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Evening amigos…

Here’s an update on the Hutto prison camp vigil. It is a 21st Century American Tragedy. This is how it all starts…



Demented minds believe that they have the right to treat women and children this way. They round them up with weapons. They put them in camps. They treat them as criminals. The difference is that “We the people of the United States of America ” will use our freedoms of speech, assembly, press and worship to stop this international criminal activity. It WILL cease to occur in our county!!!
In Hutto there are innocent children and their moms from some 20 different countries. Why couldn’t the media speak with them Friday? Do we not have enough proof now of dishonesty, deception, willful misinformation and outright media manipulation? Fortunately, the seasoned media didn’t fall for the lipstick on the pig dishonesty.

Tomorrow…Monday…at 5:30pm…we will hold Vigil VI. It will be a Sunset-Candlelight Vigil to FREE THE CHILDREN. If you believe that putting a child in prison is a crime…please join us. These children should not spend one more day in a prison camp…let alone in Texas …let alone on American soil. Hutto and those who authorize and run it are committing a crime against humanity. This is a grotesque violation of the international Right of the Child.

How dare the Bush administration proclaim the spread of democracy around the world while he funnels $7000 of honest hard earned American earners’ money per month to his business associates for every child his administration keeps behind bars? Then they claim that it is the immigrant that is ripping the country off! How dare Chertoff and ICE proclaim that this is in the interest of our national security? How dare CCA, the Williamson County Commissioners and the prison guards profit off of this inhumanity? Didn’t Tom DeLay take $100,000 from CCA?

This is not American. This is not justice. This is not moral. This is not even legal. Those who are complicit in this criminal act should suffer what they are subjecting these children to. There should be criminal indictments against all who are accomplices in this crime. That would be American, just, moral … and legal.

We appeal to all ethnic, religious and political groups to join us. Each knows how their own group has been oppressed at some time in this country’s history and subject to inhumane treatment because it was either “legal” at the time … or because people were afraid to stand up and speak out against domestic terrorism and where fear prevailed. We who are willing to oppose this inhumanity perpetrated against the children and their moms, who are in the Hutto prison camp from 20 different countries, do not fear to speak out against this un-American, inhumane and criminal abuse. We are not only going to speak out … we are going to SHOUT it out!!!

So … those of you who can and so desire … we’ll see y’all at the Hutto prison camp in Taylor , TX tomorrow afternoon. In another e-mail, we’ll be sending directions and media updates.

Please feel free to pass this along and invite all who share our conviction and commitment to FREE THE CHILDREN…

Jay

P.S. Remember that the most the comprehensive archival of the Hutto prison camp info can be found at http://www.texascivilrightsreview.org. 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

Dear Friends,

I think we all knew that our Texas prisons are not focused on rehabilitation. A year ago I thought prisons were about housing people who had commited crimes. Now, we are discovering that our prison system in Texas has become a huge money-maker for major corporations such as Halliburton. Our prisons are overcrowded and the response is to build more prisons. Of course, then the money can keep rolling in to syndicated corporations; money that is ours.
Statistically speaking, the huge number of prisoners in Texas cannot be accurate. There simply are not that many bad people. We are hearing on National Public Radio almost daily about The Innocence Project and the number of prisoners in Texas who are now being found innocent through DNA testing. That is just a small representation.

I just received a questionaire from my representative addressing building prisons in Mexico to house Texans. How about that! Prison camps in Texas are being exposed that have legal immigrants confined without access to legal representation. Including children.

This plague is destroying families just like mine and yours. This plague will continue unless you and I stop it.

Attached is a letter to Senator Whitmore and Representative Madden. Please take just a few minutes to send these letters.

Thank you,

Nancy Nichols

Tyler

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House Committee on Corrections

Attn: Jerry A. Madden-Chairman

Austin, Texas 73763-2910

Senator John Whitmire
600 Travis, Suite 3400

Houston, Texas 77002

(512) 463-0796

Re: Prison Over-Crowding and Legislature for 2007

Chairman Madden and Senator Whitmire:

As a tax-paying voter and citizen of the State of Texas, I wish to address each of you concerning
the following:

At the present time the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system is hopelessly Over-Crowded and understaffed, while simultaneously operating at or beyond the maximum Legal capacity permissible by Law. The 2007 session of the Texas Legislature has NO choice but to address this issue in the upcoming session.

Be it known that I do not want any new prison units built within the State of Texas. We cannot fully staff nor properly fund the ones already in existence. It is time that Texas adjusts their barbaric “throw away the key” attitude with viable Legislation.

Proposed Solution:

I request that Legislation be passed which would reduce the parole eligibility requirements of all offenders serving under the ½ (50%) law from that of 50% minimum flat time before parole eligibility, to that of Serving ¼ (25%) before parole eligibility.

Legislation should be passed which provides for MANDATORY RELEASE for FIRST TIME OFFENDERS (ONLY) which meet their parole eligibility requirements with satisfactory disciplinary Records (which reflects an effort at rehabilitation).

All offenders, regardless of crime or sentencing Legislature, be given both “GOOD TIME” AND
“WORK TIME” to be calculated concurrent with their flat time served and credited toward both
eligibility status and discharge of sentence. (It is time that Texas come out of the “Dark Ages” and
provide some type of incentives for offenders to work and conduct themselves in a manner which
reflects their active effort at self-rehabilitation, (we punish them when they do bad, we should
REWARD them when they do good):

ALL above Legislation should be applied RETROACTIVELY to ALL qualified Offenders.

We, the voting citizens of the State of Texas, have spoken. We ask that our voices be both heard and applied by those whom we elect and pay their salaries. If we cannot get our wishes carried out by those currently in office, then I can assure you that this will be reflected at the upcoming elections.

Respectively Submitted,

Name: _______________________________

Address: _____________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________

_____________________________

Phone: ______________________________

Back in January when Jay Johnson-Castro scheduled Monday’s vigil at the T. Don Hutto jail, he called it Vigil IV. Then today, in recognition of Friday’s protests, he renumbered it Vigil V.

But we got to thinking. Actually, Monday’s action should be Vigil VI, because surely we have to count the folks who stood out in the cold on the morning of Feb. 3 to welcome the Ibrahim family out of jail.

Vigil IV, therefore, has gone to Vigil VI in about a week. Meanwhile, the Hutto headline has topped the charts of global news.

“If we can’t make peace in our own land,” said Ralph Isenberg over the phone today, “I don’t know how we can make peace in the rest of the world.”

Indeed, this is the profound promise of the Hutto Vigils, that they will help to mark a time in history when Americans were galvanized to the challenge of lifting ourselves up to a new plateau of peace and peacemaking. Today it seems so clear that we need not settle for less.–gm

“A peaceful sense of disbelief,” is how Ralph Isenberg describes his feelings when he took a phone call Sunday afternoon in Dallas and heard the voice of Salaheddin Ibrahim thanking him for helping to release the Ibrahim family from three months of prison at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“The phone call confirmed that the man is free and that his nightmare is over,” said Isenberg. “I asked him if he was okay. He said the family is fine, and they are looking forward to staying in the country.”

Isenberg pledged to continue efforts to secure legal residency for the Ibrahim family.

“I think that our government owes Mr. Ibrahim and his family an apology,” said Isenberg. “And I think the appropriate form of apology would be granting them legal residency.”–gm