Category: Detention

Friday, Saturday, Sunday iteneraries updated via March 22 email from Sarah Boone, who writes, “We appreciate your support and hope that this endeavor will help expedite hearings that will result in freedom for many mothers and children, who are unnecessarily incarcerated.”–gm

Hola amigos…

We the people of 21st America say…

“Give us these tired, these poor, these huddled masses yearning to breath free. The wretched refuse of our teaming shore. Let these, now, the homeless, tempest-tossed be free. We lift our lamps beside that golden door. Let America once again be the land of the free”.

The following is a schedule and update on the Bayview and Raymondville prison camp walk.

First day: Wednesday, March 21

9:00am Press conference.

University of Texas Brownsville
Jacob Brown Memorial Center
600 International Blvd

Hosts: Mayor Eddie Treviño, City of Brownsville
Commissioner Edward Camarillo, City Commission and UTB,

10:00am Commence walk to free the “Huddled Masses”

International Blvd to Paredes Line Rd (Rd. 1847)

Paredes Line Rd. to IES north of Los Fresons.

(IES is a prison facility for unaccompanied immigrant children and forerunner to Hutto) Get pdf from ABAnet

Vigil at Los Fresnos. Vigil for immigrant children

Second Day: Thursday, March 22

9:00am Meet in front of IES immigrant children’s prison. Commence walk … North on Paredes Line Rd (1847) to Road 510 … East on 510 to Buena Vista Rd. … North to Port Isabel-Cameron County Airport and the Bayview prison camp.

Vigil for immigrant mothers from Massachusetts and all immigrants seeking freedom

Third Day: Friday, March 23

9:00am Jay will leave the intersection of 510 and 1847 in the morning and walk west into San Benito where he will take the 77 business route to Harlingen and end the day at Ed Carey Road.

Fourth Day:Saturday, March 24

9:00am On Saturday morning, he will leave from the Texas Travel Information Center at 2021 W. Harrison in Harlingen and proceed to north on 77 to Sebastian.

Fifth Day: Sunday, March 25

9:00am The Sunday walk will begin in Sebastian and end at 1 p.m. at the Raymondville Tent Camp at 1800 Industrial Park Drive in Raymondville. A vigil will be held at that time.

1:00pm Vigil for refugees and victims of for-profit prisons.

Watch Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales interview Jodi Goodwin, immigration attorney for immigrants at Los Fresnos, Bayview and Raymondville.

Even though you might be hundreds or thousands of miles away…perhaps on another continent … please feel free to share this information. Share it with any and all friends, defenders and champions of liberty. Share this with the media, organizations and anyone that are striving to see humans not treated inhumanely as in these prison camps. Anyone that you feel would like to be aware of our American grass roots outrage, protest and dissention over 21st Century slavery and concentration camps. We the people are taking the offensive against this inhumane and immoral treatment of desperate fellow humans whose only crime is to want to live … and live the American dream.

From our hearts we echo the words of Liberty that drew our forefathers here. As we grew up in the land of the free…we did not know that the elitists of our country would convert our country into an international mockery of human and children’s rights…a place where the price of freedom was controlled by criminal minds who would enslave others…in our era…in for-profit prisons.

We the people say to Congress, Chertoff and ICE. You have lost all semblance of a conscience. Cease to betray the fundamentals of America . Free these people. Now!!!

Jay

P.S. If you can join us on this important and historical walk…if only for a mile…it would be an honor to walk with you. You have about 75 miles over five days to choose from. On this walk…I will be accessible only on my cell phone. (830)734-8636.

Email from Jay Johnson-Castro.

To those around the county and the around the world…

To those all over Texas …

To those in the Metro-plex…

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” Martin Luther King, Jr.

May we never be guilty due to our silence. May we use our collective voice to protest the cruel ICE raids, incarceration and inhumane treatment of innocent and beautiful people who only seek the American dream.

Even if it is one person at a time…one family at a time…we will be unrelenting until all those seeking to be Americans are freed. In the case of this vigil…it is scheduled to coincide with the immigration hearing on Thursday morning for the Hazahza family (see pictures below).
NOTICE: On the evening of Wednesday, March 28th…from 5pm to 9pm…we will hold a sunset-candlelight vigil…at the JFK Museum located at the Dealey Plaza on 411 Elm Street in Dallas .

On Thursday morning, March 29th…beginning at 9:00am to noon…there will be a continuation of our vigil in solidarity with the Hazahza family…and all the imprisoned victims of ICE. This will be held at the U.S. District Courthouse located at 1100 Commerce Street in Dallas.

