like the teachers. When the children returned to school, the teachers welcomed them back. The teachers told them that they could make up their work and get through the year. The teachers gave them all big hugs that melted them right back in.”

Likewise, says Ahmad, the American people will reject the harsh treatment of 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza and her 23-year-old sister Mirvat, who have done nothing to deserve four months (and counting) of hard time in a place that nobody pretends is anything but a harsh Texas prison.

And how hard is life at the Rolling Plains prison? Speaking to that issue is Ralph Isenberg whose wife spent 52 days there at the command of US immigration authorities. Isenberg took phone calls that began with screams, or ended with screams, or had the screams of his wife in the background as she handed the phone to someone who was not in so much pain. Isenberg is a rich man, so he could afford to pay $10,000 for all the collect calls that kept him in touch with those sounds of misery.

When Isenberg heard about Suzi and Mirvat Hazahza spending their first 48 hours at Rolling Plains in a drunk tank without bed or toilet, sleeping on a concrete floor with a hole in the middle, he knew what he was hearing about.

Overcrowding, for one thing. There can be only one good reason for tossing sober honor students into a drunk tank for two days. All the prison beds were already full. Which means that technically, the first crime we can verify involving Suzi and Mirvat Hazahza, was the crime of delivering them to Haskell prison when it was already overcrowded.

Medical neglect, also. As a result of their two November nights on the cold concrete floors of the drunk tank, Suzi and Mirvat Hazahza came down with fevers. When they asked for a doctor, they were denied. Isenberg’s wife had it even worse. She had gall bladder complications and an abscessed tooth, which are infamously painful, and she received the same initial answers from Haskell authorities that Suzi and Mirvat received. We can’t get you a doctor, but here’s a pain killer for you.

And sexual harassment. It’s true, says Isenberg, that prisoners are supposed to be strip searched after contact with visitors, but what kind of strip search is called for, and how professionally is it conducted? Something about the fifth search of Suzi Hazahza at Haskell jail had her pleading for no more visitors ever. She won’t even allow her mother or brother to visit.

For Isenberg, the conditions at Haskell prison have become something of an obsession. He has collected sworn statements from employees and ex-prisoners which he keeps safely stored for the day when an official investigation gets underway. With Jay on the outside and Suzi Hazahza on the inside, the day of that investigation may be near.

The problems with immigrant detention begin with transportation to Haskell from Dallas, says Isenberg. The vans are not always in great shape, neither are the tires. And occupancy limits are not strictly observed. If someone gets sick or throws up in an overcrowded van, there is only one thing to do. Drive faster. Imagine the experience of traveling in a van with worn tires at speeds over 80 miles per hour, with the smell of puke up your nose. Imagine being told it’s your job.

If prison employees want to complain about conditions in a facility that holds immigrants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they are supposed to be able to file something in writing. But Isenberg says that complaint forms are not always kept where employees can find them. Workers would have to ask a supervisor.

The prison at Haskell is neither owned nor operated by ICE. It is a privately contracted prison managed by the Emerald Companies of Louisiana, and it holds both male and female criminal convicts imported from Wyoming. Isenberg says the pressures of profit are felt throughout the operation.

Prisoners at Haskell can choose to work, but they are not always told that they are entitled to some pay. Food menus approved by ICE are not always the meals actually served. And sometimes food gets recycled from last meal’s waste to next meal’s serving. Three years ago, it was beans and rice, or rice and beans, three plates per day.

“Temperature control is a joke,” says Isenberg. In the winter it’s cold, in the summer hot. Isenberg attended “video court” in Dallas one day and watched the immigration prisoners at Haskell, dressed in winter coats with winter breath that you could see on the screen. At night, women would heat water bottles in a microwave to keep under their blankets for warmth.

Every prisoner gets one roll of toilet paper per week. But suppose that conditions of diet, temperature, and sanitation bring on a case of diarrhea? You don’t get a second roll. Or what if a prisoner has personal needs when the commissary is closed? You get one fresh pair of underwear per week. One t
owel. And y
ou’re lucky if you ever see clean sheets.

