Texans Drumming Opposition to Family
Detentions
TAYLOR, Texas — Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private prison contractors have worked non-stop for more immigrant detention centers across the nation over the last six months.
But more Texans feeling the chill are warming up to the truth and speaking out about these internment camps in their neck of the woods.
Family detention is one of the least cost-effective, most restrictive and inhumane ways to deal with the current immigration situation, according to expert and eye witness accounts.
And the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center (Hutto) in Taylor, Texas is no exception.
Hutto has detained families from over 40 countries of origin awaiting immigration hearings, including pregnant women, children, and infants.
It has certainly not been without controversy — from constant protests and public activism, to a sex scandal involving a “worker” (guard) and “resident” (detainee), to a U.N. Human Rights observer denied entry, to last September’s ACLU lawsuit victory against Homeland Security which improved conditions for families detained there
The following documents the latest round of efforts to help the families trapped inside Hutto and reform the ways workers are treated by this nation.
Santa’s Civil Disobedience
To commemorate one year of activism bringing attention to Hutto, Texans United for Families (TUFF) organized a vigil Dec. 17, 2007. Coinciding with a toy drive for the children detained there, a broad-based coalition of Texans listened to speakers from different groups and churches, requesting a meeting with Hutto brass so they could present the gifts.
After being ignored, then threatened with trespassing if they came onto Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) property, the group of 50-plus walked past the security truck peacefully, chanting and singing Christmas carols, opening the doors of the converted prison, and stacking gifts inside the entrance.
After the uplifting civil disobedience, the short film “Hutto: America’s Family Prison,” screened facing Hutto, while CCA employees sorted through the presents.
Free Speech In Georgetown
Five members of the Texas Indigenous Council (TIC) demonstrated on Jan. 8, 2008, outside Georgetown City Hall against the council’s proposed ordinance requiring employers to prove they did not employ “illegal immigrants” (undocumented workers).
Georgetown police arrived and removed them from the property, which sparked TIC’s Jan. 22 lawsuit against the city, citing First Amendment rights to assemble and challenging the requirements that protest permits and permission to address the council are obtained too far in advance. Georgetown conceded to TIC, and now a similar lawsuit is in the works in Frio County.
“We protested in Pearsall, questioning the [immigrant] status of people not only in the South Texas Detention Complex, but also in Frio County Jail, both operated by [The GEO Group, Inc.],” says Antonio Diaz of TIC. “A lieutenant from Pearsall came, threatened to impound cars, arrest people and confiscate video and audio equipment.”
Racism Exposed Mustang Ridge City Council member Charles Laws in March entered “possible holding pen for wetbacks” for discussion on his water supply company’s board meeting agenda, generating feverish controversy around Austin. His racist comment referred to Emerald Correctional Management’s proposal to build a 1,000-bed, Hutto-style detention center in northeast Caldwell County.
Not to be outdone in the feverish competition for ICE prisons in Texas, on May 20, Clarksville City Council approved Emerald’s planned behemoth 2,500-inmate facility for undocumented detainees in Red River County (Willacy County’s Raymondville tent prison, “Ritmo,” is currently the U.S.’s largest ICE detention center, with 2,000 beds — also run by GEO).
SAVE Act
In an April 21 letter to Congress, over 80 organizations from across the country joined in opposing the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act (H.R. 4088), introduced last fall by jock-turned-Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), co-sponsored by Brian Bilbray (R-CA), and the ever xenophobic Tom Tancredo (R-CO), with a matching bill in the Senate.
In addition to consuming roughly $51.6 billion in public funds over the next 10 years — according to an April 4 Congressional Budget Office letter to John Conyers (D-OH) — the bill also calls for more family detention centers, an enhanced local police role in immigration law, more judges, more border enforcement, agents and technology. The discharge petition to force a vote has 188 of the 218 necessary signatures with 39 Democrats on the fence.
More Family Prisons
The Los Angeles Times reported on May 18 that ICE set a June 16 deadline for proposals (bids) for up to three additional family detention centers, a solicitation that “flies in the face of what Congress has asked in the past,” says coordinator Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership Texas, “[which is] for alternatives to detention that cost less and ensure the humane treatment of children and their families.”
Currently, Hutto is one of only two such centers, and given the criticism it’s garnered, options are needed to family detention.
“This shows that we have become addicted to incarceration as a method to solving our problems, which it is obviously not,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, lawyer with Southern California’s ACLU.
Drumming Support
A year after news of the Hutto sex scandal, Texas Indigenous Council organized a rally and concert outside the center Saturday, May 24. Marching from Heritage Park in downtown Taylor to the entrance of Hutto, signs, and chants brought residents out of their houses and slowed traffic.
Demonstrators shouted “Free the Children” and “Shut Hutto Down” on their way to a live performance by San Antonio musicians Karma, Bombasta, Iztli and Xemilla in the afternoon heat.
Activists from around Texas again gathered at the gates of Hutto, met by a security van parked across the entrance. As they carried signs, spoke, sang and chanted, CCA employees inside the van filmed the demonstrators, speakers and musicians.
Connecting The Wrongs
The next day, blocks from the center, the East Williamson County Democrats held a screening of “Hutto: America’s Family Prison,” and video from the December vigil, with filmmaker Matthew Gossage of Austin. Also screened was “The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez,” a documentary about the first U.S. death of the Iraq occupation, a so-called “green card soldier” who emigrated from Guatemala as an orphan, lied about his age to receive education and foster care, and eventually joined the Marines.
Connecting the issues of war and immigration was Hart Viges of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, who described the slurs used by soldiers in reference to Iraqi civilians as symbolic of the racist war in Iraq. “Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the three evils: racism, militarism and economic exploitation,” said Viges, reminding the audience that in the past and currently, bigoted views divide and prejudice people against one another.
Nothing To SAVE
Grassroots Leadership Texas held a press conference on May 28 opposing the SAVE Act, in solidarity with local organizations including TUFF, Catholic Charities, Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, Code Pink and more, who joined as signatories of the aforementioned letter to Congress.
Said the letter: “The SAVE Act disregards recommendations repeatedly made by Congress that [DHS] should ‘release families or use alternatives to detention…whenever possible.’ Instead, the SAVE Act encourages the practice of detaining innocent children who are often caught in the crossfire of U.S. immigration policy, holding them in facilities that resemble prisons instead of nurturing home environments.”
Links
http://grassrootsleadership.org
http://aclu.org/immigrants/detention
http://texascivilrightsproject.org
~My latest in the Lone Star Iconoclast. More pics there…Enjoy!
chisel
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August 2, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Zedenginia
Brilliant!