Author: mopress

Reported by Marcy Martinez
KGBT 4 – TV Harlingen

A protest walk against detention centers in Bayview and Raymondville is slowly making it’s way through southern Cameron and Willacy County. It’s a small group with a big message.

John Neck is driving behind the walking protestors and plans to stay with them the entire way.
“They’re locking people up for no reason and all they want to do is work.”

Neck agrees with walk organizer Jay Johnson that illegal immigrants being held in Cameron and Willacy County detention centers should be released.

“I say let’s let them free, let’s let them work. They’re here to work . Let’s not spend thousands of dollars a month to detain them.”

Johnson and a few others started their protest walk in Brownsville Wednesday morning and will take what they consider very important steps.

The protestors will stop briefly in Los Fresnos to hold vigil in front of the International Education Services Emergency Shelter, a facility which allegedly houses displaced children who became refugees when their parents were caught crossing the border illegally.

“They have 160 kids that are in prison, they are in uniforms, they don’t have identity.”

Action 4 News spoke to local directors of the facility who said they would like to let our cameras inside, but must follow protocol mandated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement who did not return our calls for an interview.

Johnson says these children need to be reunited with their families and not punished for pursuing a better life in the United States.

He hopes his walk through the two counties will open the eyes of lawmakers as to what he calls injustices to humans.

The walk will end in Raymondville in about 5 days.

Border Wall-ker presses for resolutions against splitting immigrant families

By Steve Taylor
Rio Grande Guardian (subscription)

BROWNSVILLE – Border Wall-ker Jay Johnson-Castro is asking border legislators and the cities he is currently walking through to follow the City of Chicago’s lead and pass resolutions opposing the separation of immigrant families.

Johnson-Castro, a bed and breakfast owner from Del Rio, said his latest walk, which started Wednesday morning in Brownsville, aims to “free the Huddled Masses.”

The walk takes in vigils outside the IES facility in Los Fresnos that houses immigrant children, and the Port Isabel Detention Center in Bayview, where immigrants from Massachusetts were recently sent.

The walk ends in Raymondville on Sunday at the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-run detention facility commonly referred to as Tent City….

[[Note: next week Jay Johnson-Castro will join Dallas vigils calling for reunification of the Hazahza family, which has been split since a roundup in early November.–gm]

Jay Johnson-Castro concluded his fourth day of walking early Saturday afternoon and is resting up for the final nine mile stretch to Raymondville tomorrow.

A vigil outslide the Raymondville Tent City prison camp is scheduled for 1:00 pm Sunday.

For the past two days, Johnson-Castro has had a few companions on the trek. Friday was a day without media. Saturday saw a news team from KGBT Channel 4 TV Harlingen.

“Here’s what’s shocking,” says Johnson-Castro by cell phone Saturday evening. “We get get honks of support constantly, even without much media coverage. The grassroots people know.”

“Tractor trailers,Cadillacs, SUVs, and old jalopies give us honks and thumbs up.”

Meanwhile, back home at the Texas Civil Rights Review, we have permission to publish the following email about Friday’s story reprinted at CounterPunch:

Dear Greg Moses,

Great story. Please keep up the good work.

Please, tell Jay Johnson-Castro and John Neck that it’s a good thing that they’re doing.

Thank them for me, and for all Americans who still treasure ideals now foresaken.

John Francis Lee
Thailand

Dear John, I read the email to Jay, and he will be in touch.–gm

Note: Jay Johnson-Castro has highlighted certain passages from the following article. He asks us to bring this to the attention of our readers.–gm

By Steve Taylor
Riio Grande Guardian

AUSTIN – A lawmaker from north Texas has filed legislation that would allow the Texas Board of Criminal Justice to contract with private vendors to build and run prisons in Mexico.

SB 185, authored by Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls , would allow the TBCJ to waive any legal requirements that would be inapplicable in Mexico.

Estes told the Guardian that the prisons would only house non-violent Mexican nationals serving time in Texas ’s correctional facilities.

“The prisons would be built to Texas standards but we could save money on both the construction costs and the staffing costs,” Estes said.

“I think the country of Mexico could look at it as economic development. It is very humane for the prisoners because they are going to be closer to their families and they would be in a Spanish-speaking environment.”
Estes said he came up with idea after hearing that the state of Arizona was studying a similar idea. He filed similar legislation late in the 79th Legislature but did not get a hearing.

Estes’s proposal was supposed to be studied in the interim by the Senate Criminal Justice committee but the panel, chaired by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, had to cancel one of its hearings and no testimony was ever taken.

According to the TBCJ, around 10,000 of the 153,000 inmates in Texas prisons are foreign nationals. Of these 10,000 around 75 percent are Mexican nationals. Estes said his office was still researching how many of the Mexican nationals currently locked up are classified as non-violent.

“I think this is an idea worth studying,” Estes added. “We are always looking for ways, if we do build more prisons, to make sure the costs are kept low for the taxpayers.”