At a four-hour drive from Dallas (not to mention the distance from Wyoming) Haskell isolates its prisoners. Men can be visited on Saturdays, women on Sundays. If a family is held together, you spend the night sixty miles away in Abilene to visit both the men and women.

Phone conversations are monitored and if your topic strays from approved subjects, the line can go dead on you. Isenberg learned how to rush to his office and wait for his wife to call back on a business line after his home lines went dead.

In short, they kill your humanity at Haskell, or they try to. Programs have been whittled down to nothing. Going to Haskell is like going to hell.

“They destroy your will to live,” says Isenberg. “My wife spent 52 days there, and she has yet to fully recover from her experience. She has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress syndrome as have her daughter and myself. I can remember laying in bed for two or three days, and couldn’t get up. Thank god my adopted daughter would bring me food and drink. There are simply no words to describe the feelings of emptiness that go with being separated form loved ones with no reason.”

Of course, people want to know, what did Suzi and Mirvat Hazahza do to deserve this treatment? The Hazahza family fled persecution from Palestine, arrived in the USA with visas legally, and applied for asylum legally. The family’s asylum was denied, but there was no country that would take them. So they were living in the USA under a warrant of deportation that had never been presented. It’s not clear what ICE expects of the Hazahzas either as prisoners or free people. What exactly are they supposed to be doing?

“The Hazahzas weren’t given any restrictions to follow,” says Isenberg. “If ICE wanted them to stay in one place, they could have gone to their home and told them that. They could have asked them to phone in on a regular basis. They could have placed them under bond. But these alternatives have not been made available.”

Friday night Isenberg visited the Islamic Center of Irving, where he invited the community to join Jay’s vigil outside the prison on Saturday, March 3. Meanwhile Jay says that Rosa Rosales, President of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has pledged support of Abilene-area chapters. On Monday, Jay will travel to Dallas to meet Isenberg and Ahmad Ibrahim for the first time.

Last week, there was hardly a major newspaper that did not cover the topic of immigration prisons in Texas. It was a good week of news coverage, topped by Friday’s edition of Democracy Now! If the media follow Jay to Haskell, the American people will come around. Half the Hazahza family have been released from Hutto. It would be a crying shame not to see Suzi Hazahza out of hell next week. Every day that passes at Haskell cuts a permanent scar of injustice for everyone to see.

“My wife still has nightmares, and so do I,” says Isenberg. It’s too cruel to put people through this. If you can’t walk from Abilene to Haskell, be sure to honk for Suzi’s freedom.

NOTE: On Friday, a federal magistrate judge in Dallas gave ICE two weeks to show cause for keeping the Hazahza family at Haskell. Following up on inquiries prompted by a Friday appearance on Democracy Now! Joshua Bardavid circulated a sample letter to ICE calling for immediate release of the Hazahzas (see below).

Email from Joshua Bardavid, Esq.

Hi All:

I have been receiving many telephone calls of individual Americans outraged by the detention of the Hazahza family, as well as the existence of the T. Don Hutto prison and asking how to help. One of the
things I am suggesting is a letter writing campaign. I encourage everyone to write letters expressing their outrage. Below is a sample letter if people want to use as a template to write their own:

John P. TORRES
US-ICE Headquarters
Post-Order Detention Unit
801 I Street NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20536

RE: Radi HAZAHZA, A95-219-510
Mirvat HAZAHZA, A95-219-508
Hisham HAZAHZA, A95-219-507
Suzan HAZAHZA, A95-219-506
Ahmad HAZAHZA, A95-219-505

Dear Mr. Torres,

I am writing on behalf of Mr. Radi Hazahza and his four children held in prison at the Rolling Plains Detention Facility.

I strongly believe that the Hazahza family should be released immediately from the detention
center, so they can be reunited with Nazmieh Juma (wife to Radi and mother of the children) as well as Mohammad Hazahza, the eleven year old
child that ICE already released from prison.

The Hazahza family has been awaiting deportation since being ordered removed in 2002, yet there is no possibility of removal since both Jordan and the Palestinian Authorities have confirmed that travel
documents will not be issued for them.

