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The article below appeared in a print-only publication. See also Tilda Sosaya’s essential expose of prison privateers at Prison Legal News–gm.

By Jane Chamberlain
Nokoa: The Observer
by permission of the author

More than four hundred demonstrators gathered on Saturday, June 23, for a vigil in front of T. Don Hutto prison in Taylor where refugee families with children are being incarcerated for the crime of seeking residence in the U.S. The children are treated like criminals incarcerated after convictions: wakened for breakfast at 5:30 a.m., deprived of privacy for personal care (open commodes in cells), and threatened with separation from their mothers if they misbehave or play too loudly.

Photo by Kenneth Koym

Saturday’s event was sponsored by Amnesty International and cosponsored by three Texas coalitions made up of diverse organizations including American Friends Service Committee, NAACP, Brown Berets of San Antonio, Cesar E. Chavez March for Justice, Council of American Islamic Relations, Fuerza Unida, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, MADRES, Muslim Legal Fund of America, PODER, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Southwest Workers Union, Texas Civil Rights Project, Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, Texas Indigenous Council, Workers Defense Project / Proyecto Defensa Laboral, and others.

Crowded into the easement of a two-lane road between a railroad track on the north and the prison to the south, the demonstrators demanded that ICE/DHS close Hutto and adopt less repressive and less expensive ways to address these “crimes” that are often bureaucratic glitches caused by errors and lapses on the part of lawyers, courts, and the immigration hierarchy.

Hutto prison was nearly empty and threatened with shutdown in 2005, until Katrina sent New Orleans prison administrators in search of new housing for their inmates. Hutto served that purpose, then in May 2006, Homeland Security offered a contract to use Hutto as a detention center for undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation. The detainment center opened in May 2006. The contract promises over $15 million to Taylor annually, about 4 percent of the city’s tax base. But the annual return it brings Corrections Corporation of America, the company that contracts to run the prison, could run as high as $35 million with maximum occupancy. In 2006 the Forbes 400 ranking named CCA leader in “business services and supplies” with earnings up 130 percent over the previous year.

The inmate population has varied from around 280 upwards to 400, with a maximum capacity of 512. Though some are captured trying to enter the U.S. or taken in ICE raids of businesses nationwide, many are asylum-seeking, long-time legal residents whose paperwork has lapsed for various reasons. The ACLU and University of Texas have filed several lawsuits against Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Dept. of Homeland Security and six officials from I.C.E. on behalf of 17 detained children.

Speakers at the Saturday event included Rosa Rosales, national president of LULAC, Jay Johnson-Castro, the “Border Ambassador” of Del Rio who has spearheaded eight previous vigils at the prison, Elizabeth Kucinich, human rights activist and wife of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, and two immigrants who were held in the Texas immigrant detention facilities. Elsa (last name withheld) spoke of her life at Hutto: “Just imagine being locked up for 24 hours a day and having your children tell you, “Mom, why can’t we get out of here?” Many times my three year old daughter would cry and say, “Where is God? Why doesn’t he take us out of here?” I would pray to God to break the walls down. . . . And at times my kids would say, “Why are we locked up? I thought only criminals, people who rob and steal got locked up.”

Jay Johnson-Castro introduced Rusten, Hamde, and Nebil Weber, children of Aziza Mohamed, who has been locked up in Hutto for the past six months. “This is not for national security,” he said. “The people in here are asylum seekers. It’s not a crime to seek asylum. What is going on when our government is dividing families? No child left behind?! These children aren’t with their mother. Why? What crime has she committed — perhaps seeking asylum, wanting to be an American?”

LULAC president Rosa Rosales insisted, “Children should not be imprisoned because their parents have no papers. No human being is illegal and no child should be behind bars.” Another LULAC representative, Rita Gonzales-Garza, talked about the “horrendous injustice our government is carrying out against innocent women and children here at Hutto.” She pointed out that the DHS/ICE policy of using private prisons is “making millionaires while imprisoning people who are in the U.S. seeking asylum and a better life. They are not criminals — they are our brothers and sisters.”

It was hard to hear the speakers at times as parades of demonstrators, some wearing T-shirts that read “No child left behind bars,” marched back and forth chanting, “Shut down Hutto” and “No justice, no peace.”

An editorial in the Daily Texan (6/26/07) points out, “Prisoners inside Hutto come from countries around the world that the United States has intervened in militarily, like Somalia, or economically, like Honduras. The U.S. government cannot feign ignorance about why emigrants attempt to escape repression from U.S.-friendly rulers or neoliberal trade policy in their home countries. This country’s incomparable wealth and purported juridical freedom inspire immigrants to enter by any possible means.” A wider knowledge of our country’s destructive actions abroad must be an important part of the continuing dialogue on immigration.

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

Over the last two months, it has become apparent to me that Homeland Security and the groups under its umbrella are deliberately making their immigration policy more mean-spirited. This was evident in a Postville, Iowa immigration raid, where almost three hundred undocumented workers were taken to the local fairgrounds for a makeshift court, found guilty and sent to prison for five months, to be followed by deportation.

This same meanness is also evident in the way the Border Wall construction is beginning in July in the Rio Grande Valley, despite overwhelming opposition by the residents. And it is evident in Operation Streamline, a machine-like, street-level enforcement policy criminalizing the undocumented.

And yesterday I received even more evidence of Homeland Security’s intentionally mean and taunting stance.

A friend, Dr. Lee Basham, who teaches philosophy at South Texas College and is an independent filmmaker, sent me an email with some news that I knew had upset him quite a bit.

Basham and a history teacher colleague made a film, “Joined at the River,” last year; it dealt with a little community, Candelaria, Texas, which is on the Mexico border about 130 miles southeast of El Paso. In this village of Candelaria, there was a sturdy footbridge to Mexico which local people had used for decades.

