Author: mopress

Email from Bob Libal, Grass Roots Leadership–gm

[On Tuesday] Marc Moore of Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote a letter to the Dallas Morning News defending the T. Don Hutto family detention center. The letter was written in response to a terrific op-ed authored by University of Texas Professor Barbara Hines in last Monday’s Morning News arguing that ICE’s three new proposed family detention centers are an inappropriate response to immigrant families, especially given the troubled history of T. Don Hutto. Both Professor Hines’ op-ed and Mr. Moore’s letter are below in their entirety.

Please take the time today, if possible, to write a letter to the Dallas Morning News stressing the inappropriate nature of family detention and Hutto. Letters can be sent using the site’s online form, and should be 50-200 words in length. Letters can include the following points:

1) Detention of immigrant children and their families is inappropriate, costly, and inhumane. The experience at Hutto, a converted medium security prison operated by a private prison corporation where children as young as infants have been held with their parents, demonstrates that detention of families is a tragic response to the immigration issue. In addition, at an estimated cost of more than $200 a day per detainee at Hutto, the financial cost of such detention is unreasonably high, especially when more humane and cost-effective alternatives exist.

2) Congress has called on ICE to fund alternatives to family detention, saying that detention of immigrant children and their families should be the last alternative, not the first. ICE should be listening to the wishes of Congress and implementing alternatives to detention rather than soliciting new family detention centers. These alternative to detention programs are effective at ensuring that immigrants return to their immigration hearings and are much less costly than detention.

Thank you for your continued efforts to end family detention and close the T. Don Hutto detention center.

—

Bob Libal
Grassroots Leadership
Austin, Texas
http://www.grassrootsleadership.org

Check out www.texasprisonbidness.org for news and info on the private prison industry in Texas.

*****

Barbara Hines: New ICE family detention centers a step in wrong direction

June 16, 2008

The federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is accepting bids today for contracts to construct three new privately run detention centers across the country for children and their families awaiting immigration proceedings.

These facilities, each to be built with up to 200 beds, will expand the system of family detention made controversial in recent years at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas.

The proposal for new centers is a step in the wrong direction. Congress has repeatedly called on ICE, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for immigration matters, to implement alternatives to detention programs for families, stating that detention of families should be the last alternative and not the first.

In 2006, when I first went to Hutto, I was appalled by the living conditions. Children as young as infants, along with their families, were detained in a converted medium-security prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit prison management corporation. Children received one hour of education a day and wore prison uniforms. They were required to be in their cells for long periods during the day to be present for multiple cell counts.

Many of the detainees at Hutto have come to the United States fleeing persecution or social turmoil — asylum seekers fleeing civil conflict in Eastern Africa, Iraqi Christians targeted by fundamentalists and Central Americans seeking refuge from drug, gang and domestic violence. No detainee has been accused of a crime.

The psychological toll on children in detention is significant. Often already traumatized by conditions in their home countries and the process of being uprooted during migration, children and parents at Hutto reported being threatened with separation from one another as a disciplinary measure.

After widespread public advocacy against the facility, national media attention, a lawsuit and a settlement, conditions at the facility are significantly better. Children no longer wear prison scrubs, and they now receive seven hours of education a day. Also, they remain at the detention center for a significantly shorter amount of time.

Fundamentally, however, family detention remains an inappropriate response to asylum seekers and immigrant parents and children. Advocates continue to be concerned about news reports from Hutto, such as an alleged sexual assault of a detainee by a guard and the separation of a child from her mother for four days. Both incidents occurred last year.

Alternatives to detention include community-based, homelike shelters that provide access to counseling and legal services. Intensive-supervision programs also keep families together and out of detention. In fact, alternatives to detention programs have proved effective at ensuring that immigrants appear for their court hearings through a combination of telephone reporting and home visits. These programs are also substantially more cost-effective than detention.

One study by the Vera Institute found that more than 90 percent of immigrants on a supervised release program attended their immigration hearings. The average cost of a supervision program was $12 a day, compared with $61 a day to detain an immigrant. The cost savings are likely more pronounced in the context of family detention, which is more expensive than detaining adult immigrants.

Instead of contracting the construction of more family detention centers, ICE should seriously invest in alternatives to detention programs.

Barbara Hines is a clinical professor of law and director of the Immigration Clinic at The University of Texas School of Law. She was co-counsel — along with the national ACLU, the ACLU of Texas and the law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene and McRae — in the lawsuit challenging conditions at Hutto. Her e-mail address is bhines@law.utexas.edu.

