Texas Civil Rights Review

Category: Detention

Democracy Now: Immigrant Abuses by Feds and Private Prisons
Note: It’s a rare occasion when we re-post such a lengthy document, but with so many friends of the issue from Texas involved, we feel it is important to import the archive of this rush transcript from today’s edition of Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman–gm

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AMY GOODMAN: We turn to the sprawling detention system within this
country that some have likened to a gulag and a series of domestic Guantanamo
Bays: the immigration prisons that over 300,000 pass through each year.

Earlier this month, a thirty-four-year-old Chinese computer engineer named
Hiu Lui Ng overstayed his visa, died in a Rhode Island immigration detention
facility. He had cancer in his liver, in his lung, in his bones. He had a fractured
spine.

Despite repeated complaints of severe pain, Mr. Ng was refused independent
medical evaluation by immigration officials. The New York Times reported
this. Instead, he was taken in shackles to another prison two hours away, where
an immigration officer tried to convince him to withdraw his appeals and accept
deportation.

Before Jason Ng—his American name—died on August 6th, he told his sister the
doctors at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island had told him
to “stop faking” his illness.

Jason Ng’s story is the latest in a series of similar cases of neglect and
abuse at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. Investigations
by the Washington Post, the New York Times earlier this year
revealed as many as eighty-three prisoners have died in or soon after ICE custody
in the five years since the agency was created in March of 2003.

When contacted for response, ICE said they could not comment on Jason Ng’s
death, because it’s under investigation.

Congress is responding to these deaths with legislation aimed to improve conditions
for non-citizens in ICE custody. Congress member Zoe Lofgren from California
and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey have sponsored the House and Senate
versions of the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008.

We’re joined right now by Joshua Bardavid, attorney for Mr. Ng ‘s family.
We’re also joined by California Congress member Zoe Lofgren. And we welcome
you both to Democracy Now!

Before we go to the legislation, Joshua, tell us the full story of Jason Ng.
Where was he born? How did he come to this country?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Jason was born in Hong Kong, and he entered with his
family at the age of seventeen. They applied for political asylum. Unfortunately,
a notice telling them to go to court was mailed to a nonexistent address. So
an immigration judge had ordered Jason deported in absentia, unknowingly. Meanwhile,
he went to school in the United States, graduated high school, went to college,
graduate college, became an engineer working at the Empire State Building.
He married, had two US citizen children. He married a US citizen, and they
applied—he applied for his green card. When he went for his interview, instead
of having his green card adjudicated, he was picked up. This was in July of
2007.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait. So when he and his wife went to the green card interview?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Correct, correct. What they thought was their final
interview to get his green card, that he would finally become a lawful permanent
resident in the United States, he was picked up and swept into this system.

AMY GOODMAN: If he hadn’t applied for the green card, would he ever
have been picked up? And he had been here for so many years, gone to college,
was working here.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: It’s possible that he would have been picked up. It’s
possible that he would have lived his life not knowing that he had an order
of deportation pending against him and not been touched. But the fact that
he was trying to legalize his status was actually what put him into this system.
Unfortunately, the system is sprawling. And he was first sent to a facility
up in Massachusetts—I’m sorry, he was actually first sent to Rhode Island,
then he was moved to a facility in Massachusetts, then to Vermont, and then
back to Rhode Island from July 2007 until August 5 or August 6, the day that
he passed away.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s talk about what happened when he went into
the detention facility. Was he healthy, as far as he knew, when he went in?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: He was a healthy, robust man.

AMY GOODMAN: Thirty-four.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Thirty-four. No history of medical problems.

AMY GOODMAN: Very tall?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Average height, average height. And he was slowly
deteriorated as he was through the various facilities.

AMY GOODMAN: How long was he held?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: He was held from July 2007 until August 5th or August
6th. He died in the middle of the night.

AMY GOODMAN: About a year.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: About a year, a little over a year. During this process,
he had a stay of deportation, because the courts were reviewing his deportation
order, the fact that he was eligible for a green card, and immigration had
not yet fully adjudicated his green card, because instead of adjudicating it,
they had detained him.

During this process, he began to complain of various medical problems. In
April of 2008, he had a steep decline. In a ten-week period, he dropped twenty-three
pounds. At this point, he was in St. Albans, Vermont in a facility that had
absolutely no medical facilities whatsoever, not even a nurse on duty. He was
then transferred to the Donald Wyatt facility in July—I believe July 2nd.

AMY GOODMAN: In Rhode Island.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: In Rhode Island, excuse me, yes. July 2nd, 2008.

