Category: Detention

by Greg Moses

CounterPunch / T Don Hutto Blog

About 100 people protesting the imprisonment of immigrant families at the T. Don Hutto Prison in Taylor, Texas on Sunday evening marched across a parking lot to the front door of the prison and then entered the prison lobby with toys and wrapping paper.

Jaime Martinez, National Treasurer of the League of United Latin American Citizens called for the march shortly after 5:30. Carrying a bullhorn, Martinez informed the protesters that prison officials had made a promise to come out and get the toys at 5 p.m.

When Martinez called for the people to take the toys to the children, the crowd pressed forward across a yellow line painted on the driveway marking official prison property.

“Bring the toys!” called Martinez from the prison door as volunteers grabbed boxes and bags of toys along with rolls of wrapping paper and rushed to the prison door.

One of the volunteers, Georgetown resident Peter Dana, later described carrying a box of toys through a metal detector. He said he thought about helping to engineer a metal detector years ago.

Inside the lobby, prison officials appeared to be accepting the toys for the children inside. Previous reports from various sources say that Hutto houses about 400 immigrants, half of them children.

The toy march was the high point of an active day that began with a longer march from downtown Taylor to the prison that lies upon a large, flat field at the outskirts of town, across the tracks.

Local LULAC Secretary Jose Orta began the day’s preparations by parking a rented trailer across the street from the prison. The trailer served as a stage for speakers during an afternoon rally.

At sundown, the final speaker of the day, Rev. Jim Rigby of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, asked the people to turn around and face the prison. By that time, most of the participants were holding lit candles as part of a sundown vigil.

Shortly after the crowd had turned around, Martinez began walking among the people with his bullhorn.

“Free the Children, Now!” chanted the crowd with Martinez.

“The children were out playing when we first marched here from town,” said Orta, recalling the day’s events. “They saw us, but they were taken inside.”

The Department of Homeland Security says the Hutto prison is dedicated to immigrant families with children.

Organizers and protesters agreed that eventually they want to close the prison and end the imprisonment of children altogether.

After the toy march, filmmakers Matthew Gossage and Lily Keber transformed the chilly night darkness into a screening of their new film, “Hutto: America’s Family Prison” which can be viewed at: americasfamilyprison.com/Hutto.mov. Keber was taping the day’s protest, including the toy march, so perhaps a sequel will be forthcoming.

Near the end of the screening, a few people made two more attempts to deliver more toys to the front door of the Hutto prison. The first attempt was rebuffed by a security guard, but the second attempt succeeded as a young man carrying a child took the bags past the guard to the front door. Inside the lobby, it appeared that people dressed in civilian clothes were processing the toys for delivery to the children inside.

Sunday’s protest marked the first anniversary of protests outside the Hutto prison. During more than a dozen protests since Dec. 16, 2006 security guards have jealously guarded the perimeter of the prison to discourage protesters from walking on prison grounds.

See also:

KVUE: “Detention center still subject of protest one year later”

News 8 Austin: “Anniversary march at T. Don Hutto”

PRESS RELEASE

Indigenous Peoples’ Border Summit of the Americas, Nov. 7 — 10, focuses on human rights and right of mobility

Del Rio, Texas, border and human rights activist Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr., among the speakers

TUCSON — A human rights crisis for Indigenous Peoples living along borders in the Americas threatens their survival, with rapidly expanding militarization and new laws which limit their mobility in their ancestral territories.

Responding to this crisis, the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Nation will host the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas II, Nov. 7- 10, with support from the International Indian Treaty Council.

Mike Flores, Tohono O’odham summit organizer, said, “It is necessary for Tohono O’odham and other Indigenous Peoples of the border regions to collectively address the adverse impacts that are increasingly occurring on tribal lands. The Border Summit of the Americas II will provide us the opportunity to do just that,” Flores said.

San Xavier District Chairman Austin Nunez joins Flores in welcoming Indigenous Peoples to the Border Summit on Tohono O’odham land, located near South Tucson.

