Category: Detention

Email from Jay Johnson-Castro (Dec. 23)

Mornin’ amigos…

Christmas Eve Vigil for the children imprisoned with their mothers at the Hutto prison camp in Taylor , Texas .

Time: Just one hour…between 5pm-6pm. Music and candles.

Location: 1400 Welch St. , Taylor , TX .

Regarding this vigil, I received this caution from someone who knows more about the inside of the Hutto prison camp than most of us.

I would be careful though, because I heard that as a result of the last vigil, the detainees were kind of in lock-down most of the day. They didn’t get to go outside that day. So I would be careful, because you wouldn’t want ICE to get upset and take it out on the detainees. Just a heads-up.

I feel the tearing expressed above. For me…it is very simple. It’s a must to go. We want the children and their moms to know that someone in America cares.

What do we have to do? Wait for them to start tattooing numbers on their wrists? This has to be exposed. We will shame these entities. We will free these people. Freedom doesn’t come easy…or cheap.

Chertoff & Company rule by fear. Yet…if YOU were inside…which would YOU rather experience? A lock down because Americans were outside protesting your conditions? Or spend Christmas with your kids for 22 hours on Christmas day…in your cell anyway…knowing that NO ONE was out there?

While attorneys cannot inspect the inside of this facility…nor can the media…did you know who can. Any significant investor in privatized prisons can tour the facilities. As a country, are we now moving from a military-industrial complex to an ICE/immigration-privatization complex? Who really rules America when these conditions are secret from the public and the media…but open to those with the capitol? Chertoff & Company…and their financial backers?

Did you know that ICE has offices in Hutto…with some 50 ICE personnel…or so an official told Fox News on video.

Did you know that the helpless in the prison camps have no way of communicating with the outside…unless the buy the CCA phone cards? $20 for 20 minutes. Can someone explain to me how a terrorized mother and her children who have been striped of all human dignity and has no money gets justice in our country?

That’s my take on this issue…and that of Teye and Belen. We want the moms and kids to know that we are there. That some one cares. That we care. And Chertoff & Company need to know too! Some folks will be attending. Some media too. The message is spilling all over the world. Just Google “hutto detention families children”. In just one week, the message is now global.

Our presence will bring hope…something that fascism does not want these people to experience or enjoy. Some individuals and media have indicated that they’ll be there. Where we are few or not…makes no difference. The moms and especially the children will know the “We the people of the United States of America” have not forgotten them…and will not forget them. We demand their freedom.

What is almost as good is that Chertoff & Company will know too! It is our belief that what is being committed here behind the razor wires of the Hutto prison camp is not only immoral but criminal. We are demanding democracy and due process. A congressional investigation…and a UN investigation. This is beyond war crimes. This is a crime on humanity…to imprison mothers and children who come to this country seeking asylum.

Over this issue… America has a chance to wake up! Really wake up!!!

Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright. Tomorrow night!!!

Jay

Hola y’all…

Here’s the most recent news links about the imprisonment of children in the Hutto jail in Taylor , Texas …

I’d like to commend all three of the following. The Editorial Board of the Austin Statesman didn’t pussy foot around with this issue. Greg Moses of the Texas Civil Rights Review seized detailed specifics from immigration attorney, John Gibson, and laid it out very succinctly for us. Daniel Lai of the local paper in Taylor didn’t water anything down in his report. Here goes…
From the Editorial Board of the Austin American Statesman.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/

editorial/stories/12/19/19taylor_edit.html

From Greg Moses (digging deeper):
https://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/
modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=691

From Daniel Lai of the local paper right in Taylor :

http://taylordailypress.net/articles/2006/12/18/news/news01.prt

Keep the fire against imprisonment of innocent children and refugees…by Chertoff and Company…ablaze.

Shame on ICE…for bringing its Gulag onto American soil…and right here in Texas …in the shadows of the State Capitol…

Please share…

Jay

P.S. The attached pic shows the razor wire prison walls… jjj

[See photo on right sidebar–gm]

Receipts Reported by Williamson County Sun Raise Question of Over-Crowding

“I think Williamson County should be ashamed of itself,” said Jane Van Praag of Bartlett, Texas speaking Tuesday before a meeting of the County Commissioners Court.

“You are sanctioning this injustice,” said Efrain Davila of Round Rock.