The Hazahzas are asylum seekers who sought freedom and safety in the United States. They have provided the government proof of employment offers, as well as extensive ties to the United States including Mirvat
Hazahza’s U.S. citizen husband and Suzan Hazahza’s U.S. citizen fiancé.

In addition, several sponsors have stepped forward to ensure the Hazahza’s appearance upon demand by the government and to ensure that they obey any terms of supervised release.

The Hazahza’s continued detention costs taxpayers over $600.00 per day, as estimated by the government. That means that, to date, at least
$60,000 in government funds have been turned over to the Emerald Corporation, the private company that owns the jail in Haskell. This amount does not include the money spent on litigation and other expenses
related to the continued detention.

This detention is a waste of taxpayer money, particularly since the Hazahzas present no danger to society, have provided suitable alternatives to detention, and there is no purpose in continued detention as there is no likelihood of obtaining travel documents.

Please release Mr. Hazahza and his family from the Rolling Plains prison.

Sincerely,

cc: U.S. Customs & Immigration Enforcement
Attn: Officer Kelvin Meridith
8101 North Stemmons Freeway
Dallas, Texas 75247

From one of our favorite correspondents, on one of our favorite stories. Never mind the laughable headline about “keeping families together.” In the case of the Ibrahims and Suleimans, the families were split three ways. Meanwhile, the Hazahza family is still divided. The Hazahza men are still unable to live together at Haskell, depite written requests. Get a pdf of the complete report on “Locking up Family Values” from the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children.–gm

Detention Facility for Immigrants Criticized:
Organizations Laud DHS Effort to Keep Families Together but Call Center a ‘Prison-Like Institution’

By Sylvia Moreno

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 22, 2007; A03

TAYLOR, Tex. — The day Mustafa Elmi turned 3 years old he had to report to his cell three times for headcount. To be able to get one hour of recreation inside a concrete compound sealed off by metal gates and razor wire he had to pin his picture ID to his uniform.

Such routines characterized Mustafa’s life, as well as that of his mother, Bahjo Hosen, 26, during their first seven months in the United States, the country to which they fled to escape political persecution in their native Somalia. They ended up in the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, one of the nation’s newest detention centers for illegal immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security touts as an “effective and humane alternative” to keep immigrant families together while they await the outcome of immigration court hearings or deportation.
Before the facility opened, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) routinely separated parents from their children upon apprehension by the Border Patrol. Infants and toddlers were placed in federally funded foster homes; adolescents and teenagers were placed in facilities for minors run by the Department of Health and Human Services; and parents were placed in adult detention centers.

Despite the change in policy, two national organizations decry the conditions at Hutto and have termed the facility “a penal detention model that is fundamentally anti-family and anti-American.”

The center, which the DHS opened last May, is an unacceptable method “for addressing the reality of the presence of families in our immigration system,” says a report written by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, in New York, and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, in Baltimore, and scheduled for release Thursday.

“As a country that supports family values, we should not be treating immigrant families who have not committed a crime like criminals, particularly children,” said Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr., president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

During a tour of Hutto this month, Gary Mead, the assistant director of ICE detention and removal operations, said the facility, which is operated under contract by the Corrections Corporation of America , averaged 380 to 420 detainees daily. That day, Hutto housed 180 children and 150 adults — four-fifths of them mothers — from 29 countries. Seventy-five families were being detained while they awaited the outcome of their political-asylum petitions.

The 512-bed facility is part of the Department of Homeland Security’s year-long push to build detention centers or contract them out to private companies to accommodate illegal immigrants apprehended along the Mexican border. A record 26,500 such immigrants are in detention daily — up from 19,718 a day in 2005.

Hutto, located in central Texas, is used for immigrants from countries other than Mexico who are awaiting “expedited removal from the United States .”

That process ended the policy known as “catch and release,” in which such people were given a notice to appear later before an immigration judge.

Mexican nationals caught in the United States illegally are routinely sent back almost immediately.

For some years, ICE has contracted with Berks County , Pa. , to run an 80-bed detention facility for families, and the report by the women’s commission and Lutheran service touched on that center but focused on the much larger Hutto.

