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In reply to a question about the status of the legal battle to win the freedom of the Ibrahim and Suleiman families, Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson sent the following email on Dec. 29:

I cannot “set aside” these cases, because I am too disgusted by the U.S. government’s brutality and cynicism, but I am at an impasse. First we filed and followed up with telephone calls for administrative
remedies. The filing fees were substantial. Now the administrative agencies have told us to go hang.

It is clear what the next step has to be, but I cannot take it because it is such a large one. The next step is a suit for habeas corpus and other relief invoking constitutional and international law protections for
children, and for the diabetic father. You do not file federal suits unless you are ready for a long and nasty battle.
If I file suit in the Oklahoma and Texas district courts, I will have to concentrate more time and money on them than I have or can make available. There is no point in my filing the suits–taking the next step–if I will be
unable to complete them. I doubt anyone else can litigate them as competently as I can, but that does not mean somebody else could not do a good job.

I already have put a huge amount of free work into these cases because what the government is doing is unconscionable, and I am willing to continue at half my usual fee or less, but I am at the end of my financial
string. It will do nobody any good, except the DHS, if I go bust and have to abandon the suit anyway.

The gist of it is, the next step is a big one and requires somebody with resources to take it. If the resources come my way, I am eager to fight. If somebody else who already has the resources wants to pick up the
fight, sign and file the pleadings, research the domestic and international case law, glean the evidence, conduct discovery, and travel to the hearings, I am ready to help that lawyer however I can. But nothing would be worse than doing a half-assed job or being unable to finish the litigation once it is begun, regardless of who the lawyer is.

John Wheat Gibson, P.C.

PlanetFlamenco

Teye is a Flamenco artist who along with Jay Johnson-Castro is returning to the Hutto prison camp Christmas Eve for a vigil–a Flamenco vigil. The Texas Civil Rights Review sent a few questions via email:

TCRR: I hear you are from Europe, and that your family has had experience with fascism.

Teye: I am actually from the Netherlands: My father was a soldier in Rotterdam when it was bombed by the Germans in May 1940 (my father was 40 years my senior, and I’m 49 now).
My father nor mother ever allowed even one ugly word in our house on Germans: he always said that the Germans were by and large brainwashed and misinformed by the nazi fanatics. He spent months in German captivity; then was allowed to return home, then when the nazis started to deport capable men to do forced labor, he like many others disappeared underground and hid out. He never was discovered nor betrayed and survived the war intact as did my mother.

We will need to separate the term FASCISM from the idea “everything bad”. Fascism is basically defined thus: the government works closely together with
the big corporations and they mutually enlarge each others power. It is the pyramid of power: a broad and obedient and mis/disinformed base, narrowing towards
the top where the power sits and the information is made. The nazis definitely fit the description!

TCRR: What is your motivation for going back to the Hutto jail Christmas Eve?

Teye: My motivation to do the Christmas Eve event, which will be really more of a Gypsy Campfire Flamenco gathering, only without the campfire of course,
but with candles, is that I want to bring hope to especially the children inside.

I’ve tried to contact the prison to offer a free of charge flamenco performance inside, for the children and their parents and for the staff, but I never heard
back from them. So we will do it outside. I am positive that the rumor will travel to the inside of the facility that there are some people right by the entrance who choose to celebrate their Christmas Eve in support, so
that the children and their families may know that they are neither forgotten nor ignored.

And let us not forget: they must feel forgotten inside: The lawyer who is representing them tells us that SEVEN INMATES HOLD VALID IMMIGRATION VISAS ISSUED BY THE US GOVERNMENT, but since there is no effective appeal in the system of for-profit private prisons, they are still being held in detention!

TCRR: How are people responding to your call for a Christmas Eve vigil?

Teye: Reactions from people have been enormously positive: I am getting emails in from all over the world, pledging support and dedicating a virtual candle. And that is the second idea behind this Gypsy Candlelight performance: to raise awareness via the grassroots alternative circuit: and it is working.

TCRR: Why go back to Hutto jail only a week after the first vigil?

Teye: We have GOT TO KEEP THE BALL ROLLING until this situation changes for the better.

On Christmas Eve we celebrate the joyful birth of Jesus: the big ray of Hope Peace and Sunshine that was given to ALL humankind! The Gypsies have always said that God created this world for ALL of us!
And I do not believe that [means] incarcerating children. So we need to keep at it.

On September 11, 2001, there was Osama bin Laden and his bitter opponent Saddam Hussein. And then there was one. The death penalty is awful enough, and we are opposed to it. But something about the speed of the execution of Saddam Hussein is nauseating, even for an observer living in a death-penalty state.–gm

Email from Jay Johnson-Castro

A great Christmas Eve to y’all…

One last e-mail before I hit the road for [1400 Welch St.] Taylor, Texas …for the Christmas Eve Vigil…for the mom’s and especially the children that are imprisoned in the Hutto prison camp.
We’re grateful that folks like y’all are picking up on the travesty being committed on American soil just 35 miles from the Capitol of Texas.

We did the walk and held the first vigil just one week ago…and look at the momentum that grass roots America has made. With this vigil this Christmas Evening…we will fan the flames of American outrage against the fascism that has crept into this country of immigrants. We are exposing Chertoff & Company. We are exposing the immigration-corporation complex…in which children and their desperate mothers are imprisoned like hardened criminals.

I know it’s short notice…but if anyone can spare an hour…from 5p-to 6p…you would be able to share in the demise of the perverted mentality that would rejoicingly exploit children for obscene profits. One hour…plus travel time…and you can be back with your friends and families for a warm and cozy Christmas Eve. At least the children and their moms…the media…and especially Chertoff & Company will know that there are Americans who not only genuinely care…but will fight with the power of democracy and all of our freedoms of speech and press and assembly…until these immoral and criminal acts are fully exposed, the children and their moms are freed…and real justice stares the real criminals in the face.

If you can make it…please bring a candle…

Jay