What they are talking about, of course, is the T. Don Hutto “Residential Center” in nearby Taylor.
“There’s nothing residential about it,” warned Van Praag.

Davila and Van Praag are quoted in the Sunday Sun of Georgetown, Texas, a publication that is not available online.

“Critics say that if it looks like a prison and talks like a prison, then it must be a prison,” writes reporter Ben Trollinger in his front-page story. “It is unjust, they argue, for children to be in such an environment.”

In response to public unrest, several members of the court have pledged to tour the jail.

“The county’s involvement is integral,” writes Trollinger, “because ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] cannot directly contract with a private corporation such as CCA [Corrections Corporation of America]. Without the county’s consent, ICE would be forced to look elsewhere.”

Trollinger says that the county’s contract with ICE would allow commissioners to give the agency 120 days notice to cease operations.

As Efrain Davila suggested, commissioners are complicit in the operation, not only for approving the contract in April, but also for collecting a fee of “about” one dollar per head per day based on the Hutto jail population.

Trollinger reports that the county has been collecting $15,000 to $20,000 per month from ICE–amounts that at “exactly” one dollar per head per day would suggest populations of up to 645 people in a jail that, according to the CCA website, has 512 beds.

Funding for CCA also flows through the county, reports Trollinger. CCA presents its expenses for running the jail to the county, whch then passes the charges to ICE. Writes Trollinger, ICE pays CCA about $95 per day to jail the people at Hutto, or about $2.8 million per month.

Note: Thanks to Jay Johnson-Castro who encouraged us to pick up a copy of the newspaper, which we did right outside the newspaper offices.–gm

By John Wheat Gibson
December 15, 2006

The children of the Ibrahim family, 3, 5, 12, and 14 have been in prison in Taylor, Texas in the “T. Don Hutto Residential Center,” since November 3, 2006,when their mother and father were arrested in a midnight raid on their home in Dallas by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The three oldest children are enrolled in school, but have been unable to attend while in prison. The BICE took the 2-year-old daughter away from her mother and siblings, and placed her in a foster home.
A midnight raid by the BICE also landed a 17-year-old senior at Bowie High School, in Arlington, Texas in the prison, spoiling his senior year and destroying his hopes of graduation.

The children, imprisoned with their mothers, have never been accused of any wrongdoing. Neither have their mothers. All are Palestinian refugees who entered the U.S. legally, but have been denied asylum.

The Ibrahim children, Hamzeh, 14, Rodaina, 12, Maryam, 5, and Faten, 3, are the children of Salaheddin Ibrahim and Hanan Ahmad. Mr. Ibrahim is in the jail at Haskell, Texas.

Ayman Suleiman is imprisoned with his mother Asma Quddoura. His father Adel Suleiman is in the Garvin County Jail in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.

Hanan Ahmad is a few weeks pregnant. Her children became hysterical when guards wrapped her in wrist and leg chains to take her to the hospital.

Their attorney, John Wheat Gibson, said, “There is no legitimate reason for the detention of the children, even though a Department of Homeland Stupidity press release accuses them of being ‘fugitives’ and ‘criminals.’ In fact, they are neither, and their parents always kept the Department informed of their current address.”

Gibson described the roundup of the families November 3 as “Chertoff’s publicity stunt.” He said the purpose was “to make it appear that 1) the Muslims among us are our enemies but 2) the DHS is protecting us, and therefore 3) we should not mind shredding the Constitution.”

The Suleiman and Ibrahim families had been ordered deported, but had never received the customary notice to report for deportation. If they had, Gibson said, they would have worked out through their attorneys arrangements with the government for the children to finish the school year and then to depart at their own expense.”

“Compare the treatment of the Colombian wife of Georga State Senator Curt B. Thompson last week,” Gibson said.

“She also was under a final order of deportation, but the DHS did not detain her, even though, unlike my clients, she had been hiding from them since November 28, according to Brenda Goodman, writing in the New York Times, December 6.”

While the four Ibrahim children and their mother are in prison in Taylor, the 2-year-old daughter is in foster care because she was born in the U.S. The DHS would not allow her to remain with her mother and siblings.

“Two months is a long time for a 2-year-old baby to be torn away from her mother–especially for no reason other than a cynical political publicity stunt,” Gibson said.

–30–

Photos by Jay Johnson-Castro of the T. Don Hutto jail, taken at the Dec. 16 vigil.