Texas Civil Rights Review

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  • You have been sued…again…Mr. Chertoff!

    Michael Chertoff…Don’t Mess with Texas

    By Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.
    jay@villadelrio.com

    Inside the Checkpoints

    (DEL RIO–May 16, 2008) Back on February 6, 2008, “Inside the Checkpoints” had the privilege of breaking the news that Michael Chertoff, with the dictatorial powers of the Department of Homeland Security, was being sued. He was sued by one woman, Eloisa Tamez, a property owner. He threatened her that he was going to seize her small piece of land along the banks of the Rio Grande. With the help of Peter Schey of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Chertoff ultimately lost that law suit, which set a precedent for other victims of Chertoff.

    Back in February, “Inside the Checkpoints” concluded with the following paragraph.

    Eloisa Tamez, along with hundreds of others, has been a victim of trauma, your tyranny and…terror. No one in government, local, state, or national, elected or otherwise, has stepped up to protect Eloisa, to right the wrongs being leveled on her and her property. So much for security in her homeland! It has taken the volunteer efforts of fellow citizens and a willing team of legal experts to stand with her in her fight against a form of terrorism that she is not otherwise being protected from, a terrorism that originates from one man. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff! He has just been sued.

    It is again the privilege of “Inside the Checkpoints” to make a new announcement and address that final paragraph.

    You have been sued…again…Mr. Chertoff!

    From El Paso to Brownsville, the 1250 mile TBC…the Texas Border Coalition of Mayors, Judges and economic leadership of the Texas-Mexico border are standing up in behalf of Eloisa Tamez and all of us, “we the people of the Rio Grande corridor”. They are suing you Mr. Chertoff. And, like Eloisa Tamez, the TBC is being represented by Peter Schey of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

    What does all of this mean? It means that, unfortunately for you, you have “messed with Texas”. Not a good idea. We Texans are successfully defying you and your dictatorial powers. We are taking our government back. The nation and the world are watching us do so. From Asia to Australia, Europe to the Middle East and Africa, as well as the rest of North and South America. All are watching as we the people of the Texas-Mexico border are standing up to you. And, we will win.

    You have exceeded the laws of our land and you willfully operate outside the law of Congress. You are therefore flagrantly and illegally violating the law. That makes you an “outlaw” and more of an “illegal” than the humble people, including innocent immigrant children, whom you hunt down like cockroaches and imprison for profit.

    Shockingly, you waived 36 Congressional Acts…a century’s worth of American legislature…to build an “iron curtain” on American soil. Sure you had Congressional authority in the Secure Fence Act, and the waiver power in the REAL ID Act. But no one of credibility and integrity figured that you’d violate our treaties with the already violated Native Americans, let alone waive their religious rights and desecrate their burial and other sacred grounds. You waived “The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act” and “The American Indian Religious Freedom Act”…to build a wall!

    Wait and see what happens when the State of Texas, the State of New Mexico, Arizona and California come to grips with the fact that you waived far more than those 36 Congressional Acts. You even waived all our state and local laws along with “all federal laws”. Isn’t that what is meant when your Mega Waiver included “all federal, state or other laws, regulations and legal requirements of, deriving from, or related to the subject of those laws”?

    Do you really think you can undo a century of the people’s congress and the laws and sovereignty of the states of the United States? If you do think so, you are indeed in willful violation of our Constitution and deserving of more than a boot in the buttocks. More rightly, you should be indicted for going along with the supremacist architects of a scheme that flagrantly violates our democracy. In some countries, such an act would be considered treason.

    Be that as it may, for now, Mr. Chertoff, you have been sued…again. And it won’t be the last time. You have willfully and without conscience or moral fiber accepted the role of a dictator in these United States. You have waived the balance of power of our Congress. Instead of being a Secretary of Homeland Security, you have become a tyrannical threat to the security of our country.

    What a shame that “we the people” should have to go to the Supreme Court of the United States to petition it for protection from such tyrannical forces and in order to stop you and the construction of what we not long ago called an “iron curtain”, a symbol of cruelty built by totalitarian forces. That Communist wall no longer exists, Mr. Chertoff. Neither will your wall exist in Texas.

    If you haven’t yet figured it out, sir, you are about to quickly learn that “Don’t Mess with Texas!” is more than a public relations slogan.

  • 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)

  • Houston Chinese Students Already Raised $20k in Earthquake Relief

    According to a press release forwarded by Steve Yang, Chinese students of Houston have reported raising more than 20,000 dollars in their first week of fundraising for the earthquake victims of China.

    On a single day, May 16, donations from a fundraising drive at Texas Medical Center raised more than 10,000 U.S. dollars. That same evening, Chinese students at Rice University initiated a candlelight vigil for victims of the earthquake.

    On Saturday, a fundraiser and t-shirt sale at the China Town supermarket raised a total of nearly 4,000 dollars.

    In the schools also, fundraising has been active. As of May 16, Dragon Institute of Education has received donations of 8486.56 U.S. dollars, some from children who gave generously with all their pocket money.–gm

    Read the Appeal for Funds posted below.

