Category: Take Action

The following is a statement in support of the resolution against family detention adopted by Feministas Unite, a student group at the University of Texas at San Antonio; the Bexar County Democratic Party; International CURE, a prison reform organization that began in San Antonio in 1972 (check); the National Immigration Project; the National Lawyers Guild; and many other individuals and organizations.

On Friday, February 20, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, struck a blow against the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of detaining families who seek refuge in the United States for weeks and months at a time.

Up until last June, it was common to arrest women immigrants and refugees who came to the border, with or without children, and then, if there was no specific reason to think a woman posed a danger to the community, release her on bond, parole, or orders of supervision with instructions that they would need to report to the immigration court at a future date, and that they needed to keep Immigration Control and Enforcement informed about any changes of address.   Last summer, however, the Department of Homeland Security began incarcerating Central American refugees, mothers with their children, in family detention centers in Artesia, New Mexico, and right down the road in Karnes City, Texas.  There is also a family detention center in Berks, Pennsylvania.  In December, a new, much larger facility opened in Dilley.  DHS claimed that this action was necessary to protect our “national security” by preventing “mass migration.”

Last week, in R.I.L.-R. versus Jeh Johnson, the court invalidated this broad practice.  It ruled that DHS that it cannot base its decision to detain – imprison — hundreds of mothers and children based on a belief about the entire group, or by simply reciting the phrase “national security.”  Instead, the assessment of whether a particular woman or child poses a threat, either to the community or to national security, must be based on the individual history and circumstances of that particular person.  Friday’s court order represents a victory for liberty, for due process, and for the principle that each person must be judged as an individual, not based on her place of birth, native language, color of her skin, or gender.

We are delighted by this decision, yet we are here today to continue to fight against family detention.  Why?  Given the decision in R.I.L.-R. versus Johnson, why do we still need this resolution.  Haven’t we won?

No, we have not won.  The decision is a strong one, but it leaves family detention in place.

We must not only continue, but also escalate, our opposition to family detention for FIVE reasons:

1) Many women and children who are detained do not belong to the class of people protected by the decision.

a) Indigenous women and their children

The class of mothers and children covered by the decision are women who have passed their credible fear interviews.  But asylum officers who are charged with conducting credible and reasonable fear interviews often have no way to communicate with indigenous women who speak their native languages, and who are not fluent in English or Spanish.  These women are sent to court without having been interviewed at all; therefore, many of them have not passed credible fear interviews and are not protected by the injunction in R.I.L.-R. versus Jeh Johnson.

b) Women and children whom the Department of Homeland Security deems “arriving aliens.”

A mother who crosses the border, arrested in the United States, and who convinces asylum officers that she has a “credible fear” of persecution or torture in her native country, benefits from Judge Boasberg’s decision.  But if a woman in similar circumstances walks across a bridge with her children, and presents herself to a U.S. official, saying, I am afraid to return to Honduras and I ask you to grant my children and me asylum, that woman will be deemed “an arriving alien.”  She is not in the class protected by Friday’s decision.  We must still work to free refugees who are so-called “arriving aliens.”

c) Women who have been in the United States and been deported before.  

Most refugees are not familiar with our laws, including our laws pertaining to asylum.  One of my clients travelled from El Salvador several years ago, walking for many days through the desert.  By the time she arrived in the U.S., she was dehydrated, with her feet torn up by the rough journey, and very ill.  She was allowed to recover, but no one ever asked her why she left El Salvador or explained the process for applying for asylum.  She was deported without ever learning that she had any rights.

The mother of three young daughters, she had to flee El Salvador when her eldest was stalked and threatened, and men broke into their home, put a gun to her head, threatening to rape and kill her children in front of her.  They arrived seeking safety, but they have been locked up in Karnes since August.  A psychologist who visited them a few weeks after their arrival and again in December has described the mental deterioration of these girls, but ICE does not care.  There are at least thirteen mothers with young children who have been locked up at Karnes since August.   They need our voices.

2) Though the decision strikes a blow against family detention, it does not invalidate family detention itself.  

