Author: mopress

He was among the first reporters to be notified of the plight of immigrant families at T. Don Hutto prision camp in Taylor, Texas. At last, his editors appear to have given him permission to give the story the coverage it deserves, perhaps because a federal judge last week expressed exasperation in open court. Below are the first few paragraphs of a comprehensive overview posted Sunday morning at statesman.com (subscription).–gm

Familial bonds

Is government’s policy to detain immigrant families fair?

By Juan Castillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, March 25, 2007

TAYLOR — Conversations with her mother and the son she left behind in Somalia because she feared for her life there. Visits to her grandmother’s tranquil vegetable garden. Walks past her grandparents’ house on her way home; they were always waiting to greet her.

These recurring images filled Bahjo Hosen’s dreams as she slept — with her 2-year-old son, Mustafa, curled up next to her — on a narrow metal bunk bed in a roughly 8-foot-by-12-foot cell with an open toilet and sink in the T. Don Hutto Residential Center.

On most mornings about 5:30, a guard’s rap on the door jarred Bahjo awake, drawing a dark curtain on her dreams and beginning another day of confinement while she and Mustafa pursued asylum in the U.S. immigration system’s slow-grinding bureaucracy.

“I never dreamed I would be in jail,” said Hosen, who fled a Somalian clan’s death threats, only to be locked up in the immigrant detention center in Taylor.

The former state prison is in the bull’s-eye of a growing controversy over a federal policy that requires families like Bahjo and Mustafa to be confined on immigration violations while they await outcomes of their asylum petitions or deportation. The waits can drag on for days, months, sometimes years.

The controversy raises two questions: Is it inhumane to confine children and families for running afoul of immigration laws? And are there better alternatives than locking people up?

Critics answer yes to both. Lawsuits filed on behalf of 10 children confined in Taylor accuse federal officials of illegally and inhumanely housing children, failing to meet the standards of a 1997 court settlement for the care of minors in immigration custody, and ignoring Congress’ orders to exhaust other options before detaining families — in homelike environments.

At a hearing on the lawsuits last week, even U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks expressed exasperation at the restrictions under which families are living at the Hutto facility.

“This is detention. This isn’t the penitentiary,” Sparks said. Detainees “have less rights than the people I send to the penitentiary.”

Sparks ordered that some restrictions on attorney visits with detainee clients be removed immediately. . . .

With the sounds of traffic swooshing by him, and accompanied by John Neck, Ken Koym, and Juan Torres, Jay Johnson-Castro kept walking as he gave the following update via cell phone. The reference to the federal judge comes from Juan Castillo’s story below in which Austin Federal Judge Sam Sparks is quoted as saying convicted felons have more rights than immigrant detainees. Here is what Jay says on the morning of the Raymondville vigil, scheduled for 1:00 pm.–gm

A lot of my suspicion is being reconfirmed after talking to the attorneys and a couple of fellow journalists. The newspapers here are basically anti-immigrant and we are not going to get any coverage down here.
I asked them is it political? Are political favors being asked? One said yes. The other said it was more due to apathy. They just quit covering stuff like that.

Looking at the big picture with the T. Don Hutto prison in Taylor, and the Rolling Plains prison at Haskell, then coming down here, we’re making gains.

If a federal judge sides with common sense and moral values of grassroots America, I guess some of us feel we’re on the right page. But really this is not about legal or illegal, it’s about moral or immoral, conscionable or unconscionable. The fact we made gains on Hutto means that layer by layer we are going to peel the onion back and get to the core of this thing.

I have also heard that the International Educational Services (IES) school is more kindly than it was two years ago when it was under immigration authorities. The kids do rotate through every 2-3 months, but nobody knows where they go.

At Raymondville, the biggest concern of attorneys is the lack of food. And that’s a result of running these camps for profit. The people are in windowless cells 23 hours a day.

They agreed the greatest vulnerability to ICE was the children in Hutto as far as exposing the source of this human tragedy. Which brings us back to the prisons for profit concept, and how the guarantees of prison detention boosted the stock value of these companies.

This is a time of darkness in our country’s history. Hopefully, it will be better exposed. What will it take to trigger outrage. Smokestacks? Who cares enough to skip breakfast or their favorite tv program before they say the people running these camps should not be committing these crimes or even be in power. That’s where we are at in all reality.

I love the little letter from Thailand. If in other places people are feeling a sense of what we feel, I consider it an accomplishment itself. Now, when do we get these things shut down?

For more on Ramsey Muniz, click the Aztlan jaguar.–gm

Dear Friends:

We seek letters from congressmen and organizations. Please forward this email to those who are members of LULAC, the GI Forum, and other civic organizations and ask them to send a letter from their organization.

The letter will be sent to Geraldo Maldonado, Regional Director of the South Central Region Bureau of Prisons. A sample letter is shown below, and thank you in advance for your assistance.

Irma Muniz
*******************

March 27, 2007

Gerardo Maldonado, Jr.
Regional Director
South Central Regional Office
Federal Bureau of Prisons
4211 Cedar Springs Rd.
Dallas, TX 75219

Re: Ramiro R. Muniz # 40288-115

Dear Mr. Maldonado:
Mr. Muniz has been told that he will be transferred out of the Federal Correctional Institution in Three Rivers, Texas due to medical reasons. We ask your assistance in preventing this transfer.

When Mr. Muniz was sentenced in 1994, Judge Paul Brown recommended that he be incarcerated in Three Rivers, Texas. We ask that the Bureau of Prisons consider the recommendation made by Judge Paul Brown along with the qualifications of Mr. Muniz. He merits placement in a Federal Correctional Institution and we ask that he remain at Three Rivers.

Mr. Muniz is now told that his transfer out of Three Rivers FCI is due to medical reasons, yet nothing indicates a need for this move. He arrived at Three Rivers, Texas in good health. He has not made a
visit to the infirmary, nor has he requested any type of medication for physical ailments in 13 years.

After spending many years of incarcerated in maximum security penitentiaries, Mr. Muniz has proven to be a model prisoner. He had no incident reports and because of his low point classification, the North Central and South Central Regional Offices for the Bureau of Prisons recommended his transfer to Three Rivers, Texas.

We ask your assistance in keeping Mr. Muniz in Three Rivers, Texas.

Sincerely,

Children Removed From Immigrant Shelter

Friday March 23, 2007 10:31 PM

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL

Associated Press Writer

EL PASO, Texas (AP) – Everyone has been cleared out of a federal shelter for child immigrants amid allegations that a single staff member sexually abused some of the youngsters.
The employee, who was not identified, was suspended and later fired from his job at the shelter in Nixon, a town of 2,200 people about 50 miles southeast of San Antonio. Federal officials would not discuss how many children were abused or their ages.

Joshua Trent, associate director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, said officials visited the facility days after learning of the abuse investigation in mid-February.

The children, who were being held at the Away From Home shelter after trying to cross the border alone, were removed to “err on the side of caution,” Trent said.

The last child left the shelter March 7.

It was unclear whether the federal government would cancel its contract with the shelter or whether the shelter would be used again, Trent said. … Full story at Guardian Unlimited