The report lauded the goal of keeping families together but urged DHS to close the Hutto facility, saying that “prison-like institutions” are not appropriate for families. “Family detention is not one that has any precedent in the United States , therefore no appropriate licensing requirements exist,” the report said.

In response, ICE spokesman Marc Raimondi said that the Hutto and Berks facilities “maintain safe, secure and humane conditions and invest heavily in the welfare” of the detainees. He said that ICE detention standards exceed those set by the American Correctional Association, and that the agency’s practice of conducting annual reviews and weekly visits to detention facilities “significantly exceeds industry standards.”

The report recommended that ICE parole asylum-seekers while they await the outcome of their hearings. It also said that immigrant families not eligible for parole should be released to special shelters or other homelike settings run by nonprofit groups and be required to participate in electronic monitoring or an intensive supervision program that would use a combination of electronic ankle bracelets, home visits and telephone reporting.

The 72-page report also criticized the educational services for children; the food service and rushed feeding times for children; the health care, especially for vulnerable children and pregnant women; the therapeutic mental health care as insufficient or culturally inappropriate; and the recreation time as inadequate for children. The review said that families were being held for months in Hutto and for years in the case of the longer-established Berks facility.

The report also cited inappropriate disciplinary practices used against adults and children, including threats of separation, verbal abuse and withholding recreation or using temperature control, particularly extremely cold conditions, as punishment.

Hosen, who traveled with Mustafa on an inner tube across the Rio Grande from Mexico and insisted that a stranger in Texas call the Border Patrol so she could surrender to authorities, lived in Hutto from June 30 to Jan. 30.

Granted political asylum and now living temporarily in a home for immigrant women and children in Austin , Hosen said that she and other parents in Hutto were threatened regularly with separation from their children for minor infractions such as youngsters running inside the prison. She lost 30 pounds while detained, and her son lost weight and suffered from diarrhea.

Concerned about her son’s health, Hosen asked for a multivitamin for him but was denied the request, she said.

She recalled that the day she and Mustafa arrived at Hutto and she saw the word “residential” written on the facility’s sign, she was relieved after having spent almost two weeks in a detention center for adults in south Texas while her son was held in foster care. Hosen said that although she was reunited with him, little else changed. “It was just like the place I was — detention — nothing different,” she said.

By Greg Moses

The Hazahza family writ of habeas corpus has been assigned a speedy hearing Friday morning in the Dallas Federal Magistrate Court of Judge Stickney, and family supporters are standing by to meet any needs that may arise.

This is how things looked in early February when habeas writs were filed for the Ibrahim family, so there is reason to hope that we will see the Hazahza family follow the Ibrahim precedent into freedom.

“The fact that the Magistrate is moving so quickly on the writ is very positive,” says Ralph Isenberg by telephone from Dallas.

“We hope that the Judge will give the government a deadline,” adds New York attorney Joshua Bardavid via email, “to either release the Hazahzas or to provide a written response to our habeas by providing the legal justification for continued detention.”
Five members of the Hazahza family remain in the Rolling Plains prison at Haskell, Texas. Two other members of the family were released in early February from the T. Don Hutto prison at Taylor. In the case of the Ibrahim family, it took about a week to set all of them free following the filing of the habeas writ. The Ibrahim mother and children were freed within days, but father Salaheddin was put through a bond hearing prior to his release from Haskell.

“I would hope that the government would be as willing to work with the Hazahza family as they were with the Ibrahim family,” says Isenberg. “And being personally aware of the condition that Mrs. Hazahza is in, it would be a tremendous humanitarian act on the part of the government to render the decision they are entitled to.”

Isenberg says a family support network is standing by to address the needs of the Hazahza family, just as the needs of the Ibrahim family are being attended.

Thanks to a report on conditions at the T. Don Hutto prison released this week by two immigration watchdog groups, the prison-like conditions of the facility have received wide coverage. Attorney Bardavid is scheduled to join one of the authors on Friday’s edition of Democracy Now!

“These kids remain traumatized,” says Isenberg about the families that have been released. “And its going to take a lot of work to help them recover from what has happened to them at Hutto.”

