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The following email from Jay Johnson-Castro was received shortly before midnight Feb. 11, 2007. We have posted a photo album of the grave site that is described below–gm

Hola folks…

On the first day of Marcha Migrante II’s Border Caravan with the Enrique Morones entourage…we set out to demonstrate the amount of death that is a result of an immigration policy that is designed to do exactly what it is doing. It is not a “failed” policy. It is a successful policy. It is a policy to retain the Latin American and poor people from around the world in their poverty so that their poverty can be exploited. It is a policy to foment hysteria, prejudice and fear. If a desperate person tries to leave their poverty they will either be treated as criminals or dye trying to become Americans. If they are caught, they become a vehicle for private corporations to make obscene profits off of them…while they are treated like cockroaches.
Just two days ago…on Feb. 9th…three immigrants near Tucson , AZ were killed by gunman…and others kidnapped. One of those killed was a 15-y-o girl. In the Southwest (CA, AZ and NM) the Minutemen roam as vigilantes with impunity. Just yesterday the Minutemen announced that they would hunt down “illegals” in stores, apartments and wherever they could…right here on the Texas border in McAllen . While city, county and state police would not enter the jurisdiction of the Federal Government…the Minutemen seem to have a secret blessing.

With all of that being said…our Border Caravan’s first stop the day we started was in a rural town in southern California just 12 miles east of El Centro . Holtville, CA is in Imperial County . What we visited was merely being referred to as a cemetery of unidentified immigrants who supposedly died crossing the desert in the quest of their American dream.

All the time that I was there…I felt uncomfortable with the visual evidence. I grew up in Alaska where my father and I took 40 acres of woods and by working the earth for several years, we turned them into productive oat fields. We used every kind of equipment that one would use…from bulldozers to tractors, plows, disks and root rakes. While I was trying to understand the existence of this cemetery…I looked at the characteristics of the soil. You can read the soil. And what I read in this cemetery is far more morbid than what we’re dealing with at Hutto…or even the border wall.

Before discussing the soil characteristics…let me share a few features of the cemetery itself. First of all…the Holtville cemetery is a rather nice rural cemetery. Nicely mowed lawns, neatly maintained grave sites surrounded by old trees with stately character. There were flowers on many of the tombs or near the headstones. Not knowing what I was about to discover, I had a picture taken with Javier Aparisi, a BBC Mundo journalist who I’d come to know over the past four months because of my other activities. That picture is the first in the series that I’m sending you. I didn’t realize at the time that it would be the only one that showed the “Holtville” Cemetery…the community’s “public” cemetery. What lay behind the public cemetery is the subject of this e-mail.

The other cemetery….the one we were about to discover is hidden from the public view. It’s really a secret cemetery with no identification naming it. Here’s a few basic details that we learned. According to local folks, there are no public burials. The victims are buried around 2am or 3am…by women “slaves”. There is no evidence of a dignified burial with some kind of ceremony.

No one knows how many are really buried there. No one seems to know if they are…or how many are…men, women or children. Although one knowledgeable Latina says that there is a cemetery in San Diego with nothing but unidentified children in it.

No one knows if the buried persons are in caskets or body bags…or. No one knows whether autopsies were performed. No one knows exactly where the actual graves are. No one knows who pays for the burial…or how much.

I suspect that it’s similar to Hutto…in that the Federal government has cut a deal with the county to place their victims in a relatively unknown rural city. As we investigate this…we’ll let you know.

You have a series of pictures of this secret cemetery. In this cemetery you will see Mass graves…fresh ones…on American soil…!!! Graves of desperate immigrants who died…one way or the other…on their quest for the American dream.

I’d like to discuss the earth’s evidence with you. You’ll see that heavy equipment was there just before our arrival…perhaps within a day or two. There are two parts to this cemetery…which is divided by what would be a road. On the west side are swaths as if the entire cemetery was tilled and hundreds of bricks were laid systematically on top of the little furrows or rows. You can see the tractor tire tracks running over what are presumed to be corresponding graves.

Some bricks simply say “John Doe” and give a row number. Other bricks have names. Hey! I thought they were “unidentified”. Local concerned citizens had place white crosses with different thought on them…like “No olvidado”…”Not forgotten”. The Marcha Migrante entourage placed little cheap crosses made out of lattice like strips of wood. The soil in that part of the cemetery was freshly tilled and fluffy…and ours seemed to be the first foot prints. I couldn’t figure out how anyone would know exactly where a body was buried if heavy equipment had bladed the entire field.

