Category: Uncategorized

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
Posted with permission of author

May 1st is coming up, and I am ready for the Immigrant Rights March (National Mobilization to Support Immigrant Workers) with farm workers and service employees and progressive students and church people and others. The march will be loud but will also be, I hope, the beginning of a new deliberative process about ongoing immigration — a deliberative process as opposed to hysterical radio talk-show rants about “us versus them.”
Marches are necessary for someone like me — I am a pacer by nature, as my students will attest — and have felt cramped up and frightened by the shrill radio sounds in our country. I need to walk outside, hear people yelling for “justicia” and immigration reform and not vindictiveness. On May 1st, starting at 6:00 P.M. in McAllen , at Municipal Park (Bicentennial and Pecan), I will carry a sign and know that all over the country people are walking for justice. I will feel part of a better, more deliberative nation emerging.

I have mulled over what sign to carry. I could make my own: “International Labor Rights,” “NAFTA is the Problem, not Immigrants,” “Stop the Militarization of the Border– it’s scaring me,” or “Let America be a Nation of Immigrants.” Or maybe I will simply carry one end of the People for Peace and Justice banner, like last year. Or maybe I’ll just proudly carry a Farm Worker (UFW and LUPE) flag — they often hand them out.

(Although I wouldn’t make such a wordy protest sign, I can also picture myself carrying this one: “Shut down the Ugly Raymondville Immigration Detention Center and the Other Private, For-profit, Detention Centers in Texas .” But it’s not very catchy and uses too much marker ink.)

My latest sign idea is a simple one, “No War and No Wall.” We have been treated, during the Bush regime, to shrill knee-jerk calls for support of the Iraq War and for support of a militarized border wall facing Mexico . I think they’re connected. America has had a “preemptive” (non-collaborative) policy of war and wall, a punitive policy of war and wall, and a paranoid policy. (The world out there is hostile and coming our way, we’ve been told by Bush and Fox News.)

Consider this. When I protested the Raymondville immigration detention facility a few weeks ago, which I reported in this column, I was startled by the surreal concentration camp look to the place: barbed wire and brown balloon tents, with white vans in front labeled “Homeland Security.” I was suspicious back when Bush first proposed that “Homeland” term for his giant spy and enforcement agency, because the name sounded like it would appeal to the neurotic Aryans of Weimar Germany. I remember wondering what it would morph into. And there it was, in Raymondville.

I think my sign “No War and No Wall” is perfect for the immigration march. Just as the War has been a disaster, so will Bush’s militarized, paranoid immigration policies bring chaos.

Concerning the war disaster, last week I attended the presentation of a world renowned woman activist, Yanar Mohammed from Iraq , who spoke at South Texas College . She has set up a series of shelters in Iraq , shelters protecting women in the disintegrating society. Iraq is now a disaster zone and getting worse, with run-amuck militias and revenge killings.

She recently wrote, “It is heartbreaking to me to see the return of extreme anti-woman practices that we had not seen for many decades. When I grew up in Iraq , women went to school. Educated professional working women [She herself has two degrees in architecture] were a part of our society. Today, a woman risks her life simply by going to the grocery store.”

Violence against women has reached epidemic proportions with the Islamist militias, the sectarian violence (stirred up by vacillating US policies) and the economic disruption. She has helped form a veritable “underground railroad’ to help protect vulnerable and targeted women in Iraq .

McAllen ’s Monitor reported her speech: “Some of the women her organization helps have been raped by Iraqi and American soldiers, Mohammed said. Other women have been kidnapped and made to live their lives in brothels. Mohammed told of a 14- year-old girl who was kidnapped, taken to a brothel and escaped before being found by organization advocates.”

There is so much chaos in Iraq , with over a million displaced people and with two million previously productive Iraqis having fled the country, that there are 30 women executed monthly in Iraq by militias, some by “honor” killings and sectarian revenge.

War ravaged Iraq is the image my sign will raise at the immigration march. We need national deliberation on immigration, not Bush’s walls, zones, and militarized chaos.

By Rep. Ciro D. Rodriguez (D-TX)
Congressional Record
June 12, 2007 (H6283-H6284)

My first and most important objective that I would like to address is regarding homeland security grants that would hopefully help the border cities and the law enforcement personnel that are on the border such as the police and the sheriff, the first responders, for stemming the tide of drug and human trafficking along our border. Chairman Price was instrumental in working with me and helping us to obtain $15 million for funding for Operation Stonegarden, a program that this administration failed to seek funding for and which had previously been funded in 2006.

Operation Stonegarden began as a successful pilot program in 2005 and helped 14 border States on these issues. The initiative gave the States the flexibility that the Department grants provided to enhance coordination among not only the States but local community and Federal law enforcement agencies that are drastically needed. This pilot program resulted in an estimated 214 State, local, and tribal agencies working 36,755 man-days on various public safety as well as border security operations on the border.

The budgetary constraints imposed on the committee precluded more funding in this area, but the bill language sends a clear message that programs such as Stonegarden are viable and will serve as a funding aid to the law enforcement communities along the border.

Stonegarden did not receive funding last year. The funding assists local authorities with operational costs and equipment purchases that contribute to border security. The funds are intended to be used for operations involving both narcotics and human trafficking.

The second objective regarding the fencing and the barriers that are necessary, I want to thank the chairman also for working with us in making sure we provide these types of barriers in an appropriate manner.

