Author: mopress

World Responds to Family’s Jailing Despite Media Silence
The Continuing Story of Ibrahim’s Faith in America

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / ElectronicIntifada / DissidentVoice

After a hectic day of child care and phone calls, Ahmad Ibrahim decided not to attempt a San Antonio protest Friday.

“I am very thankful for the support,” said Ibrahim in a late-night email Thursday. “And I hope when this nightmare is over, the Hutto women’s and children jail in Taylor, Texas will be shut down forever.”

The T. Don Hutto jail is where Ibrahim’s three neices, nephew, and pregnant sister-in-law have been held for alleged immigration violations since early November. Ibrahim’s brother was separated from the rest of the family and placed at a jail in Haskell, Texas.
Ibrahim had planned to protest the jailings in front of offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The protest has been tentatively rescheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 2 at 10:30 a.m.

In other developments Thursday, Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson announced via email that he had received official notice from ICE that clemency for two jailed families had been denied:

“Today we received written notice from Marc J. Moore, Field Office Director in charge of the T. Don Hutto concentration camp for children at Taylor, Texas, that our requests for clemency on behalf of the Ibrahim family and the Suleiman family have been DENIED. Nothing remains but habeas corpus based on local and international legal limitations on child abuse, kidnapping, and imprisonment. A well publicized suit in the Interamerican Court of Human Rights would be useful.

“I called Marc J. Moore today, but he refused to accept my call. His secretary said he would call later, but he has not done so and I do not think he will. Also, I am certain it would make no difference if he did. If somebody with money does not get involved in these cases, then they are at a dead end.”

In an email earlier in the day to concerned supporters, attorney Gibson wrote about the need for political and media support:

“We need demonstrators outside Marc J. Moore’s office every day and all the media exposure possible, with spokespersons denouncing the terror instead of clucking the tongue.”

According to Gibson and Ibrahim, the family came to the USA from Palestine, using Jordanian passports, with 5-year visas issued by the American embassy in Jerusalem. The family is pursuing asylum, but has been subjected to an order of deportation by ICE.

To date, the story of the families’ detention has not been reported by anyone other than the Texas Civil Rights Review, although our reports have been circulated around the world by blogs such as Latina Lista and activist websites such as CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Electronic Intifada, IndyMedia, Infowars, and Uruknet.

As a result of the story’s popularity on the internet Thursday, Ibrahim received messages and calls of support that kept him busy for many hours.

Especially significant for Ibrahim was an offer of support from Rita Zawaideh, Chair of the Seattle-based Arab American Community Coalition (AACC). Zawaideh and the AACC have been active in anti-Arab discrimination issues since Sept. 11, 2001.

“Unfortunately, discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans has only just begun with the need for a civil rights organization dedicated to and focused on the Arab and Muslim communities strong,” says the AACC website. “The Arab American Community Coalition is going to be around for quite some time.”

The Muslim community is preparing for a major religious holiday, Eid ul-Adha, that will run from Dec. 31 to Jan. 2. Wikipedia describes the holiday as “a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for Allah”–a story that is also of great significance for Jewish and Christian believers, too. In the end, Ibrahim’s hand was stopped by God, but the prophet’s willingness to sacrifice his only son at God’s command is a very influential instruction about faith in the Abrahamic [or Ibrahimic] traditions.

As for Ahmad Ibrahim, besides being overwhelmed with child care, phone calls, and bad news, one other thing he pondered on Thursday was the effect of waiting until after the holiday season to stage a symbolic protest against the two-month-long jailing of three nieces, a nephew, brother, and pregnant sister-in-law.

An official with ICE in San Antonio also advised Ibrahim that the Homeland Security offices were located on private property where protesters might be subject to arrest.

As foster parent to a 3-year-old niece who was born in the USA, and as an American citizen who hasn’t participated in protest activity, the mention of possible arrest on Homeland Security premises for the crime of holding a sign may have played a part in Ibrahim’s decision to postpone the event.

Whatever the effect on Ibrahim may have been, the thought of Homeland Security officials passing along such “advice” about arrests is a discomforting reminder to us all of the climate we seem to be sharing in the USA, where Homeland Security’s privatized offices serve as auxiliaries to the power of their privatized jails for children and pregnant mothers.

At any rate, we join issue with Ibrahim when he calls Homeland Security officials “criminals” for their treatment of his family, and we don’t mind if Homeland Security calls our well-chosen words “obscenities” as they did on Thursday when Ibrahim used them.

If there is an obscenity here, it will be found in the indelible memory of a Bible-thumping American culture that took a woman from the Holy Lands who was pregnant with a boy and instead of granting her amnesty from her torn-up homeland locked her and her family in jail during the Christmas holidays without even a single mention of the story being printed or broadcast through the usual media channels to an audience of self-proclaiming Christian conscience.

There is an America that Ibrahim loves. In the New Year we resolve to live there with him.

Ahmad Ibrahim faxed the following letter to the White House yesterday in hand-written form. This morning, over the telephone, he read the letter to the Texas Civil Rights Review:

Dear Mrs. Bush,

Hello. A Palestinian mother and four children are in jail in Taylor, Texas for two months at Hutto detention center (215) 218-2400.

The mother and 5-year-old child are held in the same cell. They count them four times a day. The mother tells me it’s the most demeaning thing to be lined up with your children and counted. The children are ages 5, 7, 12, and 15.
The immigration came and arrested the whole family on Nov. 2, 2006, and they have been in jail until now. Their lawyer said they are here legally. They came to America on a 5-years visiting visa, issued from the American embassy in Jerusalem, and they filed an asylum case which is still pending.

And the husband [my brother] has a work permit, and he is held now in another jail in Haskell, Texas. The man in charge of the jailing of the children is Marc Moore (210) 967-7175.

