Author: mopress

Email from Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr. with forwarded message from Beth Freed.

Hey folks…

It’s official. It’s exciting. It’s moving. It will be history making…

Amnesty International is sponsoring Hutto Vigil [X]. Following that lead is an assortment of organizations that will be supporting and participating in that vigil.

June 23rd is the selected date. It is the Saturday after the International Day of the Refugee. So mark your calendars. We have over a month to make our personal and organizational plans.

Tomorrow LULAC National will hold a press conference in San Antonio to make official their participation.

A coalition of organizations from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex CAFHTA has already announced their participation. You can read their announcement below.

What is this all about? Something very morally fundamental. In the country that banners “inalienable rights” and “liberty and justice for all”…no child should be imprisoned…let alone for greedy callous profit. Hundreds of children are imprisoned with their mothers in the Hutto prison camp in Taylor, TX. This is shocking to many Taylor and Williamson County residents. This is immoral and criminal. It violates the conscience of thousands of Americans. Yet the elected officials at all levels…from the City, County, State and National…are complicit in this atrocity.

Our country has fought against those who would have camps with out due process. Somehow our government is committing this heinous crime of imprisoning children…an act violates all moral and human decency. It is an international embarrassment that our government would be at war on the other side of the world while this very same government would imprison innocent and desperate people…and allow private for profit prison companies to be making grotesque amounts of money off of their desperation….and then deny a U.N. Human Rights “rapporteur” from inspecting conditions at Hutto. And it’s OUR country and our money…so we have a right to say “Hell no!”…we won’t allow this.

I’m also sending you an Action Alert. This relates to Congress making a disastrous decision within the next 24-48 hours…to increase imprisonment of refugees and asylum seekers…who come here as victims of these very same forces who would now imprison them for profit…and now want to legitimize their atrocities. You can weigh in here and now http://capwiz.com/rightsworkinggroup/callalert/index.tt?alertid=9757966

You can also open the attached Immigration Action Call…

Now…from CAFHTA…

Jay

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Forwarded message

Hi there, friends,

Throughout the Metroplex, civil rights groups have joined hands to take action against the injustice currently taking place in our state. Entire families, including infants and children, are being detained at the Hutto Family Detention Center in Taylor , Texas . This is a privately-run, for-profit facility. Read the ACLU write-up on the prison camp here. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prefers to sugar-coat the prison by calling it a “residential center” – read their spin here. Read about the Corrections Corporation of America , the company that makes money off of imprisoning children, here.

Recently, the U.S. government denied a U.N. inspector access to the facility. Isn’t that one of the reasons we are currently at war?

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), the NAACP and the Dallas Peace Center are a few of the partners who have joined the new coalition. Children and Families for Humane Treatment Alliance (CAFHTA) will work as long as it takes to educate the public to the atrocities taking place here at home and shut down these concentration camps.

Please visit the CAFHTA Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAFHTA/. Sign up to receive ongoing information about the plight of immigrants in our nation and upcoming actions in response to the deplorable conditions at the Hutto Family Detention Center. We are currently planning an action in conjunction with Jay Johnson-Castro and his Free the Children campaign for June 23 on-site the Hutto prison.

Please join us in the fight for justice, for the kids’ sakes.

In peace and solidarity,

Beth Freed

MLFA/CAFHTA

Dear Friends:

We wish to express our gratitude to all supporters who continue
to be with us during these times. Ramsey is still at Three Rivers FCI,
and for now we do not ask for continued correspondence regarding his
transfer. A lot of letters have already been sent, and we feel that
too much correspondence can have a negative affect. If the need to
send correspondence arises, we will ask your assistance again.

In the enclosed letter written to Dr. Andres Guerrero, who has been
most active in our struggle, Ramsey compares his destiny to
that of Felix Longoria, who was denied his constitutional rights
in Three Rivers, Texas. Please distribute.

We wish all mothers — creators of life — a beautiful Mother’s Day.

–Irma Muniz

********************

4/18/07

Dear Queto y Susana:

I pray that upon receipt of this letter I’m still here at
Three Rivers FCI. Before I share the truth of the entire
matter, please permit for me to present some historical events
pertaining to our raza:

1. During World War II, a brave honorable Mexicano by the
name of Felix Longoria gave his life for his county, the
United States of America, with such valor and honor.

2. When Felix Longoria’s body was returned to Three Rivers,
Texas for burial, the oppressive Anglos refused to have
him buried in the city’s burial plots.

3. A Mexicano by the name of Dr. Hector P. Garcia (who also
served in World War II), organized Mexicano veterans from
that war and protested in Three Rivers, Texas pertaining to
the issue of Felix Longoria’s burial. From this protest and
organizational move the American GI Forum, a national
organization, was founded.

4. Felix Longoria was finally buried with honors in the Arlington
burial plot in Washington, D.C.

5. My mother’s name was Hilda Longoria before she married my father,
Rudy G. Muniz. My three uncles, Herbert Longoria, Joseph Longoria,
and Arturo Longoria were all decorated soldiers of World War II.
We all resided in Corpus Christi, Texas but as a child I remember
visiting “la Longoria” family here in Three Rivers, Texas.
Yes, we were related.

