Protests and activism

4 Comments Posted on Immigrant Detention

Protest May 2nd to #EndFamilyDetention in Dilley, Texas

If you can, please attend this protest on May 2nd to oppose the federal government’s detention of refugee and immigrant families at a CCA-operated private prison in Dilley, Texas.

More on this from Grassroots Leadership.

Hundreds Prepare for May 2 Protest to #EndFamilyDetention in Dilley, Texas

Advocates and attorneys joined Austin City Council Member Greg Casar to call for an end to family detention and share details of the massive, national protest

(AUSTIN, Texas) — Local immigrant rights advocates and attorneys joined Austin City Council Member Gregorio Casar for a press conference today to announce that at least 250 Austin residents will be heading to remote Dilley, Texas this Saturday May 2 to call for an end to the detention of refugee families there. Greg Casar announced his support for his constituents’ organizing, saying that “The people of my district are a great example of how inclusive perspectives and policies that embrace immigrant families– rather than incarcerate them– creates vibrant and successful communities. Our federal government, and our City government, should spend as much of their time and energy as possible helping bring families together instead of tearing them apart.”

The Austin-based protestors will be joined by hundreds of others from around Texas. Buses organized by the ACLU of Texas are coming from Houston, the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo. Many others are carpooling from Dallas, Falfurrias, San Marcos, Elgin and more. While others are coming from as far away as Silver City and Santa Fe, NM, Des Moines, IA, Washington D.C., and the Bay Area and Orange County, California.Four buses organized by Grassroots Leadership and St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin will make the 3-hour trek on Saturday to Dilley where the newest and largest for-profit family detention camp is still being built. Rev. Jim Rigby, minister at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, which is organizing two buses from that congregation to come to this Saturday’s protest, said “There is no more central theme in the Bible than that no one should mistreat immigrants.”

At least 500 people are expected to join the protest in Dilley, which kicks off a national week of action calling on the Obama Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Sarah Saldaña to end the practice of holding refugee women and children in for-profit prison camps.  “Many of the people who will be protesting Saturday were part of the fight to end family detention at T. Don Hutto in Taylor and we won’t stop until this shameful policy is ended once and for all,” said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which is organizing Saturday’s protest.

Austin resident and former University of Texas immigration law professor Barbara Hines helped to prepare litigation challenging the government’s decision to detain migrant women and children in secure facilities and deny them bond.  Hines called the practice of family detention “both immoral and illegal.”

Virginia Raymond, another Austin attorney who represents mothers and children at the Karnes family detention center which has been the location of recent hunger strikes, said “The GEO guards do not mind lying to and threatening the women in Karnes. They have threatened women participating in the hunger strike with taking away their children and told them they were bad mothers for fasting. But these are the bravest people I have ever known.”

Alejandro Caceres, Executive Director of the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, talked about the resolve of immigrant families and communities. “The Austin immigrant community will continue to fight against deportation and detention and even when the last private prison is closed, we will still be fighting until the humanity of all immigrants is recognized,” he said.

“[D]uring this [time], no mother will work in the detention center, nor will we send our children to school, not will we use any services here, until we are heard and approved: we want our FREEDOM.” Originally published at Colorlines.com.
Posted on All Posts, Immigrant Detention, Privatization

Undocumented mothers put in solitary after 78 launch hunger strike at private prison

Last week, seventy-eight incarcerated mothers at GEO Group’s Karnes County Detention Center in Texas signed a letter announcing a hunger and work strike and to demand their immediate release. Now Roque Planas at the Huffington Post is reporting that some of those mothers were put in solitary confinement with their children in response to the protest.

Aura Bogado obtained the prisoners’ letter for Colorlines.com, and writes that “most have brought their children from Guatemala and El Salvador—countries with some of the highest femicide rates on the planet.” She continues:

The mothers who’ve signed the letter have all been interviewed by immigration officials and have established a credible fear of persecution or torture if they were to be deported. But they either haven’t been given an opportunity to post bond for release, or the bond amount has been set too high. Their letter, in part, reads:

“[D]uring this [time], no mother will work in the detention center, nor will we send our children to school, not will we use any services here, until we are heard and approved: we want our FREEDOM.”

The strike began Monday with some 40 women and it has no definite end date. At a facility like Karnes, where detainees run a lot of the essential services, a strike can also impact people who aren’t participating.