I hope this letter will reach you. (Names and ages of family members in jail.) One child is with me, because she is born in America [not in jail].

This is a terrible time for our family, and I hope you can help the children be out of the jail and in the school where they belong, and in the playground.

Sincerely,
Ahmad Ibrahim

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / ElectronicIntifada / IndyMedia Austin, NorthTexas / InternationalMiddleEastMediaCenterNews

The brother of a jailed Palestinian man whose children and pregnant wife are being held in a Texas jail says he will stage a small protest with his 3-year-old niece Friday morning outside the San Antonio offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at 8940 Fourwinds Dr.

“I am an American citizen, and I know what America is made of,” said Ahmad Ibrahim, speaking by telephone Wednesday afternoon. “America is made of good people.”

Ibrahim will take the family’s case to the streets, asking for release of his niece’s three sisters, teenage brother, and pregnant mother–all of whom have been held in jail since their midnight arrests on Nov. 3.
Marc Jeffrey Moore, San Antonio field office director of the Detention and Removal Office for ICE, referred all questions from the Texas Civil Rights Review to the ICE public affairs office, which has not yet returned our call.

Ibrahim said he had just heard from Moore’s office Wednesday afternoon that applications to renew the family’s passports from Jordan had been denied, and they would have to wait another month in jail while ICE contacted the Israeli embassy.

Ibrahim was skeptical that Israel would be forthcoming with the needed travel approvals, and anyway, he said, it would be dangerous for his brother’s family to present Israeli travel papers as their documents for re-entry to Palestine.

“Either deport them, or fix their status,” said Ibrahim. Either way, he says, they should not be in jail.

“We are not poor. We have family, a home, and money.” Ibrahim said that he and his family in Palestine would do whatever is needed to take care of the jailed family as soon as they are released.

“We will meet them at the airport terminal with tickets, if that’s what it takes,” he said.

Ibrahim says he was with his brother some 18 months ago when an immigration lawyer called to apologize for missing a filing deadline regarding the family’s asylum. And he says a ruling on the case is still pending.

The brother, Salaheddin Ibrahim, was separated from his family, and is being held at another jail.

Ahmad Ibrahim says his 5-year-old niece shares her cell with her pregnant mother, Hanan Ahmad, while the 7- and 12-year-old girls share a cell with each other. The 15-year-old boy is in a third cell. All of them are incarcerated at the T. Don Hutto jail in Taylor, Texas.

Ibrahim says the 5-year-old gets into trouble with guards during population counts that are taken four times daily. She is supposed to sit still for the counts, but she doesn’t.

“She is a very active child,” explains Ibrahim. He says reprimands from the guards sometimes bring the little girl to tears.

One chilly morning, says Ibrahim, the girl wrapped a blanket around her as she walked out of her cell, but a guard told her that the blanket didn’t belong to her.

“It’s my blanket!” answered the little girl.

The 7-year-old has also been upset to the point of tears, because she cannot sleep in the same cell with her mother. At 10:00 p.m. the 7-year-old is ordered to the cell she shares with her 12-year-old sister.

Showers for the women are provided every morning at 5:30, but at least on one occasion, says Ibrahim, the pregnant mother was feeling sick and tired, so she asked not to go. A guard reportedly threatened the mother with disciplinary action that would include separating her from the 5-year-old, so the mother took the shower as ordered.

With four girls and one boy already in the family, Ibrahim said that his brother paid a fertility expert $7,000 to ensure that a boy would be born this time, so they are “99 percent” sure that the next child will be a boy.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim holds a letter of suspension for the 15-year-old boy, who has missed too many days of school. Except for the 3-year-old, all the other children were attending schools before they were jailed by ICE.

“He’s holding the whole thing together,” says Ibrahim of the 15-year-old. “He calls me every day.”

Ibrahim says he is composing a letter to First Lady Laura Bush.

“This is a small immigration violation, and an attorney could fix this easily,” he says. “They are not a threat to society.”

Plus, he says, it would be cheaper for the government if the family were allowed to live outside the jail. A report in the Sunday Sun of Williamson County said ICE is paying $95 per day per inmate for imprisonment services provided by Corrections Corporation of America at the Hutto jail–a cost of $14,000 per month for the five family members held there.

“I have never myself heard of anywhere in the world where this kind of thing happens,” said Ibrahim. “Jailing a mother with her children is very demeaning.”

Ibrahim’s protest will be the fourth in two weeks related to the Hutto jail. On December 14, South Texas businessman Jay Johnson-Castro began a 35-mile walk to the jail from the Texas Capitol. On December 16, Johnson-Castro joined a vigil at the jail sponsored by Texans United for Families. On Christmas Eve, Flamenco artists Teye and Belen performed for a dedicated group of protesters in inclement weather.

All three actions have received some coverage from corporate media, but the story of Palestinian families has yet to be mentioned in that coverage. Stories and editorials usually assume that the jail is filled with detainees who entered the country “illegally.” At least two Palestinian families being held at Hutto jail entered the USA legally with visas, says their attorney, but they have run into legal difficulties securing asylum. In both cases, the men have been separated into different jails from the women and children at Hutto.

“Don’t forget that being a Palestinian in this period of history is truly being the weakest of the weak,” adds Ibrahim. “Since you don’t even have a country, like 99.9 percent of the whole earth, to ask about you, or to defend you, or help you with your basic needs.

“And people such as Marc Jeffery Moore–instead of going after the terrorists and the criminals–he is going after some children and mothers, not caring about the image of our great America.”

The brother of a jailed Palestinian man whose children and pregnant wife are being held in a Texas jail says he will stage a small protest with his 3-year-old niece Friday morning outside the San Antonio offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at 8940 Fourwinds Dr.

[Editor’s Note: date and time changes have been made to the story below–gm]