As I was trying to relate to our purpose for being there…other than to recognize that fellow humans died a horrible death trying to become Americans…I keep being distracted by the other part of the cemetery. I found myself taking pictures from different angles. The entourage held a service while I was looking at earth work on the other side of the road…the east side. It looked like it was in excess of 150 feet long.

At the south end of this long…whatever it was…a long grave…it became evident that the grave was really just one grave. The entire length was done at the same time. It had about 4 dozen bricks laid on the western edge of it. The Border Caravan group had placed crosses at each brick. But this thing…this long grave…was fresh. This had just been done within a day or two. Why was it so fresh? Why were our foot prints the first ones? How do we really know how many were buried there? What could this be…other than a mass grave? See for yourselves.

In the background to the east of this mass grave you can see in one of the pictures that there are many acres with soil that is also recently worked … disked … perhaps at the same time. What is that extended field for? Is it part of this plot?

If you use your power of reason and find yourself asking questions … basic questions … about what your mind sees in these pictures … I hope you’ll help me crack this case wide open. I want to know about everyone that is supposed buried in this trench. How many men, women, children? Who pays to do this, who gets paid … and how much? Who did the autopsies … and how did these people die? Were there investigations at the site of the discovery of their bodies?

You might want to use you photo program and zoom in on these pictures. Let you mind go beyond the superficial. And … why were so many buried at the same time … like the day before we were there. Again … as you can readily see … ours were the first foot prints on this soil!

I will be going back to Holtville after we finish the Marcha Migrante II on the 17th … and the Border Wall-K against the wall in San Diego on the 18t

h. If anyone in the media, any photo-journalist of documentarian would like to join us … please let me know.

I beg that you share this information as we exposed the travesty of the border wall and the plight of the children in Hutto, the Ibrahims and the Suleimans. One way or the other this evidence must and will be shared with to the American public about these mass graves. Just as we have been successful at getting to the truth about Hutto and the Palestinian families out to the media … we will do it again … and again … and again! Until … we break the back of this tyranny.

In solidarity…

Jay

P.S. This work that we are doing is not being funded by an organization … and we do not have a 501. Maybe some day it will be the logical thing to do. Meanwhile, we are accomplishing this and covering our basic expenses our of personal expenses and…gratefully now … with the help that some of you have been kind enough to share. The meals and lodging are a blessing. If you know of an organization that funds this kind of effort … we’d appreciate knowing. With that help … we’ve been able to push forward and accomplish things to the benefit of many … and for that help … I deeply thank you. jjj

P.S.S. http://www.texascivilrightsreview.org is already covering the Mass Graves story. jjj

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The Border Ambassador

Connecting.the.dots…making.a.difference…

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Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

Del Rio , Texas , USA
Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila , Mexico

In 2003, Good Jobs First and Grassroots Leadership collaborated on a 56 page report about Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Get the pdf report from the Good Jobs First Corporate Research Project. Grassroots Leadership, you may recall, spurred the isssue of the T. Don Hutto prison camp by organizing a mid-December vigil. Jay J. Johnson-Castro walked to that vigil from the Texas Capitol, and the rest is history.
Thanks again to Jay J. Johnson-Castro for sending along the link.–gm

Commentary

On Dec. 15, 2006 Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson wrote an email to a Texas reporter explaining that some of the families imprisoned at the T. Don Hutto jail for immigrants had in fact entered the USA legally with visas.

We are grateful that Gibson’s email was circulated on Dec. 18 by Del Rio businessman Jay Johnson-Castro, because otherwise there is a good chance nobody would know about three Palestinian families who are serving terms of indefinite jail time in Texas (and Oklahoma) jails.
On the other hand, try a news search at Google for the key words Perry and Confederate. We tried the search this morning and got 101 hits. If you want to get real attention from Texas media, just put on a Confederate flag t-shirt and play your guitar at the governor’s inauguration.

And so we offer profound apologies to the three Palestinian families–Ibrahim, Suleiman, and Hazahza–for the awful neglect and abuse that they continue to suffer at the hands of officials and reporters in Texas.

Word comes now that two USA citizens–the 4-year-old twin daughters of the Suleiman family–will shortly be deported with their parents, because the USA has not a heart big enough to share with this refugee family. We hope out loud that in the next few days, someone with authority and compassion will lift a finger to change these things.