*****

Hutto center picture incomplete

Re: “There’s a better way – ICE should not be accepting bids to build new family detention centers, says Barbara Hines,” last Monday Viewpoints.

Since its inception, the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center has been a safe and humane alternative to separating the families who enter the country illegally.

Many positive changes have been made. Families have access to high-quality medical, mental health and dental care 24 hours a day. Children attend school seven hours a day with state-certified teachers who provide a curriculum based on state standards. There are many recreational and social activities for all residents and few restrictions on movement throughout the facility.

Many of the conditions mentioned in the column have not existed for some time. The razor-wire fence shown in the picture accompanying the column was removed more than a year ago. ICE has taken a proactive approach to enhancing the facility since it opened. Many of the improvements were in place, under way or planned before the lawsuit referred to in the column was filed.

Marc J. Moore, field office director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, San Antonio

I was arrested unexpected like. I was sitting in a folding chair outside the Reception Room of the General Consulate of India. I had brought the folding chair from the house I was staying in and I had my poster with Day 15 of a hunger strike posted and leaning against the wall. An armful of flyiers was in my lap and I had already passed out about forty. Very interesting reception that I was getting. Almost every Indian I talked with acted totally surprised that the situation in Bhopal still existed. Yes, it does, I said. 30 Bhopalis are dying a month from that release in l984. Over 25,000 dealths. Over 8 times the amount of Americans that were killed during 9-11. And the USA invaded two countries over that one!

That’s Diane Wilson blogging there. She wrote two blog posts about her civil mischief up at the Indian Consulate offices in Houston, and then they had her arrested. Now she’s back from the seventh circle of hell and blogging about that, too. Once again, the moral leader of the Laguna Madre (and co-mother of CODEPINK) is peeking into the dark spaces of jailhouse rot. Grrrl don’t miss a moment!

Unarrested Woman

NOTE: We posted a comment to Diane’s blog about how the report from the Harris County Jail was like Beatrice grabbing Dante by the ankle and taking him straight down to seventh hell (from the lofty consulate, no less).

Diane replied: “yep, it was indeed hell. Ive been in a few Jails but Harris County has its own peticular brutality. Not just the conditions of the jails, but the damaging way they treat prisoners — many many who have not seen a court or a lawyer yet. not charged with a crime. There’s an investigation going on but i wonder if they will be steadfast enough to see through the jail’s attempt at coverup.”

The death toll at the Harris County Jail, and the death toll from Dow / Carbide poison at Bhopal — global miseries linked across the bridge of Diane Wilson’s back. Who will be steadfast enough to lift us from these miseries? — gm

Keywords: Carbide Dow Bhopal Poisoning Harris County Jail Terrors Carbide Dow Bhopal Poisoning Harris County Jail Terror Carbide Dow Bhopal Poisoning Harris County Jail Terror . . .

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

A petition was filed in federal court this July with a very simple request. Please instruct the Border Patrol to answer this question: Are you going to be conducting immigration ID checks in the event of a hurricane evacuation? It’s a very good question. If tens of thousands of cars start leaving the Valley together and crowds arrive at the bus stations, won’t there be huge lines while IDs are checked? And what if I can’t find my ID? I interviewed someone working on the issue, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Corinna Spencer-Scheurich.

Nick Braune: The Monitor reported that a number of groups, including LUPE and Brownsville’s Proyecto Digna, have filed a suit to find out evacuation procedures and policies. One lawyer was quoted as saying that the Border Patrol is being “reckless” and that they would be “creating a danger for everyone” if they start asking people for identification during an evacuation. Are those comments too strong?

Corinna Spencer-Scheurich: No, I don’t think they are too strong. Border Patrol is being reckless because the most important thing in advance of a disaster is to have a plan that everyone knows. We saw what happened when Houston residents tried to evacuate before Hurricane Rita. It took more than 24 hours for people to reach Dallas. Only half of the residents ended up evacuating. Luckily the main force of Rita did not hit Houston. What is clear is that in the event of a hurricane evacuation, everyone needs to be prepared and we have to get people to safety as quickly as possible.

Can you imagine the additional hold up at the Falfurrias checkpoint if Border Patrol is checking IDs? Holiday weekends are bad enough! And some people will not evacuate, risking harm, because they know they might run out of gas because of the gridlock or because they might have other problems. People who might have trouble proving their immigration status or have family members with that problem are also not going to flee. This is a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen.

Braune: Is it really necessary to go to a judge on this? Won’t the Border Patrol answer its phone and explain its evacuation procedures?