“If the Congress of the United States would take the lead of their colleague Eddie Bernice Johnson as to how awful these conditions are, they have the power to enact a private bill that would get the status of these families adjusted immediately,” said Isenberg. “So I would encourage everyone to write your Congressperson, because the only real apology for these families is not just asylum, but citizenship. That’s the way to say we are really sorry for what we did.”

With the prospects of Hutto prison already looking dimmer by the day, a reliable source tells us that the San Antonio office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an inquiry into the facility for allegations of civil rights abuses and questionable billing practices.

Meanwhile an Abilene-to-Haskell walk and vigil next week will call attention to the Hazahzas and other immigrants being imprisoned in the Governor’s home town. Jay Johnson-Castro calls it the “Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free” walk and vigil.

And Isenberg is publicly offering help to people he has only read about, such as the pregnant Iraqi woman and the 9-year-old Canadian child that have been reported to be held at Hutto.

“We are identifying other key cases that we can take on,” he said. “If the Canadian government wants our help in releasing that 9-year-old boy, I have been offered pro bono legal arrangements in his behalf.”

*****ARCHIVE: DALLAS MORNING NEWS*****

Mom of detained immigrants desperate for family reunion

But she’s losing hope that they’ll all be together

12:00 AM CST on Thursday, February 22, 2007

By ERIC AASEN / The Dallas Morning News
eaasen@dallasnews.com

Life for Nazmieh Juma Hazahza changed forever one morning in November when federal immigration agents stormed her Irving apartment, woke up sleepy family members, placed guns to their heads and ordered them out.

Her family was split up and sent to different detention facilities. Mrs. Hazahza and her youngest son, Mohammad, were recently released from the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor. But the rest of her family – her husband and four children – remain locked up.

Attorneys for the Hazahzas filed a writ of habeas corpus to order the family’s release from the Rolling Plains Detention Facility in Haskell, near Abilene.

Mrs. Hazahza hopes that they will be together one day. But she’s long on pain and short on hope.

“This exact moment, there’s not 1 percent of hope,” she said through a translator this week. “There is no life without hope.”

Immigration officials have been facing criticism for how the Hutto center is run, particularly that children have been kept at the facility. The government has denied the abuses, saying the criticism is unfounded and based on limited anecdotal information. The White House last week defended the use of the Hutto center.

The Hazahzas were arrested through a program that targets people who have ignored deportation orders, said Carl Rusnok, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman. Mr. Rusnok wouldn’t comment Wednesday on the writ or details about the family’s status.

The Hazahzas were one of three local Palestinian families arrested during Nov. 2 immigration raids, among a number of “fugitive aliens and immigration status violators.” One of the North Texas families, the Suleimans, has been deported to Jordan. The Hazahzas and the other family – the Ibrahims – have been living in limbo, in and out of detention.

Even if the Hazahzas are released, Mrs. Hazahza will be in mourning.

Her son Bassam was fatally shot by Irving police last summer. Police have said the teenager was driving a stolen car when he backed into a detective’s car. He then drove toward an officer, who opened fire, killing Bassam, police have said. The officer had told him to stop.

Family members think Bassam was influenced negatively by friends, and they weren’t aware of a criminal record. The Hazahzas say that what happened to Bassam is a separate issue and shouldn’t influence what happens to the family.

Immigration officials have stated that one of those taken into custody included Ahmed Hazahza of Irving, thought to be a son of the Hazahzas, who was convicted as an adult in three burglaries and received a 10-year probated sentence.

Reza Barkhordari, who is engaged to one of the Hazahza daughters and is acting as a family spokesman, said he was unaware of any criminal charges against Ahmed Hazahza.

Better life

The Hazahzas, who are Jordanian and Palestinian, say they’re a peaceful family. They arrived in the U.S. with visas in 2001. They say they were working hard in jobs and school in the hopes of living a better life.

The family applied for political asylum because it had a “well-founded fear of persecution if returned to the Palestinian Territories on account of an expressed political opinion,” the writ states.

It also states that the father, Radi Hazahza, was accused by Palestinian militant factions of being an Israeli collaborator.