An immigration officer I spoke with at Karnes who repeatedly declined to give her name laughed when I called on Tuesday. I asked why she was laughing and she answered, “These attorneys convinced them all to do stuff,” and shortly thereafter they hung up on me. Phone calls to GEO Group staff at Karnes have not been returned.

At so-called “family residential detention centers” like Karnes, mothers and children captured crossing the US-Mexico border are incarcerated together. The women are paid $3 per day to help run the facility. Because Karnes County is also home to massive fracking operations and water contamination, many have to drink bottled water — which happens to cost $3.

This demonstration is the latest in what appears to be a growing protest movement by immigrant detainees at private prisons across the country. Last year, hundreds of immigrant detainees staged a 14 hour protest against their mistreatment and conditions at the CCA-operated Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. The Bureau of Prisons decided not to renew that contract. Those inmates were sent to federal prisons elsewhere in the country.

In February of this year, immigrant prisoners at the MTC-operated “gladiator school” tent city in Raymondville, Texas, began a demonstration in which several of the Kevlar-domed housing units were damaged by fire. That prison has been closed and the inmates have been moved to other federal prisons as well.

In both cases, the communities that hosted these private prison companies suffered greatly. Youngstown, which like many towns throughout America is still recovering from the recession and the offshoring of industry, lost 185 jobs at once. It is expected to lose millions in tax revenues — money meant for education and other essential public works. Over 360 people lost jobs in Raymondville after the protest at Willacy. S&P recently downgraded the Willacy County’s bonds to junk, and taxpayers in both communities will be left to fill the budget gaps. These are some of the very real consequences of prison privatization that people rarely talk about: what happens to the community when things get so bad they suddenly lose their contract?

And as for the prisoners: the response to their demonstrations seem to be a double-edged sword. Will the action at Karnes escalate to the point of Youngstown and Willacy, forcing the government to act and even cancel the contract? More importantly, if that happens, will the prisoners’ demands be met or will they be ‘disappeared’ throughout the country like the others?

Posted on All Posts, Immigrant Detention, Inmate Healthcare

Thousands of immigrant prisoners moved to undisclosed locations after protesting conditions

Nearly three thousand immigrant prisoners are being transferred to undisclosed federal facilities after a two-day demonstration against indecent living conditions and medical care left the Willacy County Regional Detention Facility in need of repairs.

Willacy is a private prison operated by the Management and Training Corporation (MTC), where thousands of inmates are housed in khaki-colored Kevlar domes. Located less than an hour north of the Mexico border in the town of Raymondville, Texas, the tent-city prison has been given the nickname Ritmo for its oppressive conditions and resemblance to Guantanamo Bay. It is one of thirteen private Criminal Alien Requirement facilities in the country receiving millions in taxpayer dollars to incarcerate immigrant offenders on behalf of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

The demonstration began on Friday morning when prisoners refused to leave their housing units for breakfast, telling guards they would not work or do their chores. “After speaking with the inmates, we learned some were unhappy with the medical services and were demonstrating to make their concerns known. The warden and other facility leaders met with the offenders to attempt to resolve their concerns and provide a resolution,” an MTC spokesperson later told reporters.

At 12:15pm, prison officials ordered the facility be put on lock-down. At 1:40pm, inmates were breaking out of their housing units and into the recreation yard. Small fires were set inside 3 of those units soon after. Thousands of prisoners were in the yard in the span of 20 minutes.

By this point, according to the Valley Morning Star, around 40 law enforcement vehicles had parked on the other side of the fence. Guards were firing tear gas into the yard. A helicopter hovered overhead carrying an officer brandishing an assault rifle.

Concerned families of Willacy prisoners gathered outside seeking more information. They watched as medical and law enforcement vehicles rushed past them towards the facility. Continue reading →

Posted on All Posts, Rikers Island

Are NYPD Protests Reaching Rikers Island?

In December, the New York Times ran a story on a sadly historic event:

The first Rikers Island correction officer to be tried for civil rights abuses in more than a decade was found guilty on Wednesday by a jury for his role in the death of an inmate in 2012.

Terrence Pendergrass could serve up to 10 years in federal prison for refusing to seek medical attention for Jason Echevarria, 25, a pretrial detainee, who cried out for help after swallowing a highly toxic packet of detergent that burned through his digestive tract.