Meanwhile, we are grievously dismayed by the Governor. When the Governor was informed that people were offended by the display of a confederate flag at his inaugural ball, what did he do? He called the person who displayed the flag in order to commiserate and communicate his solidarity.

We would much prefer a government in Texas that did not imprison children, a media that did not ignore international refugees, and a Governor who would pick up the phone and apologize to Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe. But we have none of these things.

In this seventh year of the 21st Century, we have only the same old news, made increasingly worse by our expectations that things should have gotten better by now.–gm

The governor also called over the weekend, ending the conversation by telling Nugent to “give ’em hell,” Nugent was quoted as saying.–AP

Were Three Texas Families Picked Up and Imprisoned without Legal Basis?

By the Texas Civil Rights Review

Activists are looking for pressure points to free three Texas families of Palestinian heritage ages 5 to 61 who have been imprisoned pending deportation since early November, 2006. For example, Diana Claitor of texasjailproject.org posed a question that the Texas Civil Rights Review forwarded to Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson.

In Gibson’s answers to the question and follow-up, we learn about the difference between “the legal basis” of state imprisonment and why the state is “picking people up.”
Indeed, the gap between “legal basis” and “picking people up” has grown wide enough that, as Claitor observes in her final reply, Congressional influence seems doubtful.

Appended to this discussion below is Gibson’s answer to activist Jay J. Johnson-Castro’s question about how long this nonsense can go on. The answer is that when the USA “picks you up,” there may be nothing you can do for six months.

In protest to this emerging system of immigration gulag, Johnson-Castro has become co-organizer of a caravan that will travel the length of Mexico’s northern border with the USA, Feb. 2-18. The Texas Civil Rights Review has offered to post all updates from caravan organizers.

Meanwhile, attorney Rebecca Bernhardt of the American Civil Liberties Uni*n reports that jail conditions have changed since protests and publicity began in mid-December—-gm (Greg Moses, TCRR editor).

***

Here is the Claitor-Gibson correspondence of Jan. 8-9, 2007:

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From an email circulated via Austin, TX CodePink:

An attorney is asking me on what basis (legally) are they being detained? Can anyone help me on this?

Thanks,
Diana Claitor

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On Jan 8, 2007, at 1:10 PM, John Wheat Gibson wrote:

Diana,

Yours is an interesting question. If I were being asked by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, I would answer that there is no legal basis for the detention of the children. I would say it defies the jus cogens of international law and fifth and eighth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. I also would cite a recent Fifth Circuit decision that says the Constitution protects aliens from abuse by government officers. That does not mean that the DHS will not have plenty of statutory and case law to cite to the contrary. In fact, there is a Fifth Circuit decision that says an attorney should be punished for basing an appeal on international law in the Fifth Circuit.

The definitive answer to your question will appear in the brief I or the ACLU will file with the Court of Appeals. I have not done all the research yet. I am sure there will be nasty problems with new provisions of the Patriot Act, Real ID Act, and Military Commissions Act with which I am not yet familiar. Additionally, there is the contention of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government in recent years that it is restrained by no law at all. If you know any law clerks willing to research the matter and share their work with me, I would be very grateful. Of course, ultimately what the court thinks is the legal basis or lack of legal basis is what will determine the fate of the families.

John Wheat Gibson

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John:

Thanks for your analysis of this situation. The decision that an attorney could be punished for basing an appeal on international law is certainly chilling news, especially in light of the unlimited power of the executive branch.

What we were wondering (perhaps not clearly stated) is why were these families picked up?

Thanks very much,
Diana Claitor

***

Diana,

You asked “on what basis (legally) are they being detained.” Now you ask “why were these families picked up?” Those two questions are not even similar to each other. I am no better qualified to answer your new question than you are, since it requires reading the sadistic mind of Gestapo Chief Michael Chertoff.

My speculation is that the families were “picked up” as part of a public relations offensive to prepare the American public for escalation of war in the middle east, including a Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem, even more massive slaughter of Iraqi civilians by aerial bombardment, and nuclear aggression against Iran. The public relations analysis is as follows:

Since people hate to believe that their own father would lie to them or do evil things, they seek alternative explanations when they witness atrocities. See Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. They conflate their political leadership with their paternal protector. Therefore they reason that the Palestinian families must in some way be culpable, or the Furher would not have had them arrested. It follows, therefore, that the Furher’s actions were necessary to protect us, however regrettable they may have been. Furthermore, seeing that the Furher is willing to put small children in prison, we can infer that the government acts with impunity and recognizes no legal or moral restrictions on its power. You and I, therefore, had better keep our heads down, remain silent, and hope that Mr. Chertoff does not notice us.