6. Sixty or more years later, on December 11, 2006, I arrived
at the Three Rivers Federal Correctional Institution. Immediately
I encountered an Anglo staff member who related to me without
stating a word that as long as she is here, she would do everything
in her power to transfer me out. At the end of the conversation she
had me locked down in solitary confinement for five days. Later,
within the last two months, the staff member with the assistance of
the institution developed a false allegation that I was chronically
ill, and therefore could not stay here at the Three Rivers Federal
Correctional Institution.

7. I am not chronically ill. I am not sick, nor do I take any type
of medication. As you recall, I was trying to stay at the U.S. Medical
Center in Springfield, Missouri, but after a complete medical
examination by three medical doctors, they determined that I was in “perfect
health.” I was then transferred to the Florence United States
Penitentiary where you and I recreated history by meeting for the
first time.

8. I have formally requested that I be examined by an institutional
doctor and by a doctor from the outside community. The truth will be
revealed that I am not sick at all. In fact, they are the ones who
are sick in their minds and hearts.

Legally speaking, these racial and discriminatory practices and
violations are violating my civil and constitutional rights under
the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment (Due Process of Law),
the Eighth Amendment (Cruel and Unusual Punishment) and the
Fourteenth Amendment (Equal Protection of the Law). Are we not in
the 21st century or do we continue to permit oppression,
discrimination, and violation of one’s human rights?

Is this my destiny? To return to the same place where a Mexicano
by the last name of Longoria was denied his constitutional rights even
though he gave his life for his country and for me tonight as I share
these most powerful and spiritual words that come not from my heart
but from his heart.

Stay strong my spiritual brother. I foresee our future as most
powerful. Our time has come and some of us must continue to suffer.
I accept the truth that I was chosen. Give my respect, honor, and
love to the family. Take the time and write to the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus. The address is:

Joe Baca, Chair
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
1610 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
[Reminder: In the introductory note above, Irma Muniz requests that correspondence not be sent at this time.–gm]

Sinceramente,

Tez

[Ramsey Muniz]

***********************

www.freeramsey.com

Interview with Corinna Spencer-Scheurich
of the South Texas Civil Rights Project

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier

Several weeks ago I heard a powerful presentation on why poor people in the Valley have a difficult time building up a “nest-egg” to get out of poverty. It was given by an attorney for the South Texas Civil Rights Project, Corinna Spencer-Scheurich, who has an office behind the United Farm Workers (UFW-LUPE) hall in Alamo. Meeting her again at the May Day immigration rights march, I arranged this interview.

Author: By way of introduction, your organization is a “Civil Rights Project,” and yet you are working on poverty issues. What’s the connection?

Spencer-Scheurich: Civil rights and economic justice are profoundly connected. It is difficult to worry about, let alone exercise, your 1st Amendment rights if you are struggling to make ends meet. But, it is also hard to critique and change the economic forces that are working to keep people, minorities in particular, in poverty if you are not able to march, write, and speak about what is happening to you. So, to be the human rights organization we hope we are, we must address both issues.

Author: In the speech I heard, you gave some startling data on the general gap between rich and poor. Please go over it again.

Spencer-Scheurich: Well, in the U.S. in 2001, the median net worth of white families was $120,989. But for Latino families it was $11,458. What a huge difference! And because economic assets, like inheritance, land, and education, are often passed from one generation to the next, the deck keeps being unfairly stacked against low income, minority families.

Author: And along the Border, the deck has been stacked for generations, through social habits, discriminatory laws and policies.

Spencer-Scheurich: Yes, for example, after the US-Mexican War, it is estimated that as many as 80% of Mexican-Americans lost their land to Anglo-Americans, because they were not able to prove their title in courts run by Anglo judges and juries. Then the 1933 Social Security Act did not cover farm workers, laborers, housemaids, and other service workers. And since many Latinos worked in these occupations, they lost out on this security net in their later years.

After the US Border Patrol was created in 1924, many Mexican American citizens and their families were exported, and again, with Operation Wetback in 1954, even families with native-born children were deported. Factor in the historic segregation in schools limiting the futures of many Latino children, affecting generations to come. These are just a few historic examples of how Latino families have been divested of their wealth in prior generations, setting the stage for the current situation where Latinos lag behind Anglo whites in all categories of wealth and economic security.

Author: Building on that history, you spoke about various things working against the poor today, such as consumer issues that make getting out of poverty, building a nest egg, very difficult. Is that right?

Spencer-Scheurich: Yes. There are a number of examples of the stacked deck today. Studies have shown that, on average, low income people pay more than higher income people for basic consumer goods and services. Low income drivers will pay more on average for car insurance. Studies even show that low income neighborhoods are charged more for certain grocery items than upper income neighborhoods.