Mr. Pendergrass was found guilty of one charge of violating the constitutional right of a prisoner to receive attention for serious medical needs. His lawyer, Samuel M. Braverman, said he would appeal the decision, which was handed down in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

This was the first time in over a decade that a Rikers corrections officer went to trial for civil rights violations. Before him was Roger Johnson in 1996, after he and several other Rikers guards beat inmates and then falsified reports.

After representing a man who refused medical attention for a dying and helpless prisoner, defense attorney Samuel Braverman said he believed it was “a very tough time for a law enforcement officer to be on trial.” He told reporters he felt the recent protests against police brutality in the city ‘influenced the jury’ and said he thought the jury was trying to ‘compensate for other systemic issues at Rikers.’

While I’m willing to give Braverman the benefit of the doubt that these were more off-hand remarks meant to explain away the guilty verdict than they were honest, deep analyses of the system, these kinds of statements are revealing nonetheless.

If the protests are, in fact, moving juries to finally bring convictions against criminal Rikers guards, we should all go out and thank a protester today for bringing an end to an 18 year freeze in justice for inmates. But it remains to be seen whether this is an isolated case or the beginning of a thaw in legal accountability for Rikers officers. If it does continue, there is little doubt in my mind that we can expect to see the same reaction from them as we have from the NYPD and its unions. Rikers Island has its own history of lashing out against threats to their impunity that bares striking resemblance to the actions of the NYPD in recent months. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on All Posts, Immigrant Detention, Privatization

Peaceful Inmate Protest Highlights Dysfunction and Disservice of CCA’s Ohio Private Immigrant Prison

There is rightful anger at Correction Corp. of America’s failures in response to a 14-hour, 250-inmate protest at their for-profit Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Ohio. But any critique that does not discuss the actual protest and its context is missing the point.

Inmates appear to have reached a breaking point in their tolerance for poor living conditions at NEOCC, and given CCA’s alarming track record at the facility, we should be paying close attention:

CCA first operated a for-profit prison in Ohio when it opened NEOCC in 1997. In its first 14 months of operation, the facility experienced 13 stabbings, two murders, and six escapes. The city of Youngstown eventually filed a lawsuit against CCA on behalf of the prisoners. Even after those tragedies, CCA still operates the prison today.

These inmates knew they would be risking severe punishment and retaliation for their decision to disobey orders to return to their cells. They knew this action could provoke violence from militarized guards, or a possible stint in solitary. They knew they could lose access to their families and communities through a punitive reduction in visiting hours and phone calls.

Still, in light of these potential consequences, between 250 and 400 of them decided it was still worth doing for 14 whole hours. Even as guards began preparing chemical munitions and setting up command posts to confront a peaceful demonstration, the prisoners refused to back down.

CCA should have been completely transparent about the protest from the beginning, but instead attempted to keep the situation under wraps. After all, it doesn’t make CCA look good for there to be allegations of mistreatment and mismanagement, nor when inmates are disobeying commands in order to protest about them. Continue reading →

5 Comments Posted on All Posts, Immigrant Detention, Privatization

State Rep. Hagan Tours Ohio Private Immigrant Prison After Nearly 250 Inmates Protest Conditions and Treatment

Ohio State Rep. Bob Hagan continues to push Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for answers about its handling of a recent incident at the for-profit Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (NEOCC) in which 248 prisoners waged a 14-hour nonviolent protest against their treatment and conditions.

After he was denied entry in the hours after the August 12th protest, Hagan was invited back to the prison last Friday for a tour. He was also given the opportunity to evaluate security camera footage and speak with some of the prisoners involved.

WKBN.com reports that Rep. Hagan was told there are three main issues concerning inmates: health care, food quality and commissary prices. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on All Posts, Immigrant Detention, Privatization

Peaceful Inmate Protest Met with ‘Show of Force’ at Private Immigrant Prison in Ohio

The Youngstown Vindicator has more details on the August 12th inmate protest at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center — a for-profit immigrant prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

CCA had originally claimed it was a minor incident involving a few prisoners complaining about food and living conditions. But according to the Vindicator, which based their story off an incident report provided by CCA, this was a 14-hour peaceful protest by mostly Dominican prisoners about many more grievances. Around 250 prisoners refused to return to their cells.

The demonstration ended after militarized corrections officials began threatening violence, at which point the protesters relented, volunteering to return to their cells and speak privately with the warden at a later time. Continue reading →