If you would like to know the current legal status of the detainees pursuant to statute and regulation, it is as follows: The families entered the US legally as visitors. They applied for asylum. Their asylum applications were denied. Their appeals were denied, and they were ordered deported. Years after the deportation orders became final, Chertoff sent his Gestapo to arrest the families and take them to prison. That is where they are now. It is customary to send families a notice to report for deportation, called a “bag and baggage letter,” when the warrant of deportation is served by mail. That procedure allows the families to depart in an orderly way at their own expense. However, it is useless as an instrument of terrorism, whereas arresting families and imprisoning children shows all of us who is boss. That, IMHO, is why the warrants were not served by mail, and Palestinian families are singled out for nocturnal Gestapo raids on their homes and prolonged incarceration of small children.

Both of the families I represent have motions to reopen asylum proceedings pending at the Board of Immigration Appeals. The motion to stay the deportation of the Ibrahim family has been denied by the BIA and that denial is the subject of a petition for review to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The BIA has not ruled on the motion to stay the deportation of the Suleiman family. Formal applications to delay deportation (form I-246) were filed with the Department of Homeland Stupidity for each member of both families and all have been denied. No appeal is available from the denials.

John Wheat Gibson, P.C.

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John:

Thanks very much. Yes, our police state is coming along nicely–and of course what’s most discouraging is how few people care, even if you tell them. Much of the public does seem to respond to fear-mongering so, as the press has noted, the puppet’s speech tomorrow will be full of scary stories.

I’m calling my representatives in Congress about these families—-Lloyd Doggett might actually try to help but I doubt he has any pull in this situation.

If I hear of any way to help you in your work for them, I’ll email for sure.

Best,
Diana

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Follow-up email from John Wheat Gibson (Jan. 13, 2007)

Mr. Suleiman told me he cannot stand any more and wants right away to be deported to Jordan. He has been in solitary confinement since December 20, (yesterday, when I finally found him and telephoned him, he said was the
first time in 24 days he was allowed out of his 8×5 foot cell) apparently to punish him for telling me on the telephone about conditions in the Garvin County, Oklahoma Jail. [Mr. Suleiman was moved to the Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Jail, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and that is where attorney Gibson found him.]

Ayman, the son, having grown up in Texas, being a high school senior, does not want to go. Apparently the BICE [Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] now has the travel documents from Jordan it needed to deport the Suleimans, and is making airline arrangements. Because Mr. Suleiman asked me not to, I have not pressed the BIA [Board of Immigration Appeals] to grant the motion to stay deportation that I filed for him last year. The BIA will dismiss it as moot after the deportation.

The Ibrahims almost surely will not be deported. They cannot be deported to Jordan because Jordan refuses to cooperate with the BICE. They cannot legally be deported through Israel, although in the past Israel has assisted the BICE illegally to deport people to the Occupied Territories.

Considering how hard Israel has been trying in the past couple of years to finish the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, I do not see why Tel Aviv would help BICE send the Ibrahims back to Palestine, unless they just want to make sure they can kill them.

In any event, there remains not even a pretense of legality in the continuing incarceration of the Ibrahims. The BICE officers will review their detention after 90 days (I calculate February 1) but, because they work for the sadistic racist Chertoff, will almost surely refuse to release them.

After 180 days, they must be released pursuant to the US Supreme Court decision in the Zadvydas case, but since the monarchists have packed the courts, there is a chance the BICE (executive branch) will fight to keep them in jail anyway. Still, I intend to file the Zadvydas habeas corpus petition after 180 days, since it is a straightforward legal argument based on established law, and I can base the pleadings on pleadings that I have filed previously with good results….

A more serious challenge to the detention of children generally, however, must be filed by somebody like the ACLU, who has the resources to do it right and see it through to the end. At this juncture, it is more than I can manage, since if I undertook it I would find myself practicing law out of a shopping cart under a bridge.

I do appreciate your disseminating my letter to [Austin American-Statesman Reporter Juan] Castillo. I think it aroused the interest of many folks, and it appears the bureaucrats are receiving lots of e-mails, letters, and phone calls as a result. There is a lot of media interest, including San Antonio Express, Houston Chronicle, and nationally In These Times and New American Media. Of course, the San Antonio Express and Houston Chronicle reporters assume these children must be terrorists, since the king can do no wrong.

John Wheat Gibson, P.C.