AMY GOODMAN: This, a public prison?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: It is a private prison. It’s owned by a private corporation
that only owns the Donald Wyatt facility. It had been owned by a major publicly
traded corporation, Cornell Corrections, until, I believe, June of 2007, and
then it was transferred to this private corporation, the Donald Wyatt Detention
Corporation, that owns the facility.

The reason that he was moved from Vermont to Rhode Island was because the
Vermont facility did not have any medical care facilities at all. Donald Wyatt
supposedly had adequate facilities to provide for his care. Unfortunately,
he was given basic medical evaluations. He was not given an MRI. He was not
given a CAT scan, despite the fact that he was complaining of loss of feeling
in extremities, despite the fact that he lost twenty-three pounds. At this
point, he had now dropped about thirty to thirty-two pounds, and he was given
just basic medical evaluation.

AMY GOODMAN: They put him on a top bunk? They had double-bunk?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: That’s correct.

AMY GOODMAN: So that he would have to climb up and down.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: But he was complaining of extreme back pain.

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Right, and at various stages, complete loss of movement
in his feet, in his legs, and loss of feeling in his legs. Eventually he was
given a bottom bunk and some pain killers and given a basic medical evaluation.
But at this point, he was unaware that he had cancer.

We’re unsure when he had a fractured spine. It may have occurred when he was
moved by the ICE officials on
July 30th. We don’t know when the fractured spine
occurred. It’s possible, at this point, he did have a fractured spine. He was
not given a wheelchair, despite repeated requests by his attorneys, by his
family, by him, by his cell mate. He was cleared to walk with a cane, is what
we were told.

AMY GOODMAN: Why was he taken on a two-hour ride to Hartford, Connecticut?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: It’s not really clear, and that’s one of the many
unanswered questions in this case. When it became clear that we were not going
to be able to get through basic requests the medical care that was clear he
needed, we filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, seeking his release
under due process grounds, because he was not receiving adequate care. This
was filed on July 29th in Rhode Island. The very next day, he was taken in
shackles in a van and driven two hours to Connecticut, where a deportation
officer met with him and said that the only way they would release him or deport
him is if he withdrew all of his appeals.

AMY GOODMAN: Did he?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: No. He actually had become so desperate that he started
to discuss that with his family members. At this point, communication was quite
difficult, because he couldn’t use a phone, and he was not given a wheelchair.

AMY GOODMAN: Why couldn’t he use a phone?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: Because he couldn’t walk to go to the payphone, and
they wouldn’t give him a wheelchair to go to the payphone, and they wouldn’t
give him a wheelchair to meet with us, his attorneys. So he was communicating
through other Chinese-speaking detainees, although on the 30th, we were able
to speak with him on the phone. And at this point, he began discussing withdrawing
all his appeals.

And to give you an idea of just how much pain he was in and how much suffering
he was going through, this is a man with a one-year-old and a three-year-old
child with a US citizen wife who’s lived more of his life in the United States
than he did in his home country in Hong Kong, and he was considering giving
all of that up and accepting an order of deportation, even though it’s our
opinion that he was legally eligible for a green card, simply because he needed
the suffering to end.

AMY GOODMAN: When did the prison tell him he was faking it?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: That happened on several occasions. Just to correct
you, I don’t believe it was a doctor who in fact accused him of faking it.
I believe it was a nurse and several of the guards who said, you know, “You’re
exaggerating your condition. You’re exaggerating your condition.”

AMY GOODMAN: Where exactly did he die?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: He died in the hospital in Rhode Island.

AMY GOODMAN: In the detention hospital?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: No, they had taken him to an outside hospital. What
happened was, on July 31st, we had a hearing before a district judge in the
district court of Rhode Island, and the district judge, while he didn’t rule
on whether or not to release him, he, at the end of the hearing, said, “If
this guy needs a wheelchair, get him a wheelchair. If he needs an MRI, get
him an MRI.” And the US attorney, who was quite proactive at this point—only
became involved in the case when we filed the petition in July 29th—assisted
us in contacting the prison authorities and making sure the next day he was
brought to a hospital for a CAT scan. And it was then and only then that it
was discovered that he had cancer, basically all over his body, that he had
a fractured spine, and we were told it was terminal. And he was—he remained
in the hospital for the next three days, and he passed away on the night of
August 5th, August 6th.

AMY GOODMAN: Was his family with him?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: They were able to see him on the final day. It took
a little over two days for us to get clearance. The prison wanted and ICE officials
wanted the Social Security numbers of his family in order to permit them to
visit Jason. But we were finally able to get clearance so they could be with
him at his side.