We give special focus to Suzi Hazahza…and her sister, Mirvat. They represent thousands of women who are blessings to our country. Without having committed a crime and to fill “for-profit” prisons…they are now in prison cells are being treated as criminals and are now victims of sexual abuses. Suzi and her sister Mirvat, along her father and young brother, are still incarcerated in different cells in the Haskell prison camp in Governor Perry’s hometown. Their mother and little brother…now released…spent months imprisoned in the Hutto prison camp for “families” near the Texas Capitol. ICE say Hutto is a humane facility to keep families together. So much for that lie.

So, we are holding this vigil to show solidarity with the entire Hazahza family. We want them completely released from the ruthlessness of our ICE government. This vigil is also to show solidarity with all of the victims of ICE. We demand that the raids to stop…immediately…all over our country. We want the imprisonment of helpless immigrants to stop. We demand that the atrocities to stop!!! We want these un-American and demented “for-profit” prisons to be shut down. We want all the children, the women and hard working men to be freed…so they can be free…in this land of the free.

Yet… “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people” Martin Luther King, Jr.

This vigil is a uniting of Americans. Americans of all backgrounds. Latin Americans, African Americans, Jewish Americans, Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Anglo Americans…and Heinz 57 Americans like me. We are all either immigrants or descendents of American immigrants. At this time in our country’s history, we are uniting our spirit to defend and to protect the our new generation of immigrant Americans.

May the Hazahzas, may all the “huddled masses” of immigrants and victims of ICE, may the leaders of our communities and our great state, may ICE and our Congress, may all fellow Americans…and may the whole world that is watching us…may they all know. Grass roots Americans…we the people…will not be complicate by silence with the atrocities being committed on helpless and sincere immigrants by the terrorist forces of ICE.

In whatever part of the Texas , our country and our world…thousands and millions of us have a common thread. We are fighting dark and greedy cancerous forces…which have a depraved stranglehold on the lives of millions of innocent people.

Remember one quick phone call can change it all. Call NANCY PELOSI directly at 202 225 4965 and simply say…

“We want an immediate end of the ICE raids on immigrants. We want the ICE victims like the Hazahza family freed from the “for-profit” prisons…and returned to their homes, schools and jobs. ” Make the difference…and make that call today.

Please feel free to join us in Dallas if you can. You may also share in this solidarity by sharing this invitation with others…

Jay

P.S. Thanks to especially to Dr. Asma Salam, as well as Ralph Isenberg, Reza Barkhordari and Jose De La Rocha for their time, resources and dedication to coordinate this special vigil. JJJ

From the Rio Grande Guardian and KGBT 4 TV Harlingen come two advance stories about next week’s walk. For background on the issue, also see subtopia and aztlan electronic news. Materials forwarded by Jay Johnson-Castro.–gm

Johnson-Castro walking in the Valley again, this time against immigrant detention camps

By Steve Taylor
Rio Grande Guardian

AUSTIN – Anti-border wall activist Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr., is heading back to the Rio Grande Valley next week… for another walk.

“I’m hoping many of the friends I made on my last Valley walk will join me on this next one,” Johnson-Castro told the Guardian, announcing details of the walk.
The walk starts in Brownsville on Wednesday, March 21, and ends in Raymondville on Sunday, March 25.

“This time I want to help give voice to the immigrants locked up in the children’s camp in Los Fresnos, the prison camp in Bayview, and the new tent city in Raymondville,” Johnson-Castro said.

The 60 year-old Del Rio bed and breakfast owner achieved international attention last October when he walked 205 miles from Laredo to Brownsville to protest the federal government’s plans to build 700 miles of extra fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Johnson-Castro also protested the border wall on a 55-mile walk from Ciudad Acuña to Piedras Negras in November and a caravan tour from San Diego to Brownsville in February.

However, much of Johnson-Castro’s focus of late has been directed towards what he claims is the inhumane treatment of immigrant children and families in prisons administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He has walked from Austin to Taylor and participated in a number of vigils to protest conditions for Other Than Mexican families detained at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Uni*n filed a lawsuit over conditions at the center.

Johnson-Castro has also walked from Abilene to Haskell , Texas , to protest an ICE facility in Haskell.

Johnson-Castro said one of his main objections to ICE policy was the decision to award huge contracts to private prison operators.

“I just cannot understand how our government can pay private companies to imprison children. I do not know how to equate that in history. It’s like rounding up wild horses. It’s beyond my imagination,” he said.