Low income people are more likely to use predatory financial institutions that charge extremely high interest rates for short term loans, and the poor often use check cashing services as opposed to mainstream banks. Low income families are more likely to use a rent-to-own store to buy a television on a high interest rate than to be able to find a great deal on one.

This inequality does not just happen because low income people are higher credit risks. Many times it is because low income families have less access to information, fewer choices of businesses in their neighborhoods, become targets for unscrupulous businesses, and have less ability to get transportation to better deals in other places.

Since low income families pay too much for their necessities, they have an even harder time saving for the education of their children or for a car that will allow them to have a better job – keeping them in the cycle of poverty and stacking the deck against future generations.

Author: Where should we start on these issues?

Spencer-Scheurich: Immediately, we should encourage individuals and groups to start examining which businesses are having a positive effect on the community and which are predatory and sucking important capital and resources away. United, we can wield power as consumers, and we have local power to choose leaders who will draw good businesses and mainstream financial institutions into our communities and discourage predatory businesses.

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
Posted with permission of author

May 1st is coming up, and I am ready for the Immigrant Rights March (National Mobilization to Support Immigrant Workers) with farm workers and service employees and progressive students and church people and others. The march will be loud but will also be, I hope, the beginning of a new deliberative process about ongoing immigration — a deliberative process as opposed to hysterical radio talk-show rants about “us versus them.”
Marches are necessary for someone like me — I am a pacer by nature, as my students will attest — and have felt cramped up and frightened by the shrill radio sounds in our country. I need to walk outside, hear people yelling for “justicia” and immigration reform and not vindictiveness. On May 1st, starting at 6:00 P.M. in McAllen , at Municipal Park (Bicentennial and Pecan), I will carry a sign and know that all over the country people are walking for justice. I will feel part of a better, more deliberative nation emerging.

I have mulled over what sign to carry. I could make my own: “International Labor Rights,” “NAFTA is the Problem, not Immigrants,” “Stop the Militarization of the Border– it’s scaring me,” or “Let America be a Nation of Immigrants.” Or maybe I will simply carry one end of the People for Peace and Justice banner, like last year. Or maybe I’ll just proudly carry a Farm Worker (UFW and LUPE) flag — they often hand them out.

(Although I wouldn’t make such a wordy protest sign, I can also picture myself carrying this one: “Shut down the Ugly Raymondville Immigration Detention Center and the Other Private, For-profit, Detention Centers in Texas .” But it’s not very catchy and uses too much marker ink.)

My latest sign idea is a simple one, “No War and No Wall.” We have been treated, during the Bush regime, to shrill knee-jerk calls for support of the Iraq War and for support of a militarized border wall facing Mexico . I think they’re connected. America has had a “preemptive” (non-collaborative) policy of war and wall, a punitive policy of war and wall, and a paranoid policy. (The world out there is hostile and coming our way, we’ve been told by Bush and Fox News.)

Consider this. When I protested the Raymondville immigration detention facility a few weeks ago, which I reported in this column, I was startled by the surreal concentration camp look to the place: barbed wire and brown balloon tents, with white vans in front labeled “Homeland Security.” I was suspicious back when Bush first proposed that “Homeland” term for his giant spy and enforcement agency, because the name sounded like it would appeal to the neurotic Aryans of Weimar Germany. I remember wondering what it would morph into. And there it was, in Raymondville.

I think my sign “No War and No Wall” is perfect for the immigration march. Just as the War has been a disaster, so will Bush’s militarized, paranoid immigration policies bring chaos.

Concerning the war disaster, last week I attended the presentation of a world renowned woman activist, Yanar Mohammed from Iraq , who spoke at South Texas College . She has set up a series of shelters in Iraq , shelters protecting women in the disintegrating society. Iraq is now a disaster zone and getting worse, with run-amuck militias and revenge killings.

She recently wrote, “It is heartbreaking to me to see the return of extreme anti-woman practices that we had not seen for many decades. When I grew up in Iraq , women went to school. Educated professional working women [She herself has two degrees in architecture] were a part of our society. Today, a woman risks her life simply by going to the grocery store.”

Violence against women has reached epidemic proportions with the Islamist militias, the sectarian violence (stirred up by vacillating US policies) and the economic disruption. She has helped form a veritable “underground railroad’ to help protect vulnerable and targeted women in Iraq .

McAllen ’s Monitor reported her speech: “Some of the women her organization helps have been raped by Iraqi and American soldiers, Mohammed said. Other women have been kidnapped and made to live their lives in brothels. Mohammed told of a 14- year-old girl who was kidnapped, taken to a brothel and escaped before being found by organization advocates.”

There is so much chaos in Iraq , with over a million displaced people and with two million previously productive Iraqis having fled the country, that there are 30 women executed monthly in Iraq by militias, some by “honor” killings and sectarian revenge.

War ravaged Iraq is the image my sign will raise at the immigration march. We need national deliberation on immigration, not Bush’s walls, zones, and militarized chaos.