An immigration judge ordered the Hazahzas be removed from the U.S., the writ states. But the family says it didn’t receive an order to report for detention or removal. The Hazahzas say no country will take them. They’ve been unable to obtain travel documents to leave the U.S.

From fiscal 2001 through 2005, only two Palestinian asylum cases were granted nationally, according to Department of Justice statistics.
Twenty-eight were denied.

The family wants to stay in the U.S.

The Hazahzas had plans to move into a house when they were sent to the detention centers. One of the daughters was planning to get married.

For now, life is on hold.

Mr. Barkhordari has spent several months helping facilitate communication among the family. He has written government officials, with little success. He’s had to find lawyers.

He is taking care of Mrs. Hazahza and Mohammad, 11.

“These people have ruined lives,” Mr. Barkhordari said of immigration officials.

Mrs. Hazahza said she suffered from back and neck pain while in the detention facility. She said her dental pain was so bad that she couldn’t eat at times. She didn’t receive medical checkups and was only given over-the-counter pain medicine, Mr. Barkhordari said.

Mohammad said he suffered from verbal abuse from immigration officers and felt he was picked on because of his ethnicity.

Dallas-area members of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, are aware of the detention centers and have been trying to raise awareness, said Asma Salam, a member of the group’s local board of directors.

“We’re just trying to support the families in detention and find out what are the exact reasons they’re detained,” she said.

About 15 people protested in front of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service office on Stemmons Freeway in Dallas on Wednesday, demanding the shutdown of the Hutto center. They also called for immigration reform.

Among the protesters were former state Rep. Domingo Garcia and Elizabeth Villafranca, head of the Farmers Branch chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

They plan to protest every week.

Other complaints

The Hazahzas who are still detained say they’ve had an uncomfortable experience.

Ahmed began urinating blood after being detained, and his requests to see a doctor were not answered for 10 days, the writ states. The daughters, Mirvat and Suzan, ran a fever for weeks but didn’t receive medical attention.

Not much food that’s appropriate for Muslims to eat is available, the writ states. The family has been mocked by guards while praying and threatened with “the loss of the privilege of prayer,” the writ states.

The Hazahzas at the Rolling Plains Detention Facility have had little contact with one another, the family says.

Family members say they feel lost. The father, Radi, appears dazed when he stares at a wall in his room at the detention center.

For Mrs. Hazahza, the pain is deep and raw. Family members say she’s been depressed.

Family may be a couple of hundred miles away, so, for now, there are pictures to remember happier times.

“I’m very heartbroken,” Mrs. Hazahza said. “The fact that I’m the mother, I put the family together. The next thing, I couldn’t do that.

“It’s so hard for anyone to be away from their families.”

Staff writer Paul Meyer and Isabel Morales of Al Día contributed to this report.

Editor’s Note from the Texas Civil Rights Review: news of Ahmad’s criminal record was reported in the Nov. 3 press release from the Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has been treated in previous postings here. We noted for example that the ICE press release presents a photo of Ahmad and mis-represents his age at the time of arrest, identifying him as an 18-year-old, which is a very curious error considering that within days of the press release, Ahmad was placed in solitary confinement as a 17-year-old juvenile at the adults-only Haskell prison.

The Dallas Morning News is the first to report on the police shooting that killed one of the Hazahza boys, although the family has shared this information openly with us as part of the background documentation of the case. We have until this time decided not to raise the issue, and would have wished that if metroplex journalists were going to surface the incident at this crucial juncture, complete with the police account of things, that they could have been a little more thorough in connecting the obvious dots. They could have quoted Ahmad’s opinion about that shooting, taking the quote directly from the archives of the Dallas Morning News (pasted below). Instead, the image of our first impression from the ICE press release of Nov. 3 and the DMN story of Feb. 22 is “smear Ahmad.” We prefer to quote the writ:

Although Petitioner AHMAD was convicted of criminal acts for which he received probation, these were non-violent offenses committed as a minor, which do not fall within the narrow exception of “exceptionally dangerous individuals” envisioned by the Supreme Court in Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 that could justify continued detention. Moreover, these acts were not stated as the basis of continued detention by
Respondents.