AMY GOODMAN: California Congress member Zoe Lofgren is with us now.
She doesn’t represent his area, but has introduced federal legislation around
medical care for immigration prisoners, for immigration detainees. Can you
talk about the bill you’ve introduced and how it would affect, well, someone
like Jason Ng, if he were still alive?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Sure. I chair the Subcommittee on Immigration in
the House of Representatives, and we’ve had two hearings on the conditions,
medical conditions in ICE custody. One was last October. Then we had another
in June.

And as has been mentioned, there were a series of press exposes on really
just outrageous conditions in custodial facilities relative to immigrants.
And this is a terrible account to listen to what happened to Mr. Ng. Unfortunately,
it’s not an isolated incident.

And so, we have introduced legislation basically to require the ICE, the Immigration
and Customs Enforcement Agency, which is a part of DHS that runs enforcement,
to live up to the policies that they say they already are ruled by. It would
require them to actually provide basic medical care to those in their detention.
And it would also—the current system allows offsite, non-physician personnel
to overrule medical treatment that is ordered by physicians in a facility,
who are actually seeing a patient, that would preclude that. And right now,
oftentimes they remove lifesaving medication from people who they arrest. That
would—it would prohibit them from doing that. We’ve had people who’ve just
died, because their medication was taken away when there were taken into custody.
It has standards for screening and examination and continuity of care. It’s
fascinating that when individuals are moved from facility to facility, their
medical records aren’t sent with them. And so, that has caused some severe
problems.

AMY GOODMAN: I can already hear Lou Dobbs now, Congress member Lofgren,
screaming into the camera, “Can you believe it? We’re giving medical care to
illegal aliens in this country!”

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: I’ve been on Lou Dobbs, and it’s not always a pleasure.
But here’s the deal. I mean, when you arrest someone, you undertake some basic
obligations for their care, and that’s required in our Constitution. You know,
when you arrest someone, you have to feed them. That’s because they are no
longer able to run down the street to McDonald’s on their own. When you arrest
someone and they become ill, you need to provide basic medical care, because
they can’t run down the street to the clinic or their own physician. That’s
just the standards of decency that nations have, and it applies to the United
States, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, and then we’re going to come back
to this conversation and talk about private prisons overall and follow up on
the case of a young man, a boy, that we talked to in Texas in prison—he was
nine years old, Kevin—and see what happened to him. He was imprisoned with
his family in a private prison. We’re talking to Joshua Bardavid, immigration
attorney here in New York, now representing Jason Ng’s family. Jason died in
prison. And we are talking to California Congress member Zoe Lofgren. Stay
with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests, Joshua Bardavid, immigration attorney in New
York; Congress member Zoe Lofgren in California. She has introduced a bill.
She’s chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship,

Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.

Awhile ago, we interviewed a little boy in prison. Kevin Yourdkhani was nine
years old when he and his parents were detained at the Don Hutto Family Detention
Center in Taylor, Texas for six weeks. They were flying over the United States
on their way to seek asylum in Canada from Iran when there were detained, when
there was this unrelated emergency. A person had a heart attack. They landed
in Puerto Rico. They didn’t have the proper papers for the United States. They
weren’t planning to come here. And they were sent to a detention facility.
Kevin spoke to us from the jail last February.
AMY GOODMAN: Kevin was nine years old when we talked to him. This interview
was played all over Canada, hardly got attention in the United States. Ultimately,
the Canadian authorities let the family in. What’s happened to him since, Joshua
Bardavid?

JOSHUA BARDAVID: It’s my understanding that he remains in Canada. He’s
a Canadian citizen and had every right to remain in Canada. His parents had
a political asylum claim that was reopened upon his return, in large part,
I believe, due to the public outcry that surrounded the interview. And it’s
my understanding that their legal appeals are still being fought in the courts
in Canada.

AMY GOODMAN: And a special thanks to our producer Mike Burke, who got
through to that prison, as we were able to talk live to Kevin and his dad Majid
in the prison facility on Democracy Now!

While thousands languish in immigration prisons, private corporations contracted
by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, like GEO and Corrections Corporation
of America, or CCA, are making record profits. CCA is the country’s largest
private prison company, with strong political connections to both Republicans
and Democrats. Together with ICE, they have detained close to a million non-citizens
in the last five years.

But an award-winning investigative project by independent journalist Renee
Feltz and Stokely Baksh at businessofdentention.com reveals
there is little oversight of conditions within these prisons. We’re joined
now by Renee Feltz, who is here in our firehouse studio, a student at Columbia
University School of Journalism, formerly a producer and news director at Pacifica
station at KPFT in Houston.

Welcome, Renee.

RENEE FELTZ: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the prisons.