The Border Summit will host a human rights workshop by the International Indian Treaty Council. The summit will be broadcast live on the Internet at http://www.earthcycles.net as was done in 2006.

From the southern Andes to the northern Arctic, corporations intent on seizing natural resources have increased the oppression and displacement of Indigenous Peoples, resulting in their forced mobility across national borders. Further, free trade agreements, mining and exploitive development have forced Indigenous Peoples into exile in the Americas, displaced from their lands where they farmed, hunted or fished for survival.

In the United States, corporate profiteering for private migrant prisons, experimental spy technology, poorly trained border agents, privatized security and new laws for immigration threaten the right of mobility in ancestral territories.

The human rights crisis at the southern border of the United States and Mexico has resulted in over 4,000 migrant deaths in recent years, including deaths of women from Guatemala on Tohono O’odham tribal land in Arizona who died walking with their children in 2007. Migrants, including Indigenous Peoples from Mexico and Central America, die of dehydration and severe temperatures while walking in search of a better life. The Border Summit speakers will include Tohono O’odham Mike Wilson, who puts out water for migrants on tribal land.

“No one should die for want of a drink of water,” Wilson said.

The privatization of prisons, including the T. Don Hutto Residential Center and Raymondville migrant tent encampment, both near Austin, Texas, reveals the sinister motivation of profiteering from the plight of migrants. Hutto imprisons migrant and refugee infants and children. Speakers will include Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr., of Texas, among those organizing protests against the prisons.

Johnson-Castro, was born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Alaskan wilderness. He is tri-lingual (English-Spanish-Albanian) and has served on the Tourism Advisory Committee, Officer of the Governor, Texas Historical Foundation and Texas Hotel & Lodging Assn., Los Caminos del Rio and Val Verde County Historical Commission.

Residing on the border in Del Rio, Texas since 1992, Johnson-Castro has mostly been noted for promoting heritage tourism all along the Texas-Mexico border. He has also been championing the ecology and environment of the Rio Grande Corridor, submitting the Rio Grande as an endangered river and filing suit against the Federal Government to protect endangered species in the Rio Grande region.

Johnson-Castro has most recently become recognized internationally as a human rights activist for his hundreds of miles of Border Wall-ks and has traversed the entire US-Mexico border in protest against the border wall. He has also walked against the “for profit” prison camps of thousands of immigrant refugees, especially T. Don Hutto prison camp where untold hundreds of children have been imprisoned for profit.

A father of four grown children and grandfather of seven, Johnson-Castro is a sculptor, writer, photographer, pubic speaker and gourmet cook. He is the founder of Border Ambassador and Freedom Ambassadors. He is a columnist for the Rio Grande Guardian, “Inside the Checkpoints” (http://www.riograndeguardian.com/columns3.asp).

In May, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for migrants, Jorge Bustamante, was denied entrance into Hutto, and Johnson-Castro, with the support of Amnesty International coordinated human rights protests that followed.

The border wall and border vehicle barriers along the southern border have resulted in the removal of ancestors’ remains of the Tohono O’odham and Kumeyaay from their final resting places. Further, the barrier wall on Tohono O’odham land is a barrier interfering with an ancient annual ceremony.

Since ceremonial leaders from Mexico often lead ceremonies in the United States, new immigration laws threaten the survival of ceremonies, culture and languages. Because many Indian people are born at home, or lack funds for visas and passports, crossing the border has become a harsh ordeal.

Further, at both the northern and the southern borders of Canada and Mexico, federal border agents ransack and violate ceremonial items. Speakers on the right of mobility at the northern border include representatives of Mohawks and other Six Nations.

With the increased militarization and surveillance at the borders, the dangers from speeding border agents, aerial vehicle crashes and abuse and harassment by border agents increase. Women, children and elderly along the border are most often the victims of oppression and suffer most often from the lack of food, safe drinking water and medicines.

With the militarization and oppression increasing for Indigenous Peoples around the world, the Border Summit of the Americas invites Indian people to offer their testimony while receiving information and training on human rights.