On Friday the Magistrate Judge is expected to ask the authorities one more time: what is the legal basis for arresting Ahmad Hazahza, one day posting his picture on the web as an adult, the next day sending him as a juvenlie into solitary confinement, and for every day since that time denying him the company of his brother or father, despite repeated claims by ICE that “families are kept together”? And the answer we hope for is: this has gone on long enough. Let Ahmad, his older brother, his two older sisters, and his father go home already, where Juma and Mohammad are waiting.–gm

*****ARCHIVE: DALLAS MORNING NEWS*****

Teen’s death raises questions

Irving: Family seeks details of events that led police to shoot him

05:46 PM CDT on Saturday, September 2, 2006

By KATHERINE LEAL UNMUTH / The Dallas Morning News

IRVING – Bassam Hazahza’s love of cars got him into trouble one last time Tuesday night.

Police said the 16-year-old was driving a stolen car when he backed into a detective’s car. He then drove toward an officer, who opened fire, killing Bassam and wounding his 15-year-old best friend. The officer had told him to stop.

Sobbing, Radi Hazahza questioned why police shot his son.

“He loved driving cars,” he said, shaking his head. “I want to believe it’s just a dream. In a few days he will be back.”

Several people close to the family said Bassam had a criminal record for similar incidents, but police could not provide details because he was a juvenile.

Irving police spokesman David Tull said the officer involved in the shooting is on administrative leave, pending a criminal and internal investigation, which is standard procedure. He said the officer has four years of experience.

The other teen will face auto theft charges. He has not been named because of his age.

Car called weapon

While Bassam’s family said the young men had no weapons, Officer Tull said the car was a deadly weapon.

“When you’ve got a car that’s coming at you that’s already struck something, I think that’s cause for alarm,” he said.

On Tuesday evening, police went to the Hillcrest Apartments off Walnut Hill Lane when they learned of two stolen cars in the parking lot. Police watched as two men took items from the cars and drove off in a third vehicle.

They were stopped and arrested. Then Bassam and his friend got into one of the remaining cars.

The officer was standing outside his vehicle at the west driveway to the apartment complex as they drove toward him, according to police reports.

“The patrol officer was outside his car trying to get them out, telling them to stop,” Officer Tull said.

Doubt and anger

Community activist Anthony Bond questioned the officer’s actions and said many young Muslims are angry with police. He said he was told there is video footage of the sh

ooting from cameras mounted in the police cars.

Bassam’s family did not learn of his death until 1 p.m. Wednesday.

“My mom fell down on the floor outside,” said Hisham, 22. “I was thinking, ‘This is a mistake.’ ”

Family members said they have many questions about what happened. All said they wanted only justice for Bassam.

“It wasn’t necessary to shoot him like that,” said his brother, Ahmed, 17.

Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd met with the family Thursday.

On Friday, the family said goodbye to Bassam in a service at the Islamic Center of Irving. Irving police directed traffic. Women and men packed the mosque.

Mr. Hazahza, his wife and six children moved from Jordan to the U.S. nearly seven years ago.

School officials said Bassam withdrew as an eighth-grader from Sam Houston Middle School in January 2005. His family said he was hoping to return as a freshman at MacArthur High School.

Moving forward

It has not been an easy back-to-school week in Irving.

The week before school, Nimitz High freshman Fernando Garcia, 15, was shot to death while sitting outside his apartment with his sister and friends. Three teens with gang ties were arrested.

At least two were former Irving High students.

Houston Middle School counselor Melanie Maine went to the Hazahza apartment to speak with teens who knew Bassam. She said no matter the subject, Bassam was laid back, always smiling, quiet at first, then talkative.

She said the shooting was discouraging.

“You’d just like to think you can make a difference,” she said. “But I love these kids. I hope when people see this happen, people realize they’re kids.”

Raed Sbeit, a youth group leader at the mosque, said he hopes the incident motivates Irving to try to focus on preventing other incidents.

“It’s the community’s job to have a support system,” he said. “This is what we need to work on – how can we help these youths?”

E-mail kunmuth@dallasnews.com