RENEE FELTZ: We looked at the business of immigrant detention. We’ve
heard a lot about medical conditions for the detainees there, but we wanted
to look at the billion-dollar industry. Essentially, as the immigrant detention
population has boomed, the government has turned to the private sector, namely
private prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America, to provide
the detention services. Our investigation at businessofdetention.com looked
at the money they’re making and the connections they use to make sure that
the profits continue to roll in.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what you have found, specifically the names
of the companies, how they’ve grown, what prisons they run.

RENEE FELTZ: The main company we looked at was Corrections Corporation
of America. They’re based in Tennessee, but they’ve got plenty of connections
in Washington, D.C. Specifically, we found, for example, that one of their
main lobbyists, as the boom in immigrant detention beds was occurring, was
Philip Perry, who’s the son-in-law of Dick Cheney. He was lobbying for them,
went on to become the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security,
which oversees ICE. And—

AMY GOODMAN: He’s married to Cheney’s daughter?

RENEE FELTZ: Yes. And then, the next year, CCA saw their highest revenue
ever, for example. So, we also looked at their—so that’s one example of their
revolving door. This is partly how companies make sure that the government—basically
they have the government’s ear.

We also looked at the lobby money that they give to political action committees,
for example, and to congressmen. We found that more than half of the senators
that they spent money on are actually on the Appropriations Committee, and
their most generous donations went to the House Appropriations Subcommittee
on Homeland Security, which oversees funding for these detention centers.

AMY GOODMAN: And overall, how many people are incarcerated now?

RENEE FELTZ: On an average day, you’ll see about 30,000 immigrants
in detention in the United States. About 20 percent of those—and that number
is growing—are in large sort of box detention centers, where they hold hundreds
to thousands of people, primarily in the South and Southwest, where it’s easier
to put people on planes and send them—return them to their home countries.

Essentially, this business has boomed after the government moved from a practice
of catch-and-release, as they called it, to a practice of catch-and-remove.
And the situation that has resulted has been an increase in the demand for
beds, because people are no longer allowed to be free as their deportation
hearings are pending or if they have appeals pending. Instead, they’re detained
in these facilities, and sometimes for as long as six months.

AMY GOODMAN: Sergia Santibanez spent sixteen months—

RENEE FELTZ: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —at CCA’s Houston processing center, before being deported
to Mexico last year. Renee Feltz and Stokely Baksh spoke to Sergia from Mexico
this year.
AMY GOODMAN: Sergia Santibanez is talking about the Houston detention
facility. This is her daughter Luisanna Santibanez.
AMY GOODMAN: Luisanna Santibanez, talking about Sergia Santibanez and
her detention. Renee, you had done this interview?

RENEE FELTZ: Right. Sergia Santibanez’s case is a classic example of
how these detention centers, largely run by private companies, play a key role
in ICE justifying its existence. As Congress has failed to pass comprehensive
immigration reform, the focus regarding immigration is on enforcement. ICE
has to have its numbers ramped up to show how many people they’re deporting,
as many as 300,000 last year.

Basically, when they put Sergia Santibanez in this detention center, they
refused to release her until she agreed to leave the country. And that’s the
case for the majority of detainees that go in there. They never see the light
of day, after whatever way that they’re picked up, when they apply for their
green cards, during immigration raids, some of them along the US-Mexico border,
and they’re there until they agree to leave the country. It plays a key role
in the US enforcement policy.

AMY GOODMAN: How much lobbying do these private corporations do?

RENEE FELTZ: They spend millions a year on lobbying. It’s not surprising,
when you look at the disclosure records, you’ll see that they are concentrating,
at least in part, on Homeland Security, which is ICE, on immigration issues,
on issues that have to do with transparency of what takes place inside their
facilities.

AMY GOODMAN: Lobbying against?

RENEE FELTZ: Yes. And it’s interesting. If you look at the lobbying
expenditures of CCA between 2004 and the present, you’ll see a steady increase
in the amount that they donate to Democrats. Before, we would see—I looked
up the numbers this morning. In 2006, they spent about $4,000 on Democrats;
in 2008, $35,000. So you can already see a steady increase. In CCA’s most recent
earnings conference call with their shareholders and with analysts, they said
that they don’t really anticipate any change in the demand for detention beds,
depending on if Senator McCain or Senator Barack Obama get elected; they anticipate
that there will still be an increase and a steady demand. In fact, they’ve
got 10,000 beds in the pipeline ready for the government, should they want
them.