Johnson-Castro said that in Raymondville, that meant awarding Management & Training Corporation (MCT) $7,000 a month per inmate. In Hutto, he said it meant awarding Corrections Corporation of America $126,000 a month for medical services the immigrants do not get.

Johnson-Castro said he was “encouraged” by all the attention the Port Isabel Detention Center in Bayview was getting in Massachusetts and in Congress.

ICE’s decision last week to round up hundreds of immigrants, mostly female factory workers, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and fly them to both Bayview and a detention facility outside El Paso, angered Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and many in the state’s congressional delegation.

Johnson-Castro said the BBC news network was interested in filming the Bayview facility.

“I cannot tell you how many folks contact me every day now from all over the state, the country and the world,” Johnson-Castro said. “They are waiting for this next walk. I believe that we will get special solidarity like never before.”

Johnson-Castro said he hoped groups that have supported him in the past, such as LULAC, LUPE, ARISE and the South Texas Immigration Council, would participate in the latest walk.

He said he planned to meet with the Valley staff of U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, before setting off on the walk.
************************

Protest Walk in the Valley

March 14, 2007 09:09 PM

reported by Ryan Wolf
KGBT 4 TV Harlingen

Action 4 News gets exclusive details on another protest walk coming to the Valley. It’s in response to government detention centers used to house illegal immigrants right here in the Valley.

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, the man who brought a protest walk last October in opposition of a border wall, says he’ll be staging a 5-day walk next week.

The self-proclaimed border ambassador says he was outraged to learn families were ripped apart during an illegal immigration sting along the east coast. Many were sent to holding centers in the Valley.

Johnson-Castro wants to highlight how the government facilities in Bayview and Raymondville translate into nothing more than prison camps… he calls it taxpayer waste.

We ask, “Jay, you’re going to have people who are going to say these people were illegally in our country and the government is doing what they need to secure our border… to this you say what?”

“I say the term illegal is a recent phenomenon… most of the people who came to this country… did so as a migrant… and most of them came illegally…. I don’t consider it illegal when looking for refuge . . . when looking for hope,” says Johnson-Castro.

Here’s a look at where his 5-day walk will take him. On Wednesday March 21st… Johnson-Castro says he’ll leave from Brownsville and walk his way to the Bayview Detention Center arriving on Thursday March 22nd. From there, he’ll head West to Harlingen and then North to the Raymondville Detention Center, arriving on March 25th.

Johnson-Castro encourages anyone from the public to join him on his quest… he says he’ll provide more details as the walk draws near.

The following commentary was previously posted in the announcement section.–gm

For further accounts of the disparity between what ICE says and what the Hazahzas have lived through, see Brett Shipp’s review of the T. Don Hutto press tour. We congratulate Shipp for validating the voices of immigrants in relation to ICE propaganda, but we are dismayed that Shipp’s report does not mention that his key sources, Juma and Mohammad, are desperately seeking reunion with their imprisoned family at the Rolling Plains prison.
Given the power of Shipp’s reach, and the natural connection between what ICE says and what the Hazahzas experience, omission of the family’s continued separation suggests a whiff of exploitation. Doesn’t ICE claim that it keeps families together? What would Mohammad and Juma have to say about that? We can only hope the debt will be repaid in short order.

To quote the Hazahzas and not mention Haskell? We don’t get it. Please show us Mr. Shipp that there is a larger plan of reporting here, because there is no excuse for knowing about Mohammad’s sister Suzi and failing to act today.

Clipped from the White House Press Briefing of Feb. 13, 2007

Q I wanted to ask you, there have been some stories lately about an ICE detention facility outside of Austin, Texas, where asylum-seekers have been kept in prison-like conditions — it is a converted prison, although the bars are not kept closed, as it would be in prison. Women and children are kept in garb that is likened to prison outfits. Is the President comfortable with the idea that asylum-seekers, particularly children, are kept in conditions —
MR. SNOW: Well, as you probably know, in the past, children had been separated from their families. What we’re actually trying to do is to keep them together. We also have been concerned about making sure that they’re kept in humane and sanitary conditions and they’re clothed and fed. And all that is as you would expect. But one of the things we’re trying to do is to keep families together. When you have a large number of people in a facility like that, it does create challenges, and we’re trying to do our best with it.

Q Wouldn’t it be better to find another type of facility?

MR. SNOW: Such as?

Q Dormitory —

MR. SNOW: Sports stadium?

Q — I don’t know.

MR. SNOW: The point is, it’s difficult to find facilities, and you have to do the best with what you’ve got.

Q Thank you, Tony.

END 12:32 P.M. EST