I believe that the bill reported by the full committee and under consideration by the full House represents the most viable approach that can be utilized. I want to thank the chairman for allowing us to be able to present this bill. And as you well know, Mr. Chairman, this is a bill that is critical, an area that we have been lacking in this country where the administration has failed to provide the appropriate resources on the border. So I want to thank the chairman for allowing us to do that.

The Showdown between American Democracy and American Tyranny of the ICE age…

Friday, April 13

9am – Press Conference at Texas Capitol, Speaker’s Committee Rm 2w.6

10am – Depart Capitol Steps

Route: Turn left, walk east on 11th Street to Rosewood; Turn left, walk past ACLU’s office. Continue on Rosewood which turns into Oak Springs Drive; Turn left, walk north on Springdale Rd; Stop at Springdale and 290.

Saturday, April 14

9:30am: Begin at Manor City Hall in downtown Manor (W. Parsons and S. Burnet); North on Old TX-20 which is also Hwy. 973; North on 973 to Rice’s Crossing (Hwy. 973 and FM 1660)

Sunday, April 15

9:30am, Start at Rice’s Crossing (Hwy. 973 and FM 1660); Turn right on 79; Turn left on S. Main; Turn left on Rio Grande Rd.; Turn left on Doak St .; Turn left on Welch St. to the Hutto Vigil VII in front of the Hutto prison camp;

Hutto Vigil VII: until 8:00pm. Like some previous Hutto Vigils…this will be a Sunset-Candlelight vigil. Let’s break the ICE. Let’s turn up the heat and melt the ICE.

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

Two important demonstrations took place last weekend, one nearby, in Raymondville
outside their immigration detention center, and one up in Taylor, Texas near
Austin, where the infamous T. Don Hutto detention center is located.

***

At the Raymondville detention center, there were 75 protesters, and they received very good TV coverage on one Valley-wide TV station and adequate coverage in the Harlingen daily paper. Univision was there, and perhaps more media. The demonstration was important because it publicly linked several Valley organizations on this issue.

Some endorsers that were listed on a leaflet: People for Peace and Justice, MEChA, Pax Christi, Student Farmworker Alliance, La Uni*n Del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), Border Ambassadors, a Mennonite community in San Juan and another in Brownsville, the “base community” of San Felipe de Jesus Catholic Church in Brownsville, Proyecto Libertad, UTPA Environmental Awareness Club, Veterans for Peace, Foro Socialista del Valle, El Tribuno, and Christian Peacemakers. For sure, this is not everyone in the Valley, but it is a big enough coalition to begin reaching everyone if the Raymondville Center is not shut down soon.

It was a lively demonstration with speakers denouncing the for-profit complex — it treats the immigrants, who have not been convicted of a crime, as convicted criminals. According to one speaker, because two thousand people are held behind razor wire in those big puffy tents, Raymondville can boast of having America’s largest concentration camp.

At one point demonstrators heard there were detainees in a corner exercise yard, so they took the bullhorns and walked down the road about a thousand feet. They called out and could see heads bobbing up as some prisoners leaped up to peak over the six foot wall and rolled wire.

***

The other demonstration was in Taylor, Texas at the Hutto detention center, which is particularly odious because it holds children. There were 500 protestors. I interviewed Sarnata Reynolds, the national immigration rights director of Amnesty International in Washington, DC, who attended the vigil.

Author: What primary commitment or concern led your group to support this demonstration?

Reynolds: Amnesty International USA is very concerned about the detention of children, asylum seekers, and migrants in prison-like facilities. It is hard to imagine a time that it might be appropriate to dress children in prison gear, deny them access to adequate schooling and recreation, or threaten that they’ll be separated from their parents if they don’t behave, but these are exactly the reports coming out of Hutto.

If a broad spectrum of United States citizens were aware that children are being incarcerated for months and years at a time, the outcry would be even larger. We hope that this World Refugee Day event educates more people about the U.S. policy of detaining children, and spurs on a growing movement against this practice in Texas.

Author: Thank you for your work.

Also in the crowd at Hutto was the director of District 7 LULAC, Rita Gonzales-Garza. I asked for a quick interview.

Author: What concern or commitment brought you here?

Gonzales-Garza: I was drawn to this Hutto vigil, first, because of my extreme disgust with our federal government’s practice, especially under the current administration, of imprisoning persons who are seeking asylum or who are here to search for a better life for their family.

Secondly, this practice has become a multi-million-, if not billion-, dollar industry. Prior to this administration, certain immigrants and most asylum seekers who were apprehended were not imprisoned; they were required to register with the U.S. government and provide information on their residence and information on other persons who would know their residence. They could stay in this country until their immigration hearing took place and the outcome was determined. Now they are imprisoned, for profit.

This detention/prison center in Taylor is a horrendous violation of human rights because here it jails women and their children. How can a government that used to be a “beacon of justice” do such a thing? It is all about the mighty dollar and putting that dollar in the hands of friends and supporters of the administration. Even Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, with whom Vice President Cheney is associated, has gotten into the business of building private prisons for immigrants and asylum seekers.

Author: And the companies operating the prisons get paid $3,000 a month — and I’ve heard way higher figures — per detainee.

Gonzales-Garza: Yes. It’s a multi-million dollar, perhaps billion dollar, industry now. All in the name of “securing our borders from terrorists.” What a sham!

Author: Any new plans?

Gonzales-Garza: Yes, we are beginning a campaign to educate Congress about this issue and to press this issue with presidential candidates.

Author: Good. Thank you.