AMY GOODMAN: Zoe Lofgren, Congress member from California, how much
power do these private corporations have that are running these prisons? How
much accountability? And what are you doing about it in Congress?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN: Well, I have serious concerns about how detention
is being conducted and also the fact that people are over-incarcerated in the
immigration system. Take the situation of Mr. Ng, who so tragically died. I
mean, this is an individual whose notice for a hearing was sent to the wrong
address. Consequently, he didn’t go to the hearing, because he didn’t know
about it. To arrest him, as the only result of that, and refuse to let him
go, when he has a US citizen wife, a job, owns a home, has two children, is
a ridiculous situation. And certainly, his matter needed to be reviewed and
sorted through, but there was no need at all, and he should not have been in
custody at all. The case of the Iranian family seeking political asylum in
Canada, they shouldn’t have been in custody at all. They should have been on
their way back to Canada. So, first you have to look at who’s being put into
these facilities.

AMY GOODMAN: California Congress member Zoe Lofgren, unfortunately,
we have to end it there, because the show has come to an end, but we will continue
to follow your legislation. Thank you so much to Renee Feltz and to Joshua
Bardavid.
July 21, 2010
Privatized Detention and Operation Streamline 2008: An Archive

Back in May, Jay Johnson-Castro was walking through Arizona, talking about a federal plan called “Operation Endgame” to remove every last undocumented migrant from the USA. Meanwhile, Operation Streamline had been well underway — a federal program developed in Del Rio, Texas, that sentences undocumented migrants to one month in jail before they are shipped back home. In March, the monthly total of migrants prosecuted had reached a record 9,350 per month, “up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year” says the TRAC project of Syracuse Univ. Many of the new detention facilities along the border are operated for shareholder profit. Below is a series of clips about the campaign to produce a nation for profit only:–gm

New Year 2008

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during January 2008 the government reported 4739 new immigration prosecutions. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is up 21.6% over the previous month, [and represents the largest monthly number of such prosecutions in the past seven years].

Virtually all federal criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses in January 2008 (99 percent) were referred by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The two lead investigative agencies in DHS are Customs and Border Protection (CBP) whose border patrol agencies guard the county’s borders, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), responsible for conducting most immigration criminal investigations under the immigration laws.

In January 2008, 67 percent of immigration cases for these matters took place in U.S. Magistrate Courts which handle less serious misdemeanor cases, including what are called “petty offenses.” In the magistrate courts in January the most frequently cited lead charge was Title 8 U.S.C Section 1325 involving the “Entry of alien at improper time or place; etc.”. This was the lead charge for 56 percent of all magistrate filings in January. Other frequently prosecuted lead charges include: “8 USC 1326 – Reentry of deported alien” (35.3%), “8 USC 1324 – Bringing in and harboring certain aliens” (5.8%).

The Southern District of Texas (Houston)—with 354 prosecutions—was the most active during January 2008. The Southern District of Texas (Houston) was ranked 1 a year ago, while it was ranked 1 five years ago.

“Immigration Prosecutions for January 2008,” TRAC, Syracuse Univ. (Apr. 30, 2008).

Quoted in Cali

“The private prison industry was on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 1990s, until the feds bailed them out with the immigration-detention contracts,” said Michele Deitch, an expert on prison privatization with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin.

Tougher immigration laws turn the ailing private prison sector into a revenue maker. By Leslie Berestein. San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER (May 4, 2008)

Meanwhile

No government body is required to keep track of deaths [of immigrants in detention] and publicly report them. No independent inquiry is mandated. And often relatives who try to investigate the treatment of those who died say they are stymied by fear of immigration authorities, lack of access to lawyers, or sheer distance.

Few Details on Immigrants Who Died in Custody. By NINA BERNSTEIN. New York Times. Published: May 5, 2008

Shoot the Messenger

So it was no surprise that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were upset about a four-part series that ran May 11-14, about the health care of immigrant detainees.

Veteran reporters Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein detailed mistakes that led to some of the 83 detainee deaths in the past five years, showed serious gaps in mental health treatment, suicides that could have been prevented and the medically unnecessary drugging of deportees for the trip back to their home countries. Immigrant health care is managed by ICE’s Division of Immigration Health Services.

“An Investigation Raises Ire at ICE,” By Deborah Howell. The Washington Post (Sunday, June 8, 2008; Page B06)

Stop

In 2007, the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) rounded up more than 30,000 immigrants in raids. While more than 186,000 immigrants were deported in 2006, an alarming 300,000 were detained in immigrant detention centers, such as the T. Don Hutto Center in
Taylor, in 2007 alone. According to ICE, the purpose of immigrant detention centers is to “detain and remove criminal and other deportable aliens … in part of the strategy to deter illegal immigration and protect public safety.”

