Category: Uncategorized

By Greg Moses

This strange tale begins with an eye on the Abilene Reporter News of March 15, just checking to see what might be happening on the Texas Rolling Plains. And this is where we see a heated letter to the editor in which a local landlord is advised to move his holdings to Iraq. That way he won’t have to hear the word “Jesus” again.

Curious about what might have provoked such advice, we turned back the pages of the Abilene Reporter News to Feb. 17, where we found a letter from 80-year-old Seymour Beitscher who complained that the so-called Christian identity of Abilene can be offensive. “It is offensive when we, non-Christians, must endure any prayer ending in the name of Jesus Christ during a public affair,” wrote Beitscher, identifying himself as Jewish.

There have been two other letters responding to Beitscher. “This country is a Christian nation, founded on Christian beliefs,” says a correspondent on Feb. 28. Not so fast, says a reply on March 14, the principles of the USA are not Christian, but Judeo-Christian. “The founding fathers were primarily Deists, not Christians; there were even a number of Jewish individuals involved as well.”

Turning back the pages of the Abilene Reporter News just a little further we find a Jan. 28 column by former editor Terri Burke where she describes newsroom drama over the publication of a story and photo about a notorious “Ghetto Party” at Tarleton State University, in which white students mocked the MLK holiday by dressing up as Aunt Jemima, etc.

Describing her part in the debate, Burke wrote: “We, I said, have a chance to show Abilene and the surrounding area that even folks who call themselves a ‘Christian, loving, welcoming community,’ open their arms, really, only to a limited few.”

As you can see, Burke’s reference to “Christian, loving, welcoming community” is a citation of a phrase often heard around Abilene town, home of Abilene Christian College, etc. Beitscher’s complaint slightly misreads Burke, since the columnist and former editor never says “we” say such things. She says “folks” do.

Nevertheless, Beitscher makes clear that he had heard “we Christians” too often in Abilene circles, and his complaint can be read as advice to the would-be tolerant. Please be mindful that we are not all Christians.

Which brings us to the gumballs. We picked up the gumball reference from the website of “The Traditional Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” In preparation for their rally at the Stephenville courthouse Saturday, they urge you to view the popular gumball video by Roy Beck.

For anyone schooled in basic fallacies of manipulation, the Beck gumball video offers a classic demonstration of selective framing. But fallacies work well on audiences nevertheless, as the video is diligent to show.

Some stories we dislike from the pit of the stomach. Klan stories. Stories about student “ghetto parties”. Tedious analysis of right wing propaganda. We’d rather not choose to write about such things, so long as we can spend time on other things closer to hard-fought civil rights frontiers.

There are two reasons why we will now move on. First, we agree that there is some danger is adding more coverage to areas adequately documented already. Second, there is something too easy about slamming the Klan, even the Traditional Christian kind.

If we are to repay tribute to MLK, we will remember what he wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

If we don’t miss the point that King makes, it will not be the bigot or Klan of the Rolling Plains that angers us most, but the white moderate these days.

Habeas Writ Details Allegations of Sexual Harassment, Medical Neglect, Overcrowding, and Isolation Techniques at Haskell

By Greg Moses

IndyMedia Austin , Houston / CounterPunch / DissidentVoice

There are different kinds of angry. Jay Johnson-Castro has tears in his eyes when he thinks about Suzi Hazahza at the immigration prison of Haskell, Texas.

But he’s not going to cry without doing something, so next week, Johnson-Castro will walk sixty miles from Abilene to Haskell and hold a vigil for the release of Suzi Hazahza and “anyone else” being mistreated for their desire to be American.
“I’m almost in tears trying to tell you how angry I feel,” says Johnson-Castro via cell phone as he drives home to Del Rio, Texas on Tuesday evening following three weeks of border protests.

He’s talking now about 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza and how she was subjected to body searches so humiliating that she has refused all visitors since early December. In a federal habeas corpus brief that will be filed Wednesday in Dallas, lawyers allege that both Suzi and her 23-year-old sister Mirvat have been subjected to repeated humiliations at the hands of prison guards. And according to Suzi’s fiance, the searches got even worse after his fifth visit when Suzi called begging not to be visited again.