  • Shackled, Detained, Deprived, Depressed: European Visitor meets ICE

    By Nick Braune
    Mid-Valley Town Crier
    by permission

    In my recent columns a theme has emerged: how ICE, Border Patrol and other Homeland Security agencies have been criminalizing the immigrant population, from raids in Iowa’s meatpacking plants to “Operation Streamline” in Brownsville.

    Yesterday I received a call from a colleague of mine, Caren Smith. She wondered if I would be interested in another little story about our bureaucratic, mean-spirited, governmental operations. “Surely,” I said.

    Ms. Smith, who is also the new president of the Unitarian Universalist Church in San Juan, got an email request from a Unitarian in Europe: Could someone contact a young fellow who is being held unfairly? He is in a Raymondville, Texas detention center, run by ICE (Immigration/Customs Enforcement). I interviewed Ms. Smith.

    Nick Braune: Yesterday you mentioned that this young fellow from Europe is an artist, travelling around the country to network with fellow artists.

    Caren Smith: Yes, his name is Dutch [not his real name], and he’s a 26-year-old who came here to travel and learn more about independent film-making. His visa had expired recently and he was intending to renew it when he was picked up in western Texas and shuttled to Raymondville early in May. Dutch was actually waiting for a check from home, as I understand it, to pay the fee to extend the visa. He was on his way to a youth hostel in New Mexico.

    Dutch has been incarcerated now — excuse me, they use the word “detained” — since that time. Those of us at the church did not know him — we only got wind of his presence in Raymondville from the Unitarian overseas who emailed me — but our group wanted to help, so off we went from the church trying to at the least support this young man through visits.

    Braune: I have protested outside that Raymondville (Willacy County) center several times, and last year there was a tornado of bad publicity about it: spoiled food, mismanagement, financial shenanigans, etc. But I’ve never been inside — what’s it like?

    Smith: The visitation environment is utterly ridiculous: Dutch was kept behind a glass wall that holds a malfunctioning microphone — it all looks like something out of a black-and-white film noir — you expect Edward G. Robinson to appear any minute.

    Braune: The glass wall separating visitors is more evidence that Homeland Security is off kilter. When someone is out of compliance on their visa, it has always been a civil offence not a criminal offence. These detention centers — Raymondville’s holds two or three thousand people at a time — are not for convicted criminals or even accused criminals awaiting trial.

    I remember the 1960s and ’70s, when there used to be thousands of European young people traveling around the country. One would see them at tourist places and universities. Now apparently they are treated as criminals.

    Smith: Yes, and it has really depressed Dutch, of course. He told us that when they took him to the airport, ICE officers had him handcuffed and foot-shackled. He had a visa, remember, and was simply late renewing it. He wasn’t arrested for assault or accused of stealing something. He felt totally humiliated.

    My son, a Galveston Police Detective, once transported a murderer from Pennsylvania back to Texas for arraignment, and he did not shackle him in the airport. Trying not to draw attention to the convict, they purchased a sweat-suit top with a front pocket where he could hide the fact that he was handcuffed. This protected their mission from the press, the general public, and so forth, and the arrested party was respected as a human being.

    Braune: Any other signs of mean-spiritedness?

    Smith: Yes. Thanks for letting me vent. First, Dutch is discouraged and was supposed to have been sent home on June 18th — he has a ticket — but they have postponed it until they can have a marshal available to escort him.

    Second, Dutch’s mother in Europe has been worried about his psychological state — he is depressed and had a brother who committed suicide. Our fellowship includes one of the Valley’s finest psychologists, who asked to visit Dutch, but the detention center has been stalling his visit. Why?

    Third, despite filling out the proper forms, Dutch has not been to the library — nothing to read for six weeks — nor has he seen the chaplain.

    Fourth, we saw a sign, as we entered the Raymondville center, warning people not to come in if they were susceptible to chickenpox. (Exposure to chickenpox can severely affect the unborn.) We saw several pregnant women visitors, and we’ve heard that pregnant women are detained there.

    Braune: Thank you. And I applaud your activist church group.

  • Email from Riad Hamad: I Will be at Hutto in the Morning (12/23/06)

    After receiving an email from the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Texas Civil Rights Review sent an email to Riad Hamad asking for details about his “toy drive.” The following email was received at 10:08 p.m., Dec. 23, 2006.–gm

    Marhaba,

    I have no idea about the toy drive . . . just went to the ” residential facility” which is horrendous and they did not let me in since it was after 5. I will be there in the morning with some women friends to visit the Palestinian family and give the mother some cash and phone cards to keep in touch with her son and husband.

    They are not allowing any gifts etc to the “detainees” as I am concerned for the pregnant woman and her husband who is ill with diabetes. No one contacted me and I did not contact anyone regarding this . . if you can call me tomorrow during the day . . I would fill you in . . Mexicans have a country to go to. Africans have countries to go to. Asians have countries that could take them. Palesitnians have NO WHERE TO Go..hence my passion for them. .

    Looking forward to hearing from you and THANKS for your work and support for peace and justice.

    Salamat
    Riad Hamad