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email from Jay Johnson-Castro

Just got this. I’m repulsed.

Rather than heed the voice of the people…the Raymondville concentration camp will be expanded…by 50%. 1,000 More beds.

1,000 more beds? Hell! One thousand more refugees and immigrants every day. None of which have ever been charged with a crime. $5000 of our tax money will be paid per month per immigrant to “for-profit” MTC and $2.25 per person per day…time 3000…to Willacy County due to political corruption. The people commiting this crime against humanity are the real criminals…the real “illegals”.

Please feel free to share this with your respective groups…

In solidarity…

Jay

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ICE plans for expansion

Allen Essex (Valley Morning Star)

July 12, 2007 – 10:14PM

RAYMONDVILLE — Willacy County officials have taken preliminary steps to build a 1,000-bed expansion to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.

Planning for three permanent buildings is in the works, rather than additional Kevlar dome tent-type structures that are used now, Willacy County Sheriff Larry Spence said.

“They’ve been having meetings with Homeland Security and ICE,” said Spence.

“They’re wanting to expand. They’re waiting (for federal approval). At least they’re laying the groundwork for it.”

District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra said county commissioners violated the Texas Open Government Act this week by discussing the detention center in closed session and then voting for it afterward without discussion.

Guerra said Thursday that commissioners illegally approved the “$40 million project.”

In a letter to Gov. Rick Perry last month, County Judge Eliseo Barnhart said commissioners have had to hire outside attorneys to advise them because Guerra hasn’t attended a county meeting for months.

Spence said Guerra did attend part of Monday’s meeting, but said Guerra, the district and county attorney, has rarely attended county meetings in the past several months.

Commissioner Eddie Chapa would only confirm that an “economic development” item was passed Monday after discussion in closed session.

That item was listed as No. 5 on Monday’s Commissioners Court agenda:

“EXECUTIVE SESSION as authorized by Texas Government Code Section 551.087, discussion and consideration of an Economical Development Project and approving an amendment to the agreement between Willacy County, U.S. Homeland Security, and Immigration Customs Enforcement Contract No. DROIGSA-06-0031HSCEOPTG00004 and authorize the County Judge to execute the agreement.”

Meeting minutes provided by County Clerk Terry Flores show that Chapa made the motion to approve the agreement, which was seconded by County Judge Pro Tem Emilio Vera.

Commissioner Aurelio Guerra abstained from voting. Barnhart was absent.

Neither Barnhart or Vera could be reached for comment.

When the first phase of the federal detention enter opened in August 2006, federal officials said it was designed to hold 500 illegal immigrants.

Carl Stuart, spokesman for Management and Training Corp., the company that operates the Willacy detention center under a contract with ICE, said he could not comment on future plans at the center without clearance from federal officials.

ICE spokeswoman Nina Pruneda in San Antonio said media inquries about the project have been forwarded to officials in Washington.

There is nothing like a straight shot of classical economics to keep your attitude up, and Henry C K Liu is a mighty fine distiller of that spirit:

By making the rules of development treat capital as more scarce compared with labor and thus the more valuable factor of production, owners of capital are logically justified in receiving a larger share of the benefits from development.

. . . The only problem with this perverted cost-benefit approach to welfare economics is that it is not true. Optimum development requires capital and labor to be assigned fair and equitable value so that supply and demand can be balanced and for all human lives to be treated with equality . . .

All the economies of the world are competing in global markets by pushing their domestic wages and worker benefits down in search of globalized “growth”. The global market has turned into an arena for universal voluntary slavery to serve global capital.

In Liu’s work, we find delightful reminders why justice is, as Socrates said, expedient — and why Americans have no business blaming Mexicans for turning North America into a grazing ground of human sheep.–gm

By Rep. John Carter (R-TX)
Congressional Record
June 12, 2007 (H6271)

I am concerned, and I wish to express the concern that in the appropriations process this year there is a lot that is going to be done in the dark. In this particular bill, it is a very small item as compared to what is coming down the road at us, but there is $16 million for bridges which we won’t know exactly how that is going to be spent for this House to examine it, but it will be “air dropped” in in the conference committee. That is an indicator of what we are looking at as we deal with Member-initiated spending with the nickname of “earmarks” in the future.

At present, the plan is to set aside the money but not tell us how to spend it, and, oh, by the way vote for it. But I think in the last election the American people told us that they wanted sunlight on this process. They wanted to be able to see how we spend our money, including they wanted our names put on the things that were individually requested. In fact, the Republican House passed such a rule, to put the names on every earmark.

Yet we see in a very small part in this bill, and much expanded in the bills to follow, that there is going to be no sunshine on this process. In fact, it is going to be inside closed doors in the conference committee where there is really not a whole lot this House can do about it.

With increased nonemergency spending of $81.4 billion, these are issues that American people want to know about it. They want their elected Representatives to take a look at it and be able to figure out how the money is being spent. We debated this process the last session of Congress. We made it important to us as individual Members. We talked about it and discussed it and voted on it.

Now, all of a sudden, we have a process that has gone behind closed doors in secrecy, and as we vote these things out, as Members of Congress we are voting a bill which has a fund set-aside which we are not told how that fund is going to be spent. We are told it could be published over the break. This is inexcusable.

Whether your issue is corporate takeover, prisoners’ rights, refugees’ rights, or children’s
rights, we must speak out against this private, for-profit institution! As Iraqis, Somalians,
Palestinians, Central and South Americans and so many more war-torn countries deliver their
traumatized masses to our shores, are we to torment them further by imprisoning them? Join us
in this audible demonstration to prisoners that we stand in solidarity with them.
Your presence makes a difference.

Saturday, July 21

Return to Hutto Taylor, TX

Free the Children

11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 1001 Welch Dr.

Turn this sadness

INTO THIS SHY S M I L E !

Join us in demanding, “No Child Left Behind Bars!

What: Hutto Round 2 with the Texas Indigenous Council, CAFHTA and more!

When: Saturday, June 23, all day, with speakers from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: Hutto Detention Facility, 1001 Welch Rd, Taylor, TX, 76574

(From Dallas: South on I-35 and East on Highway 79; about 30 minutes NE of Austin)

DON’T FORGET: Water, Signs, Hats, Snacks, Sunscreen, Umbrellas, did I mention WATER!

Visit groups.yahoo.com/group/CAFHTA/ or email createhope4free@gmail.com