Put for-profit detention centers on ICE. By Ulylesia Thompson, Carla Bates & Sarah Robinson. The Daily Texan (4/30/08).

Full Steam Ahead

The federal government is accepting bids for up to three new family detention centers that would house as many as 600 men, women and children fighting deportation cases.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a call for proposals last month and set June 16 as the deadline. New facilities are being considered on both coasts and on the Southwestern border. The agency calls for minimum-security residential facilities that would provide a “least restrictive, nonsecure setting” and provide schooling for children, recreational activities and access to religious services.

Immigration agency plans new family detention centers: The federal ICE, which already runs two such facilities, is taking bids for as many as three more. Critics say detaining families is punitive and unnecessary.
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer (May 18, 2008).

P.S.

It would be ludicrously gullible to swallow the government propaganda that “The need to imprison families stems from the presence of so many illegal families sneaking across the border or hiding in the United States.”

In truth, the “need” to imprison families stems from the “need” of congress members and the executive branch to deliver taxpayers’ money to prison for profit corporations like Wackenhut and CCCA, that buy their elections, to build more prisons and fill them up, so the politicians can continue to send our money to the prison profiteers, so they can continue buying the politicians, and so goes the cycle.

Of course, the for-profit prisons are not the only pigs that our government slops at the tax trough. But in combination with other special interests like money lenders and war profiteers, they use the media to keep us taxpayers in a frenzy of hate and xenophobia, so that when we go to the grocery store or the gas pump or pay the electric bill we will not think straight about what they are doing with our money.

John Wheat Gibson
via email (May 19, 2008).

A New Deal for a New Century

WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush a
dministration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.

“270 Illegal Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push.” By JULIA PRESTON. New York Times. Published: May 24, 2008.

Immigration Prosecutions Up

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during February 2008 the government reported 7251 new immigration prosecutions. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is up 82.9% over the previous month.

Among these top ten lead charges, the one showing the greatest increase in prosecutions—up 56.6 percent—compared to one year ago was Title 8 U.S.C Section 1325 that involves ” Entry of alien at improper time or place; etc. “. Compared to five years ago, the largest increase—156.4 percent—was registered for prosecutions under ” Fraud and related activity – id documents ” (Title 18 U.S.C Section 1028 ).

The Southern District of Texas (Houston)—with 338 prosecutions—was the most active during February 2008. The Southern District of Texas (Houston) was ranked 1 a year ago, while it was ranked 1 five years ago.

The Western District of Texas (San Antonio) ranked 2nd. The Western District of Texas (San Antonio) was ranked 2 a year ago, while it was ranked 4 five years ago.

“Immigration Prosecutions for February 2008,” TRAC, Syracuse Univ. (May, 2008).

Heart o Texas

In recent years, about three to five people a month were charged in U.S. District Court in Austin with returning to the United States after deportation. In March . . . 17 people were charged with the crime in federal court in Austin, according to an American-Statesman review of cases.

In April, federal prosecutors in Austin charged 21 people with illegally re-entering the United States after deportation, and this month they have charged 25, according to the review. A total of eight people were charged in January and February.

“More illegal immigrants are being charged criminally in Austin: Prison time comes before deportation for some,” By Steven Kreytak, AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF (Wednesday, May 28, 2008)

Streamlining Criminalization for Profit

Although Operation Streamline has raised criticism in other places like Del Rio, the Valley Morning Star says that it is now hitting our Valley. “The Border Patrol rolled out the policy Monday (June 9) along a four-mile stretch of Cameron County’s border with Mexico from Brownsville to Fort Brown.”

“Formerly, first time offenders were offered the option of voluntary deportation and were processed, put on a bus and sent back to Mexico within hours of their arrest.” But under Operation Streamline they will be “detained, sent to court, jailed for up to 180 days if found guilty, and then deported.”

In Del Rio where this policy was recently tried, one federal Public Defender, William Fry, was quoted as worrying about due process. “We get a case on Wednesday and the court expects us to be ready to go by Friday. That’s not enough time to adequately represent a client.”

“Operation Streamline Criminalizes the Rio Grande Valley,” Nick Braune, Texas Civil Rights Review (June 16, 2008)

It’s Official: March Prosecutions Set Record

Federal immigration prosecutions continued their recent and highly unusual surge in March 2008, apparently reaching an all-time high, according to timely data obtained from the Justice Department by TRAC. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year.

The data further show that virtually every one of the individuals referred by the investigative agencies for prosecution — 99% of them — are then being charged by the U.S. Attorneys, and that the resulting median or typical sentence is one month.