“I can”t believe a fellow American would do that to anybody,” says Johnson-Castro. “But I’m afraid that’s the policy not the exception.”

Dallas real-estate developer Ralph Isenberg has seen the pattern before. It happened to his wife in Haskell under similar circumstances. She was imprisoned for immigration violations stemming from “bad lawyering” and once Isenberg started making noise about things he didn’t like at Haskell, his wife, too, was subjected to a full body-cavity search. To this day, he recalls the sound of the scream that the search provoked.

In protest of Suzi Hazahza’s treatment and confinement, Johnson-Castro will begin his freedom walk in Abilene on Wednesday, Feb. 28, arriving at the Rolling Plains prison in Haskell for a vigil on Texas Independence Day, March 3.

Ralph Isenberg says he’ll host Johnson-Castro in Dallas prior to the walk and introduce him to some people he has helped to free. During the walk, Isenberg pledges to join Johnson-Castro for a time, and if he can get enough people together, Isenberg plans to meet Johnson-Castro at the Haskell prison on Texas Independence Day with a bus full of people from Dallas.

“The good people of Haskell have no cognizance of what’s happening to sweet innocents such as Suzi Hazahza,” says Johnson-Castro. “And when they find out, they will rise up like the people of Williamson County did against the Hutto jail.”

Outrage at the jailing of children at the T. Don Hutto immigration jail keeps growing, joined this week by Dallas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and the chair of the House subcommittee on immigration Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). Both of them told WFAA reporter Brett Shipp that child imprisonment is flat wrong, period.

And grassroots distaste for immigrant jailings sparked a new protest Tuesday from honor students of Fort Worth’s Tarrant County Community College who are angry that a wonderful fellow student has also been tossed into Haskell jail for “bad lawyering.”

The Fort Worth protest for 19-year-old immigration prisoner Samantha Windschitt was covered by two Metroplex television networks, which is a story in itself.

“The good news is that all the insane things that have been happening in a disconnected way are finally being connected,” says long-time immigration activist Isenberg, reflecting on the protest and news coverage.

“I honest to gosh believe that everything we have done up to now is adding up to something bigger,” says Johnson-Castro, who helped ignite protest in mid-December with a walk from Austin to the Hutto prison. In Haskell, he plans to make the most of the date and place.

“It’s Texas Independence Day and it’s the Governor’s home town,” he says. “We’re going to be looking for freedom for people who are trying to be Americans. And we are going to Gov. Rick Perry’s hometown and free the people that need to be freed, and not incarcerate them so that someone can make a profit.”

The Rolling Plains immigration jail in Haskell is managed by the Emerald Companies of Louisiana (see: emeraldcompanies.com).

Meanwhile, New York attorneys Joshua Bardavid and Ted Cox are scheduled to arrive in Dallas Wednesday morning to file federal habeas corpus motions in behalf of Suzi, Mirvat, their father, and two brothers, who have all been held at Haskell since “armed and armored officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a middle of the night ‘raid’ ” of their home on November 2.

According to the habeas writ that will be filed Wednesday, the Hazazha family arrived in the USA with temporary visas from Jordan during the summer of 2001, and they applied for political asylum. Once the appeals for asylum had been exhausted, the family was placed under a warrant of deportation in the summer of 2005, but the family was not notified about the warrant until they were abducted during pre-election immigration raids known as “Operation Return to Sender.”

Suzi’s mother Juma and youngest brother Mohammad were released Feb. 6 from the Hutto jail only days before a media tour of that facility. But on Feb. 12 ICE filed notice that it intended to keep the rest of the family imprisoned at Haskell as “flight risks.” Where they would flee to is a good question since Jordan refuses to take the family back, while Palestine and Israel have declined to reply to requests for deportation there.

At Haskell prison, lawyers say housing units meant to house eight prisoners are frequently supplemented with sleeping bags or “boats” that allow for ten to fourteen prisoners to spend the night. When inspectors arrive, the “boats” are hidden from view.

When it comes to culturally appropriate food for Muslims, the prison serves eggs for breakfast, lunch, and supper. At prayer, the Hazahzas report they have been mocked by guards and threatened with suspension of prayer privileges.