The Department of Homeland Security and the current presidential administration apparently believe that detaining – imprisoning – families with young children, including peaceful seekers of asylum – is a legitimate governmental practice.  They are wrong.  Long-term detention is punishment, and not appropriate for civil violations.  And even short-term detention is very harmful to children, as we keep telling ICE in case after case, submitting research from psychologists and social science researchers and professors.

What kind of nation imprisons children who come to its borders seeking refuge?

3) We don’t know what the Department of Homeland Security is going to do.

It may appeal, and it might ask for a stay.  It might comply with the letter of the court’s order, by setting bonds for the women, but not the spirit of the order, by setting them at high amounts.  We must vigorously oppose family detention in order to make sure that the decision in R.I.L.-R. versus Jeh Johnson is effective.

4) Wealthy and powerful corporations have a huge financial interest in not only keeping, but also expanding family detention.   

GEO, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), LCS Corrections, Inc., and other private prisons companies, profit by incarceration of immigrants and refugees.  Peaceful immigrants and refugees, and mothers and children, are easy to detain.  They pose no danger to anyone and do not need intense security.  Human beings, for private prison corporations, are a cheap and very profitable “crop.”  These corporations will not simply let the idea of family detentions fade away because one judge has expressed its displeasure.  We do not have the resources of the worldwide private prison company GEO to lobby Congress and powerful leaders in the executive branch to set minimum bed counts, so we are going to have to work much harder than they do to end this injustice.

5)  San Antonio is in the belly of this beast.

Dilley, which will soon house the largest family detention center in the world, and Karnes, are in our backyard.  Hutto, in Central Texas, was the site of family detention that we thought had been stopped five years ago.  San Antonio must be the center of resistance to the practice of incarcerating peaceful, harmless, refugees and immigrants —  mothers and children – for private profit.  We look back in shame at Japanese internment, as the world now looks on, aghast, at our current treatment of Central American refugees.  It is up to us to speak out against, and STOP, once and for all, family detention.

LINK TO RESOLUTION:  http://endfamilydetention.com/resolution-calling-for-release-of-women-children/

Please read and sign this resolution and — far more importantly — take it to the groups to which you belong. Ask your group to sign and date the resolution.  This signatures collected for petition will be used to show growing support to leaders and government offices in calling for the release of women and children and to end ICE’s no-release policy.  Thank you for your support.

[contact-form-7 id=”952″ title=”End Family Detention”]

WHEREAS, in 2014, 60,000 children and mothers fled Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras because of gang violence, domestic violence and child abuse, seeking asylum in this country; and some of these children arrived unaccompanied;

Whereas, the issues these women suffer are issues important to women in this country, in this hemisphere, and across the world–issues of domestic violence, constant harassment on the street, stalking, femicide, child abuse, impunity for violence against women and children, second class citizenship, dire poverty, abandonment, single mothers with children, lack of access to health care; brutal murder and torture; subordination to men in economic, political, social life and in the home; total gender discrimination in ownership rights, civil liberties, family codes and physical integrity, low level of literacy due to inadequate educational systems;

Whereas, some of the detained women are indigenous Guatemalans who neither speak nor understand Spanish or English, and who are being incarcerated in the center without access to effective representation or representation of any kind, or the ability to communicate effectively with ICE or detention center staff;

Whereas, the US has assumed the responsibility, both by virtue of statutes it has adopted and by virtue of its ratification of the Convention Against Torture, of allowing asylum seekers the right to pursue relief from persecution or torture or both in the U. S.;

Whereas, up to 3600 beds are available for children (under the age of 18) and their mothers in centers that are operated by private contractors, GEO and CCA, in Karnes City (532 beds), Dilley, (2,400 beds) Texas, and Berks County, Pennsylvania, estimates range from $ 150 to $298 per person per day, paid for by US tax payers.  The number of persons being detained at each center varies;

Whereas, some of the women and children held in detention are people who came to the U. S. and directly presented themselves to immigration officials, asking for asylum;

Whereas, prior to 2014, DHS generally did not detain families that arrived in the US seeking asylum and in addition DHS policy regarding individuals who passed credible fear screening and who pursued asylum claims, were generally released from detention.