Spencer-Scheurich: We have asked several times in many different ways. We even asked again before we filed this lawsuit. I don’t think that the Border Patrol has realized the potential devastation that it might cause by not being clear and not working with the community on a humane evacuation plan.

Braune: If the judge rules on your side, what would be a possible next step?

Spencer-Scheurich: It depends on what Border Patrol’s plan is. If the Border Patrol will step aside in the face of an impending natural disaster, then the community groups who are plaintiffs in this case, like LUPE and Proyecto Digna, will be able to work with their members to help assure that we don’t have a loss of human life. But if the plan is to stop everyone evacuating and check their ID at the checkpoints, then we have some constitutional issues to grapple with.

Why are they only checking here in advance of a natural disaster and not in Florida or Louisiana? We believe that would be a violation of constitutional rights to Equal Protection based on national origin discrimination. It also might cause a deprivation of life, liberty and property in violation of the 5th Amendment. Once we know their plan we will take action accordingly.

Braune: In my column, I denounced the recent Postville, Iowa immigration raid as mean-spirited and confrontational. And I think Homeland Security’s push for the Border Wall, when our Valley is overwhelmingly opposed to it, has the same mean, confrontational quality. Do you think the Border Patrol’s tactics (demanding identification during the mock evacuation drill earlier this year) and the general “zero-tolerance” Operation Streamline are intentionally vicious?

Spencer-Scheurich: It is sad but true. I believe that immigration policy is being set for purely political reasons. It is being determined without regard to the experience that people have in their communities, without an understanding of the economic and social costs, and without even taking into account that similar policies have not worked in the past. It is shameful and hateful. I think we will look back at this period like we do to the days of segregation and Jim Crow laws, 19th Century treatment of Irish immigrants, and the Japanese internment camps during WWII. I just hope that by saying “enough is enough,” the nonprofit organizations in this lawsuit will be able to help their members, no matter what their immigration status is, to avoid life-threatening danger.

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / DissidentVoice

As the ten-year anniversary of Azem Hajdari’s assassination approaches, the killing of the philosophy student who led the democratic movement in Albania is being fanned into memory by US efforts to deport the brother of an eyewitness to the crime.

***

It was the evening of Sept. 12, 1998 when the legendary moral leader of the Albanian democratic movement was at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Albania, in the capital city of Tirana. Azem Hajdari had been leader of the student movement widely credited for toppling the Communist regime in Albania. He had been the Democratic Party’s first chairman. And he was serving his fourth term as a member of the Albanian parliament. At party headquaters, Hajdari and his personal bodyguard, Besim Cerja were chatting with a volunteer doorkeeper, Xhemal Neza; and with Xhemal’s cousin Zenel.

“Hajdari was a man of great integrity and we respected him very much,” recalls Xhemal Neza in an affidavit of April 2007. “Shortly before 9:30 p.m. the telephone rang and Hajdari spoke to the caller. When he hung up the telephone, he told us, ‘We have to leave immediately,’ because Izet Haxhia had told us to come at once. Haxhia was the personal body guard of Sali Berisha, who had become president of Albania in 1992. Berisha was the main leader of the Party on 12 September 1998. I personally heard Hajdari say the call was from Haxhia.”

“I opened the door,” continues the affidavit of the volunteer doorkeeper, “and Hajdari, Cerja, and my cousin Zenel Neza went out and got into Hajdari’s car, which was inside the walled compound. Cerja was driving; Hajdari was in the front passenger seat, and Zenel Neza was in the back seat. While I was closing the gate the car traveled out and turned right onto the street; after it moved about four meters, a black Mercedes 500 with Vlora license plates moved up and blocked its path. There was a light gray Jeep SUV just behind the Mercedes.”

“At about 9:30 p.m. Hajdari was shot. News reports saying he was killed at 10:00 p.m. are mistaken. I was about four meters from Hajdari when they killed him. I saw the persons who fired the shots and saw them pull the triggers. There were four assassins in the two cars.” Three of the assassins got out of their cars carrying automatic rifles. They were all wearing police uniforms. Xhemal recognized them as people he had grown up with.

Hajdari and his personal body guard were killed on the spot. In the back seat, Zenel Neza was critically wounded. Xhemal called his brother Rrustem, and together with cousins Skender and Gani they managed to drive Zenel to a doctor and then to safety in a nearby town.

The next day there was a demonstration. Police fired on the crowd, killing several people, and knocking Xhemal unconscious. The day after that, there was yet another demonstration. And this time, Rrustem Neza told the crowd of “about a thousand people” what Xhemal had seen on the night of the assassination and who the killers were. Xhemal went into hiding, moving every week. During one of the moves, his driver, cousin Skender, was killed.