Lawyers are only allowed to visit with prisoners for thirty minutes at a time, and only “within regular hearing distance of a stationed guard.” The three Hazahza men have never been allowed to live together “despite written requests to be united in the same, or adjacent, pods.”

17-year-old Ahmad Hazahza was placed in solitary confinement for three months because he was a minor at Haskell’s adults-only facility. When Ahmad began urinating blood shortly after his arrival, guards mocked his medical condition and “told him that he was ‘probably dying’ of a disease and that there was nothing that could be done to save him.” For ten days, his requests to see a doctor were denied.

Suzi and Mirvat spent the first 48 hours at Haskell sleeping on the concrete floor of a drunk tank, because no beds were available. They both ran high fevers for two weeks after that, and were also denied requests to see a doctor.

The sisters were “strip searched” each time they met with an outside visitor, including humiliating inspections that took place in full view of male guards “on multiple occasions.” When taken to the recreation area, they were made to “walk the gauntlet” in front of male prisoners who sexually harassed them with techniques that included exhibition and public masturbation–while guards laughed.

The prison population at Haskell is a mix of immig

rant detainees from Texas and felony convicts imported from Wyoming.

As with the attorneys’ previous habeas corpus motion filed in behalf of the Ibrahim family, Bardavid and Cox argue that ICE has had no legal authority to arrest or detain the family; therefore, the five Hazahzas should be immediately released.

Another family released from both Hutto and Haskell following the last Texas visit by Bardavid and Cox have been spending time on Isenberg’s schedule these days. Isenberg says he’s helping the Ibrahim family put together their immigration petitions so that they can stay and work. He says working with the family took several hours Tuesday. It’s not the first time he’s said that. And the way things look, it won’t be the last time–not for weeks to come.

Border Wall-ker presses for resolutions against splitting immigrant families

By Steve Taylor
Rio Grande Guardian (subscription)

BROWNSVILLE – Border Wall-ker Jay Johnson-Castro is asking border legislators and the cities he is currently walking through to follow the City of Chicago’s lead and pass resolutions opposing the separation of immigrant families.

Johnson-Castro, a bed and breakfast owner from Del Rio, said his latest walk, which started Wednesday morning in Brownsville, aims to “free the Huddled Masses.”

The walk takes in vigils outside the IES facility in Los Fresnos that houses immigrant children, and the Port Isabel Detention Center in Bayview, where immigrants from Massachusetts were recently sent.

The walk ends in Raymondville on Sunday at the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-run detention facility commonly referred to as Tent City….

[[Note: next week Jay Johnson-Castro will join Dallas vigils calling for reunification of the Hazahza family, which has been split since a roundup in early November.–gm]

Wednesday morning at nine o’clock Abilene time, Jay Johnson-Castro will begin his 60-mile walk to the Rolling Plains prison at Haskell, Texas, calling attention to the unjustified imprisonment of 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza, her 23-year-old sister Mirvat, 18-year-old brother Ahmad, and 60-year-old father Radi.

“The important thing here is simply that there are human rights being violated and human indignities being committed on people,” says Johnson-Castro, speaking by telephone from his motel room in Abilene.
As critics of the Hazahza imprisonment have pointed out, if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has concerns about the refugee family from Palestine, there are alternatives to locking them up in a harsh Texas prison.

“The other thing is that we are going to challenge the secrecy,” says Johnson-Castro. “Anytime you use taxpayers money, taxpayers have a right to know what’s going on. How many immigrants are being held at Haskell? Who are they? And how long have they been in there? We hope the media will take an interest in asking these questions and following the use of taxpayer money for these purposes.”

As usual, Johnson-Castro is prepared to go it alone with his trusted friend John Neck. They plan to hold a vigil near the Haskell prison Saturday afternoon.

“We’re into a major confrontation between the grassroots of America and those who abuse their power,” says Johnson-Castro. “The treatment of Suzi Hazahza at Haskell is an example and manifestation of that. And that is my focus. In order to go across the goal line, you accept that people are going to try to tackle you, but you keep going.”

The Texas Civil Rights Review has pledged to update the progress of the walk Wednesday night. Please stay tuned.