Surge in Immigration Prosecutions Continues.” TRAC Immigration. Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (trac.syr.edu: June 17, 2008)

July 21, 2010
Prison is NEVER in a Child's Best Interest

Email from Bob Libal, Grass Roots Leadership–gm

[On Tuesday] Marc Moore of Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote a letter to the Dallas Morning News defending the T. Don Hutto family detention center. The letter was written in response to a terrific op-ed authored by University of Texas Professor Barbara Hines in last Monday’s Morning News arguing that ICE’s three new proposed family detention centers are an inappropriate response to immigrant families, especially given the troubled history of T. Don Hutto. Both Professor Hines’ op-ed and Mr. Moore’s letter are below in their entirety.

Please take the time today, if possible, to write a letter to the Dallas Morning News stressing the inappropriate nature of family detention and Hutto. Letters can be sent using the site’s online form, and should be 50-200 words in length. Letters can include the following points:

1) Detention of immigrant children and their families is inappropriate, costly, and inhumane. The experience at Hutto, a converted medium security prison operated by a private prison corporation where children as young as infants have been held with their parents, demonstrates that detention of families is a tragic response to the immigration issue. In addition, at an estimated cost of more than $200 a day per detainee at Hutto, the financial cost of such detention is unreasonably high, especially when more humane and cost-effective alternatives exist.

2) Congress has called on ICE to fund alternatives to family detention, saying that detention of immigrant children and their families should be the last alternative, not the first. ICE should be listening to the wishes of Congress and implementing alternatives to detention rather than soliciting new family detention centers. These alternative to detention programs are effective at ensuring that immigrants return to their immigration hearings and are much less costly than detention.

Thank you for your continued efforts to end family detention and close the T. Don Hutto detention center.

—

Bob Libal
Grassroots Leadership
Austin, Texas
http://www.grassrootsleadership.org

Check out www.texasprisonbidness.org for news and info on the private prison industry in Texas.

*****

Barbara Hines: New ICE family detention centers a step in wrong direction

June 16, 2008

The federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is accepting bids today for contracts to construct three new privately run detention centers across the country for children and their families awaiting immigration proceedings.

These facilities, each to be built with up to 200 beds, will expand the system of family detention made controversial in recent years at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas.

The proposal for new centers is a step in the wrong direction. Congress has repeatedly called on ICE, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for immigration matters, to implement alternatives to detention programs for families, stating that detention of families should be the last alternative and not the first.

In 2006, when I first went to Hutto, I was appalled by the living conditions. Children as young as infants, along with their families, were detained in a converted medium-security prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison management corporation. Children received one hour of education a day and wore prison uniforms. They were required to be in their cells for long periods during the day to be present for multiple cell counts.

Many of the detainees at Hutto have come to the United States fleeing persecution or social turmoil — asylum seekers fleeing civil conflict in Eastern Africa, Iraqi Christians targeted by fundamentalists and Central Americans seeking refuge from drug, gang and domestic violence. No detainee has been accused of a crime.

The psychological toll on children in detention is significant. Often already traumatized by conditions in their home countries and the process of being uprooted during migration, children and parents at Hutto reported being threatened with separation from one another as a disciplinary measure.

After widespread public advocacy against the facility, national media attention, a lawsuit and a settlement, conditions at the facility are significantly better. Children no longer wear prison scrubs, and they now receive seven hours of education a day. Also, they remain at the detention center for a significantly shorter amount of time.

Fundamentally, however, family detention remains an inappropriate response to asylum seekers and immigrant parents and children. Advocates continue to be concerned about news reports from Hutto, such as an alleged sexual assault of a detainee by a guard and the separation of a child from her mother for four days. Both incidents occurred last year.

Alternatives to detention include community-based, homelike shelters that provide access to counseling and legal services. Intensive-supervision programs also keep families together and out of detention. In fact, alternatives to detention programs have proved effective at ensuring that immigrants appear for their court hearings through a combination of telephone reporting and home visits. These programs are also substantially more cost-effective than detention.

One study by the Vera Institute found that more than 90 percent of immigrants on a supervised release program attended their immigration hearings. The average cost of a supervision program was $12 a day, compared with $61 a day to detain an immigrant. The cost savings are likely more pronounced in the context of family detention, which is more expensive than detaining adult immigrants.

Instead of contracting the construction of more family detention centers, ICE should seriously invest in alternatives to detention programs.

Barbara Hines is a clinical professor of law and director of the Immigration Clinic at The University of Texas School of Law. She was co-counsel — along with the national ACLU, the ACLU of Texas and the law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and McRae — in the lawsuit challenging conditions at Hutto. Her e-mail address is bhines@law.utexas.edu.