The International Indian Treaty Council will present a human rights training, following the United Nations adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The US will be examined by the UN Committee for Racial Discrimination (CERD) Committee in March of 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland.

“This workshop will provide information as to how Indigenous Nations, tribes and organizations can use this historic opportunity to inform the CERD Committee on the true state of racial discrimination in this country and how it affects Indian Nations, Peoples and communities. This information will be very important to help the UN CERD experts get a more accurate picture of racial discrimination in the US and hold the US accountable to their obligations under international human rights law,” IITC said.

“An additional focus will be on strategies to defend our human rights, border rights, and protecting our sacred sites and traditional land rights using the newly-adopted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from the local to the international levels.”

The human rights workshop presenters will be Bill Means, Lakota cofounder of the Treaty Council; Andrea Carmen, Yaqui and Treaty Council executive director; Ron Lameman, Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, and Francisco Cali, CERD Member and Treaty Council board president.

For more information: bordersummit2007@yahoo.com

Website: http://indigenousbordersummitamericas2007.blogspot.com

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr. jay@villadelrio.com (830)734-8636

Dear Editor:

While I am totally appreciative of your attention to the plight of the families with children imprisoned behind the walls of that prison for profit named after the co-founder of CCA and a sty in the eye of Texas TD Hutto, I as an organizer would ask for some support from you as I am the principal organizer of Free the Children Coalition.

The protests that have taken place in Taylor have been a product of my efforts along with others that you mention in your report from our last Freedom March in Taylor. While I am remiss in even bringing this up, but I must be candid without the recognition from the media for the efforts of bringing about these protest Marches it makes it harder to get participation from the community.

Perhaps I should be appreciative in that the matter did receive media attention at all. I will continue to organize the protest Marches in Taylor along with the speakers stage, for it was I that instituted the stage with sound amplification.

Again the media recognition is helpful when organizing for such events especially in recruiting volunteers for these much needed actions against these injustices that are so prevalent in these days.

Antonio Diaz
Co-Founder:
Cesar E. Chavez March for Justice San Antonio Tx.
Organizer :
Free the Children Coalition

Email from Jay J. Johnson Castro, Sr.–gm

Greetings amigos…

Last week at the Hutto Anniversary Vigil a letter was publicly read to President Bush to free the innocent children of Hutto prison as well as all across the United States. We want the same deal for the innocent children that Scooter Libby got. That letter is being mailed to the President tomorrow.

If you share in the sentiments of this letter and would like to also send this letter to the President…in your own name and/or that of your organization…feel free to do so. (See copy below) Feel free to make copies and share this letter with your respective networks.

Enjoy the holidays…your friends and your family…

Jay

Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr. as St. Nick
(Photo by Walt Harrison / Winston Smith Media)

See also the Dec. 16 Story

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President George W. Bush
The White House

Ref: Free the Children Imprisoned in America

Mr. President,

As the President of the United States of America, as the most powerful and first global ruler in world history, we appeal to you. Please exercise the power of your presidency and that of your office to free the innocent children from the grips of prisons. If you can commute the sentence of Scooter Libby, who has been convicted of crimes of national proportions, you can surely free innocent children who have committed no crimes and yet are in this T. Don Hutto prison with no rights on American soil right here in Taylor, Texas.

In 1989, the world community adopted the International Rights of the Child. In 1990, the US Congress voted to ratify those rights. In 1990, your father, the 41st President, refused to sign those rights of the children into law.

Sixteen years later, at its grand opening in May of 2006, your Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, bragged about T. Don Hutto being the prototype of prisons that would detain innocent immigrant children all over this country. That also means that your administration has been guilty of orchestrating such crimes as the imprisonment innocent children, which is now being done by private “for profit” prison companies.

One year ago today, December 16, 2006, we the people of this great State of Texas stood up to that immoral and illegal position. We have continued and will continue to oppose, as well as expose this immoral and illegal act. We appeal to you for your help. We need your help.

