Author: mopress

Receipts Reported by Williamson County Sun Raise Question of Over-Crowding

“I think Williamson County should be ashamed of itself,” said Jane Van Praag of Bartlett, Texas speaking Tuesday before a meeting of the County Commissioners Court.

“You are sanctioning this injustice,” said Efrain Davila of Round Rock.

What they are talking about, of course, is the T. Don Hutto “Residential Center” in nearby Taylor.
“There’s nothing residential about it,” warned Van Praag.

Davila and Van Praag are quoted in the Sunday Sun of Georgetown, Texas, a publication that is not available online.

“Critics say that if it looks like a prison and talks like a prison, then it must be a prison,” writes reporter Ben Trollinger in his front-page story. “It is unjust, they argue, for children to be in such an environment.”

In response to public unrest, several members of the court have pledged to tour the jail.

“The county’s involvement is integral,” writes Trollinger, “because ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] cannot directly contract with a private corporation such as CCA [Corrections Corporation of America]. Without the county’s consent, ICE would be forced to look elsewhere.”

Trollinger says that the county’s contract with ICE would allow commissioners to give the agency 120 days notice to cease operations.

As Efrain Davila suggested, commissioners are complicit in the operation, not only for approving the contract in April, but also for collecting a fee of “about” one dollar per head per day based on the Hutto jail population.

Trollinger reports that the county has been collecting $15,000 to $20,000 per month from ICE–amounts that at “exactly” one dollar per head per day would suggest populations of up to 645 people in a jail that, according to the CCA website, has 512 beds.

Funding for CCA also flows through the county, reports Trollinger. CCA presents its expenses for running the jail to the county, whch then passes the charges to ICE. Writes Trollinger, ICE pays CCA about $95 per day to jail the people at Hutto, or about $2.8 million per month.

Note: Thanks to Jay Johnson-Castro who encouraged us to pick up a copy of the newspaper, which we did right outside the newspaper offices.–gm

Photos by Jay Johnson-Castro of the T. Don Hutto jail, taken at the Dec. 16 vigil.

from Jay Johnson-Castro (Dec. 23 pm)

Afternoon y’all…

The media has played a great role in getting this truth out to our fellow Texans and Fellow Americans. This is an appeal to you of the media…

Regarding this vigil, I received this caution from someone who knows more about the inside of the Hutto prison camp than most of us.

I would be careful though, because I heard that as a result of the last vigil, the detainees were kind of in lock-down most of the day. They didn’t get to go outside that day. So I would be careful, because you wouldn’t want ICE to get upset and take it out on the detainees. Just a heads-up.

I appeal to the media to help people know what happened last week as mentioned here. The media has a great opportunity to inform the public about what is really going on. By doing so…perhaps the children and their moms will not be mistreated this way tomorrow evening.
Here is the latest great link…and networking together of two local media folks to bring transparency to this cruelty right here on Texas , American soil. Greg Moses, editor of The Texas Civil Rights Review has consistently been right on top of this. http://texascivilrightsreview.org/phpnuke/index.php

Gratefully the Austin American Statesman, Fox news, Univision, BBC and even the Taylor and Williamson County newspapers have shown journalistic leadership in weighing in on the prison camp that has incarcerated innocent children and helpless mothers behind razor wire walls. I keep asking myself…where is the outrage from the other big(s)?

Where’s CNN…and all the national networks? Where is Houston , Dallas , San Antonio ? Is this too insignificant of a story for them. Where’s USA Today, NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post? Where’s Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Riley, Jack McCaferty, Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer? What does it take for these folks to weigh in? Do the children and their moms in this prison camp have to somehow be tortured too before they respond? Or are they too deep into Chertoff & Company for their national ratings? Let’s hope not!

Meanwhile…my deepest respect and admiration to all the media that has had the courage to report this issue of incarcerating children in the Hutto prison camp. Until this garners the national and international media…much credit goes to the local and grassroots media…and the many blogs that have picked up on this heartbreaking story. You are perpetuating the truth and exposing the immoral and criminal actions of those who would exploit and abuse the weak…for obscene profits…all in the name of national security. When history is written about this expanding Texas-American Gulag for greedy profit system…you of the media who have already courageously weighed in…will be recognized. The internet has the reporting time-line all archived.

Keith Olbermann? Where are you? You’re not afraid to say it like it is?

The Christmas Eve Vigil goes on tomorrow evening. 5pm-6pm.

Jay

But we ain’t on it. Texas earned three mentions Friday from Frida Berrigan as she briefed Amy Goodman on the role of the USA in supplying Israeli weapons.

Texas gets attention from Berrigan as the location where Lockheed-Martin co-manufactures the Sufa F-16 fighter, a double-seated holy terror of incoming air attacks.
Lockheed Martin does the finishing work on these 45-million-dollar weapons after they are started in Israel. The contract to build 102 Sufas will be financed by taxpayers of the USA. When the Sufas are completed, Israel will have a stock of 362 F-16s, second largest only to the US Air Force.

Boeing and Raytheon also make Berrigan’s list of arms suppliers to Israel. Both companies make missiles. Boeing, as we know, also makes planes and helicopters.

When Berrigan mentions these big names in weaponry, she hits three of the five finalists for the huge SBInet border contract that is scheduled to be let in the Fall of 2006. Is it not deeply chilling to think that these powers are competing for security along the Rio Grande?

I think we have to dissent while there is still time. We should seek to grow better things than these in the name of homeland security.

Rahul Mahajan, the former Green Party candidate for Governor, had courage enough to campaign for a de-militarized Texas.

“Homeland Security is part of a pre-planned program for domestic repression, occasioned, among other things, by fear of the possibilities of the so-called anti-globalization movement,” said that former candidate for Governor.

We now have quite a spectacle of candidates we’ll be hearing from lots and loudly. By comparison to Mahajan, ain’t they all whistlin’ Dixie?