*****

Hutto center picture incomplete

Re: “There’s a better way – ICE should not be accepting bids to build new family detention centers, says Barbara Hines,” last Monday Viewpoints.

Since its inception, the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center has been a safe and humane alternative to separating the families who enter the country illegally.

Many positive changes have been made. Families have access to high-quality medical, mental health and dental care 24 hours a day. Children attend school seven hours a day with state-certified teachers who provide a curriculum based on state standards. There are many recreational and social activities for all residents and few restrictions on movement throughout the facility.

Many of the conditions mentioned in the column have not existed for some time. The razor-wire fence shown in the picture accompanying the column was removed more than a year ago. ICE has taken a proactive approach to enhancing the facility since it opened. Many of the improvements were in place, under way or planned before the lawsuit referred to in the column was filed.

Marc J. Moore, field office director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, San Antonio

July 21, 2010
Archive: Hutto Freedom Walk

Note: The following item previously appeared in the announcements section of the Texas Civil Rights Review.–gm

IF THESE PICTURES LOOK CHILDISH, ITS BECAUSE THEY ARE. THESE PICTURES WERE DRAWN BY CHILDREN THAT WERE DETAINED AT THE HUTTO DETENTION FACILITY. WE CAN NOT IGNORE THE CRIES OF THE CHILDREN, IT DOESN’T JUST GO AWAY!!!

Si alcaso estos debujos parecen infantil es porque lo son. Son los debujos de ninos detenidos tras las rejas de T.D. Hutto. No se les olvide el llanto y sufrimiento de las familias tras las rejas de T.D.Hutto.

Texas Indigenous Council

Free the Children Coalition
San Antonio, Texas

Freedom Walk and Protest Vigil

May 24, 2008
12:00 PM – 4:00 pm
T. Don Hutto ‘Residential’ Facility
1001 Welch Street
Taylor, TX

Assembles at Heritage Park, 4th & Main St., Taylor, TX

Assembly Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Procession to Hutto Prison – Protest from 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Music:
James Perez y Carnival, Karma & Arma Musical will be performing on behalf of this cause: Please contact Javier : 210- 724-3400 for further details.

Contact:

Antonio Diaz ~210-396-9805

Jose Ortha ~512-914-7292
Jina Gaytan ~210-884-8597

July 21, 2010
Email from Riad Hamad: My Financial Situation in Shambles (02/06/07)

In this email, Riad Hamad explains how his support of the Hutto families has been necessary and exceptional. It was received at 9:05 pm, Feb. 6, 2007. Two days later, Riad Hamad drove one of the Palestinian families to the Austin airport. They had been set free shortly before a scheduled media tour of the Hutto prison.–gm

Dear Friends,

I hope that all of you are safe and well and enjoying a peaceful week with your families. As you probably heard the . . . family was deported to Jordan on Monday of last week and they are now in Amman, Jordan penny less with no home, no car, no clothes and no jobs which is not very encouraging..

Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund works ONLY inside Palestine and we made an exception for these families due to the severe hardship imposed on them and the fact that children were put in jail which wass unbelievable and moved us to provide help to them.

[The father of the deported family] called me three times from Jordan so far asking for help in shipping their furniture in order for them to have some sort of normalcy back into the lives of the children and to give them some sense of security. PCWF paid for the airlines tickets for the children to accompany their mother as they are U.S citizens and the government would not pay the tickets to deport them. On the other hand, we contributed to their personal expenses and legal fees which is mounting and taking away from funds that we usually send to the children in Palestine who are in dire need these days.

Please let me know if any one from the Arab, Muslim or Palestinian community is willing, able or desire to help in any way to send money for the family to eat and live with dignity till the man finds a job in Amman.

Also, we need some help in finding a shipping company to send their furniture as so far, we can only find companies that charge nothing less than 4000 dollars to pick up the furniture from Dallas to Houston and then to Agaba, Jordan and then to Amman.

Personally, my financial situation is in shambles due to my commitments in Palestine and beyond any means of helping this family anymore. I would greatly appreciate any ideas from you on how to get help for these families and I will be glad to provide you with their account number in order for anyone to put the money directly in their accounts.

It is very important that we live up to our promise to them when they were in jail that we will help them and for the sake of the children who were forced out of their homes, schools and deprived of their dignity for several months. We will be glad to forward the money to them on your behalf and provide you with a tax exemption if you wish and like always, ALL the donations will be posted on the website for transparency and accuracy.

Looking forward to hearing from you and SHUKRAN in advance for your generosity, work and support for the children in Palestine

Salamatz
Riad Hamad

July 21, 2010