“The police blasted Skender’s car with gunfire and began searching for me, but fortunately I had run in the opposite direction.” Meanwhile, cousin Gani was also killed. Of the four men who were part of the fateful rescue mission for Zenel Neza, two were dead. Zenel managed to escape the country. The other two, brothers Rrustem and Xhemal, eventually fled to Texas.

***

When the Neza brothers arrived in the USA, Xhemal was granted asylum and legal residency, but his brother Rrustem’s application for asylum was denied. According to court documents filed in Rrustem’s behalf, the immigration judge for Rrustem’s case simply did not believe Rrustem’s story. Xhemal testified at Rrustem’s hearing, but the judge wanted some corroborating evidence. Said the judge: “one would assume that his [the cousin’s] killing would have been reported in some newspaper in Albania which the respondent could have brought to court.”

As Rrustem’s present attorney John Wheat Gibson points out in this week’s brief to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the newspaper story about Gani Neza’s killing is available to anyone who can Google “Gani Neza.” Who knows why Rrustem’s former attorney did not present that newspaper article, or why the judge did not believe the brothers. Rrustem has been appealing for asylum ever since.

When they lived in Albania, the Neza brothers shared family land where there was gold and chrome. In Texas they opened up a pizza shop in the small college town of Nacogdoches. Things were quiet and apparently prosperous enough for them until they put in for a license to sell beer. An affidavit from the preparer of that license states that, “I never asked Xhemal or Rrustem about citizenship. I just assumed.”

On Jan. 18, 2007 Rrustem Neza was arrested for claiming to be a citizen on a beer license application, but he was never charged. In February, he was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who locked him up at the Rolling Plains Prison of Haskell, Texas. In order to get out of prison he would only need to agree to go back to Albania. But he decided being alive in Haskell was better than being dead in Albania, so he waited in prison, separated from his wife and two children.

In June 2007, President Bush visited Albania, where the triumph of the Albanian Democratic Party was imaged via color photographs of Bush and Berisha smiling, waving, joined at the hip.

In late August 2007, ICE officials retrieved Rrustem from Haskell and forced him to board an Albania-bound airplane in Dallas. He screamed for his life. ICE was forced to abort the deportation, so they threw him back in prison.

***

On Sept. 4, 2007 attorney Gibson shared an email about Rrustem’s case, which was posted under his byline at the Texas Civil Rights Review. From there, the story went around the world to an Albanian tabloid, Korrieri. “WITNESS COMES FROM AMERICA,” shouted the headline of Sept. 5. “Rrustem Neza is considered by Texas Civil Rights Review one of those who made public the names of the people who killed Mr. Hajdari on 12 September 1998 in Tirana. While in Albania, there are calls for truth in the investigation process, witnesses and all the people connected to the case are still battling in the courts.”

On Sept. 11, 2007 Rrustem Neza made headlines in the Dallas Morning News as the “Albanian who screamed himself off plane.” Completely unembarrassed by all of this, the heart of ICE was hardened, and on Oct. 1, US officials asked for a federal court order to “dope and deport” Mr. Neza, so that he could be rendered pharmaceutically incapable of screaming the next time they put him on a plane.

Yet by this time, finally, the patent absurdity of America’s treatment of Rrustem Neza attracted the public attention of conservative East Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, who on Oct. 23 penned an editorial for the Lufkin paper, calling Mr. Neza’s treatment “intolerable.” On Nov. 1, Gohmert introduced two personal bills in Congress in Mr. Neza’s behalf.

During the holiday season of 2007, ICE continued to keep Mr. Neza in Haskell prison, separated from his wife and two children.

Finally, on leap day 2008, three days after a Congressional committee took up Rep. Gohmert’s personal bills, Rrustem Neza was allowed to go back to his wife and two children after 13 months of imprisonment.

In March 2008, Rep. Gohmert announced that Mr. Neza’s deportation would be “stayed” until March 2009, the Lufkin paper editorialized in Mr. Gohmert’s behalf, and federal authorities announced that the “dope and deport” efforts had been officially “closed.”

All of w

hich brings us well into the summer of 2008. To date, the federal government of the USA is still refusing to grant Rrustem Neza an asylum hearing where attorney Gibson can submit corroborating evidence that Gani and Skender Neza are, in sad fact, as dead as the respected leader of the Albanian democratic uprising, Azem Hajdari. And if they were all gunned down in cold blood, doesn’t Rrustem Neza deserve to be believed when he says that deporting him to Albania would place him in reasonable fear for his life?

NOTE: edited 7/23, correcting number of children–gm