In May of this year, 2007, the “Special Rapporteur”, Jorge Bustamante, from the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations came to Texas to inspect the human rights violations of children in prison cells. He was denied access by Mr. Chertoff. At your directive as Commander and Chief, our government has bombed a country because it denied access to UN inspectors to inspect WMDs that did not exist. Sr. Bustamante was denied access to investigate human rights violations that did exist, as has been born out in the August settlement between Mr. Chertoff and the ACLU.

The attorney who drafted and signed the contract with Williamson County Commissioners and Corrections Corporation of American (CCA) to imprison innocent children for profit, Gustavus “Gus” Puryear IV, is the corporate council for CCA. He is also a deacon of the First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN, a church that openly opposes ill treatment of immigrants and profit prisons. His actions not only betray his faith, his actions betray the moral conscience of America and the laws of the international community. As an accomplice to the imprisonment of innocent children for profit, he is morally, let alone judicially, unfit and your recent nomination of him to the Federal bench should be immediately withdrawn.

Now, at the end of this year of 2007, our country, with the exception of Somalia, is the only country in the world that does not guarantee innocent children basic human rights. If you are truly a man of faith, you well know that the Lord would never have allowed the imprisonment of children. He scolded those who would even look down upon them. As the author of “No child left behind”, this is an appeal to you to assure Texans, the United States of America, and the international community that “no child will ever be left behind bars” in the entire world…let alone on American soil…“deep in the heart of Texas”. To do otherwise would be a continuance of what is totally unchristian, un-American, immoral and illegal by any standard of decency.

Since you intervened in the case of Scooter Libby, stating that the punishment did not fit the crime, we publicly appeal to your sense of fairness and justice to intervene in this case and to readily declare that the imprisonment of the children of the world does not fit their innocence.

Your Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security allows these children to live in the 8’ x 12’ cells of this medium security prison. Mr. Chertoff spends a minimum of $2,800,000 per month of our taxpayers’ money to commit this international crime. On this very day, that amounts to $20,000 per child per month. That is a corrupt amount of our money being funneled to CCA to imprison innocent children that should never be behind a prison wall. Such a heinous practice must not be allowed to exist in the land of the free. Mr. Chertoff has betrayed America by such an immoral, inhumane, illegal and politically corrupt act. He should at the very least be indicted for crimes against humanity.

Since you are the leader of the “free world” then please free these innocent children, immediately. If you grew up singing “Jesus loves the little children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight” please exercise the values you were taught in your church here in America. You are the one, the only one, who can overturn the immoral and criminal decision and practice of Michael Chertoff.

Please do the moral thing. Please do the humane thing. Please do the legal thing. Please show yourself to be a leader. Do not let the imprisonment of children in “for-profit” internment camps under you watch to cloud your legacy as the 43rd President of the United States. Put an end to this crime against humanity now, before the end of your term. Show the world that we as Texans and Americans still believe in the tenets of the Declaration of Independence, that we really do believe that all are endowed by our Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Show the world the power of the Constitution, that “all men…even children…are created equal”.

Today, at this Hutto Anniversary Vigil in protest against the imprisonment of the children here, “We the people of the United States”, make this appeal to you. Texans, Americans and the whole world look to you to show such moral resolve that no other elected or appointed official in America seems to show. We appeal to you to exercise your moral leadership and give these children here in Hutto, and all immigrant children across our great country, at least as good a deal as you gave Scooter Libby.

Very Sincerely,

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.
Freedom Ambassadors
Del Rio, Texas

NOTE: this event is being re-scheduled, probably for mid-November.

Friends, I am letting you know the dates of our 3-day Hutto Walk III 10-14/16) so you can mark these on your calendar right now. Details will be forthcoming soonest and are being worked out by the local T. Don Hutto opposition group from Taylor and the surrounding area…we’re also in the process of selecting a snazzy name for ourselves).

That’s a Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in mid-October, winding up at the weekely meeting of the Williamson County Commissioners’ Court in Georgetown, TX that begins at 9:30 a.m.

We’re seeking your participation as you are able on any or all of these three unprecedented days!

Thanks,
Jane Leatherman Van Praag