Author: mopress

Civil Rights Groups Call on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Karnes County to Reject Private Detention Center

AUSTIN – Texans United for Families and Grassroots Leadership, two civil rights organizations, today called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Karnes County to reject an Intergovernmental Service Agreement to construct a new 600-bed for-profit immigration detention center in Karnes City, Texas. The groups will speak in opposition to the proposed detention center at the Karnes County Commission meeting Tuesday, December 14th, at 9:00 am at the Karnes County Courthouse.

GEO Group, the private prison company that will build and operate the facility, has a track record of abuse, deaths in custody, and mismanagement at their Texas prisons and detention centers which have led to several lawsuits. Just last week, the GEO Group – along with Reeves County and the Federal Bureau of Prisons – was sued on behalf of the family of Jesus Manual Galindo, an immigrant who died at the GEO Group’s Reeves County Detention Center after he was put in isolation and not provided medication to control seizures. Galindo’s death was the 9th death at the Reeves County detention center in recent years.

“Karnes County is setting itself up for a potential lawsuit if it enters into a contract with a troubled for-profit prison company known for human rights violations,” said Geoff Valdes, a Texans United for Families member. In addition to last week’s Reeves lawsuit, Val Verde County was sued due to the death of an immigrant prisoner at its GEO Group detention center.

The GEO Group has had at least six contracts in Texas ended in recent years. The suicides of Idaho prisoners Scot Noble Payne and Randy McCullough and subsequent investigations into “squalid” conditions led to the closure of GEO’s Dickens County and Bill Clayton detention centers. In 2007, the GEO Group-run Coke County Juvenile Justice Center was shuttered by the Texas Youth Commission after a damning investigation into conditions at the youth detention center.

“Karnes County has not even had a discussion or a public hearing on the implications of entering into a long-term agreement with a company like GEO,” said Rocío Villalobos of Texans United for Families. “The Karnes County Commission should delay any move until a full investigation into the impacts of such a contract can be completed. The history of human rights violations at for-profit detention centers demonstrates that immigration detention will never be ‘civil’ and endangers human lives.”

A year ago, ICE announced sweeping reforms to its immigration detention system and a desire to move away from contracts with isolated detention centers. The Karnes County immigration detention center was announced last week as a “civil” detention center for low-level immigration detainees.

“No matter how soft the detention center, people who should not be locked-up are being detained for profit. We call on ICE to prioritize release and community-based alternatives to detention that allow people to remain in their communities awaiting their hearings,” said Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership. “These programs are proven to be more humane and less costly.”

Source: Press Release from Bob Libal.

(Dallas, Texas) – Join us in sending Hector Lopez a holiday greeting while he awaits his release from an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention facility in Florence, Arizona. Please send Hector a greeting card so he knows he is not alone in his struggle. Join with the people of Oregon, Texas and Florida as we send this young man hope during this holiday season. We hope to send him 1,000 greeting form all of his supporters.

Feliz Navidad Hector Lopez

(Dallas, Texas) – Accompaniaños en mandando saludos a Hector Lopez mientras espera su liberación de ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) en Florence, Arizona. Por favor envie a Hector un a tarjeta de saludo para confirmar que no esta solo en su batalla. Accompañe con la jente de Oregon, Texas y Florida asi le mandemos esperanza entre estos dia festivos. Esperamos mandarle 1,000 tarjetas de todos los que lo apoyan.

Please send your greeting cards here:
Por favor envie su tarjeta aqui:

Hector Lopez
A074809057
3250Pinal Parkway
FLORENCE, AZ
85132

Source: Press Release from Ralph Isenberg

Mr Speaker my faith and my values teach me we do not punish children for decisions made by their parents. That’s why I rise in support of the DREAM Act.

Common sense tells me that thousands of decent, hardworking young people in our country will be better off by bringing them out of the shadows of our society and giving them the opportunity to serve the country which they call home.

In an age of hard-edged partisan politics have we grown so coarse and callous that we would send young people back to the countries that are foreign to them and their upbringing.

We should debate how to better secure our borders, but in the meantime in this season of hope, and love, and joy let us turn to our better nature and let the youth among us live out their dreams. We’ll be all the better for it.

Delivered from the Floor of the US House of Representative on Dec. 7, 2010

A planned Human Rights Day pilgrimage to Florence, AZ has been postponed in hopes that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will soon be able to work out suitable terms for release of Hector Lopez, says Dallas immigration advocate Ralph Isenberg.

Isenberg has promised immigration authorities that he will assume responsibility for all costs of transporting Lopez to pending immigration hearings if the 21-year-old is allowed to return home with his mother in Portland, OR.

“We’re going to give ICE an opportunity to do the right thing from a human rights standpoint,” said Isenberg late Thursday evening. He said that he was impressed with the sincere tone of communications from ICE officials in Phoenix.

“Based on that sincerity and knowing that the head office has asked Arizona folks to review the case carefully, I think it’s best that for a short period of time Hector’s attorneys and ICE counsel work to a rapid conclusion that gets Hector out of detention.”