This walkway facilitated a wonderful spirit of community between the two sides of the river, a spirit which Basham’s film attests to eloquently. But last week the Border Patrol sent in bulldozers, destroying the bridge.

Basham suggested I check a website reporting the incident: “Glenn’s Texas History Blog,” maintained by Glenn Justice. Justice reports that when he arrived, the bridge had just been torn down and the road was blocked by “heavily armed, but polite, Border Patrol” agents. They were loading the broken pieces of the bridge onto a flatbed truck.

“Across the river on the Mexican side, a few amazed locals waved back to us. It was a swift and efficient removal. Yesterday it was there, today it is gone.” Justice bitterly headlined his commentary, “Candelaria Bridge is Gone: Another Brick in the Wall.” I interviewed Basham about it.

Nick Braune: I checked the website you forwarded to me, and it was a shock to me too, because I have seen your documentary.

Lee Basham: I have two hours of footage of local people using the bridge to visit family and transport food.

The bridge was hand-built by local citizens and is the property of those who built it — the communities it joined. It’s a striking steel structure, partially welded out of car frames and steel cable, and it had been in place for 50 years. It joined the small town of Candelaria, with a population of maybe 50, to the slightly larger town of San Antonio Del Bravo, with a population of about 150. Both are farming communities, growing hay, onions, corn and similar crops, and pasturing herds of goats on the narrow valley floor that twists through the rugged canyon that the river cuts.

Braune: Could you tell us more about how the bridge was important?

Basham: Well, the Candelaria Bridge was used to procure gasoline (carried in 6 gallon gas-cans), milk, and medicine. And it allowed the daily visits of families and friends from both sides, as well as allowing the residents to travel to Presidio for work (some 60 miles away) and to get farming supplies. It was neither a reputed drug crossing nor a portal of illegal immigration. Its purpose and use was local traffic.

The bridge also allowed area residents to send their children to school, with the children spending their evenings or weekends at home in San Antonio Del Bravo. Finally, the bridge was the only way out for medical care in emergencies. Residents must now brave the muddy torrents, carrying their sick, crippled and injured through the river, risking drowning, if they are to get them to the care of a doctor or the services of a hospital.

Braune: Doesn’t the Border Patrol know about this healthcare issue?

Basham: Sure they do. It was this healthcare issue that a Border Patrol agent (Agent Salinas, originally of McAllen), once told me had compelled the BP to leave the bridge unmolested. “It’s a humanitarian duty”, Salinas remarked. “People could die if they didn’t have the bridge to use during high water.” These statements were made in an interview conducted by me two years ago.

So, apparently, that sacred duty–to save lives–no longer interests the US Border Patrol in the Marfa sector of West Texas. Let them die, or drown trying to live. This is the new policy in effect there. Local residents, Anglo and Hispanic, are horrified.

Under provisions of the Texas Public Information Act, please provide all records (including paper, emails, faxes, or any electronic files) that document:

(A) the Governor’s official pre-approval of a deployment schedule and mission goals for Operation Jump Start as mandated by the MOU of June 2 and referenced in the Governor’s press release of June 30.
In other words, if “Texas’ goal was to have 500 troops deployed by the end of June”; and if “missions will be pre-approved by DoD and the Governor”; then please produce all documents involved in the Governor’s pre-approval of mission goals that included “500 troops deployed by the end of June.”

(B) subsequent involvement by the Governor’s office or designees in deployment schedules, troop levels, or authorization of orders referenced in the Governor’s press release of June 30.

In other words, if “Texas has activated more than 700 Texas Army National Guard troops and more than 300 Texas Air Guard troops under Operation Jump Start orders”; and if “National Guard troops operating in Texas as part of Operation Jump Start will remain under Perry’s command”; then please provide the documents through which the Governor orders the activation of 1,000 Texas citizens to the border mission, apart from pre-approval.

July 3, 2006, 1:29pm

By Bill Miller
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Joint operations between Fort Worth police and the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission have been suspended during investigations into an inspection early Sunday that resulted in the injury of a man at a new gay club near the city’s hospital district.

Chief Jeff Halstead on Thursday announced a series of actions relating to the early-morning incident Sunday at the Rainbow Lounge on Jennings Street, which has drawn protests from the gay community.

Halstead also said he would conduct a review of “multicultural training” for police officers to ensure that the information is “up to date” on issues that concern the gay community.

Meanwhile, the man who was hurt, 26-year-old Chad Gibson, was still in fair condition at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth where he was being treated for a head injury. . . .

By Tammye Nash
Senior Editor, The Dallas Voice

. . . Some reports have indicated that Gibson was taken into custody inside the nightclub and then taken outside where he began vomiting, and that he injured his head when he fell due to extreme intoxication.

Several eyewitnesses inside the club at the time, however, had described seeing Gibson grabbed by officers and thrown to the floor in a hallway at the back of the club. The witnesses said that Gibson hit his head at that point, and that several officers were holding him down, one kneeling on his back and another placing his foot on Gibson’s head or neck. . . .

By Paul E. Scott
Executive Director, Equality Texas

Late Saturday evening, June 27th, Fort Worth Police Officers and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) officers entered into the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth for an alcoholic beverage code inspection. What resulted was the arrest of seven (7) patrons, one being critically injured during the raid.

With the raid happening on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot, we are reminded that we need to advocate for the equal treatment of all citizens and this case, we call for an immediate and public investigation into the circumstances surrounding this raid, including the apparent large number of police and TABC officers and paddy wagon. With one patron currently in ICU as a result of injuries sustained during the raid and arrest, the investigation needs to cover the use of excessive force and whether these injuries were the result of excessive force or were incidental to the arrest.