Whereas, the majority of detainees have established “credible” or “reasonable” fear of persecution meaning there is a significant possibility they will be granted asylum, withholding of removal (will not be deported), or protection under the Convention Against Torture;

Whereas, these women and children remain detained due to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) No- Release policy of locking them up and refusing to consider them for release on bond, recognizance or parole, without an individual determination of whether they present any flight risk, danger to the community, or threat to national security;

Whereas, the DHS No-Release policy requires that these asylum seekers, women and children, go to immigration courts in every single instance, in order to seek individual custody determinations, and the costs of these additional and unnecessary court proceedings are also borne by U. S. taxpayers;

Whereas immigration judges typically find that these women and children pose no flight risk, are no danger to the community, and no national security threat; and these judges typically release these children without the necessity of bond but set bonds of $1500 to $15,000 for their mothers;

Whereas, the U. S. is denying these Central American women and children equal protection under the laws based on both their nationality and gender;

THEREFORE, _______________________________(Name of Organization) or (“I”)
Request that DHS rescind their No-Release policy for these detainees;

Further, (I or) we request that DHS release from custody all persons detained in ICE detention facilities who have been determined to have a credible or reasonable fear of persecution in their home country and who have not been individually determined to be a flight risk, danger to their community, or national security, based on specific, individual factors.

SIGNED:_________________________ Date: _____________________
Title (if signing on behalf of an organization)____________________________

For further information visit: endfamilydetention.com

CALLING ALL WARRIORS, DANZANTES AND ACTIVIST MEDICINE PEOPLES:

On Monday, December 15 Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson will be visiting and conducting a press conference at the private family prison in Dilley, Texas, falsely named the “South Texas Family Residential Center.”

WHEN:  Monday, December 15, 2014 @ 9 a.m.

WHERE:  “South Texas Family Residential Center”  1925 Texas 85, Dilley, TX 78017, USA

FB EVENT:  https://www.facebook.com/events/336021179918448/?pnref=story

Indigenous women and children who arrived seeking refuge are being systematically imprisoned and abused in these prisons (aka “family residential centers.”)

We are asking for the support of all indigenous communities to be present at the protest on Monday with signs, offering songs and dances in the spirit of resistance and solidarity. We expect to make national headlines.

The majority of these women and children are indigenous and do not speak any European language – English nor Spanish – and are being systematically targeted.

This is part of a national trend criminalizing people fleeing US-backed war in Latin America by placing indigenous women and children in concentration camps upon arrival. Once at these prisons they are being forced into federally-backed, corporate-run slavery as well as all ages being physically, emotionally and sexually abused. Some media outlets have covered the issue in the past.

THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW:

1. Starting Monday they will be bringing women and children in in groups of 400, most of them coming from Artesia, New Mexico, a detention center closing soon. Homeland Security and CCA (the private prison corporation) are using Monday as their big PR stunt to talk about how great this is.

2. CCA is planning on filling the prison with 2,400 people ASAP because their federal contract requires it. The federal plan is for the Dilley site to be the biggest family prison in the U.S.

3. They are closing the family prison in Artesia, New Mexico and have moved most of them to the Karnes site with the plan to get more to Dilley starting Monday.

4. They are mostly indigenous, mostly Mayan and there is solid evidence to prove that there are SYSTEMIC human rights violations against women, children and very SPECIFICALLY against indgienous language speakers.

5. Homeland Security Sectretary Johnson is visiting Dilley as part of a two day trip. THE VERY NEXT DAY he is set to meet with Enrique Pena Nieto and Secretary Chong from Mexico(…any coincidence?)

6. This is the CCA PR-focused website for the facility: http://www.southtexasfamilycenter.com/

7.  There have been numerous reports by detained women and children about mass chemical exposure and being put into “freezers.”

CON TODO CORAZON I THANK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WARRIORS. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT ON THE GROUND AND STRONG PRAYERS CALLING OUR WARRIOR ANCESTORS.

This situation is both a question of solidarity with the indigenous folks inside AND resistance to this happening on our territory. This has gone on for 500 years too long!

Additoinal details on this crisis are available at www.EndFamilyDetention.com

GOOGLE MAPS: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/1925+Texas+85,+Dilley,+TX+78017,+USA/%27%27/@28.66382,-99.2313877,13z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m8!4m7!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x865e0a74bdefb8e5:0xe7cdfa63832a0fe6!2m2!1d-99.1970549!2d28.6638243

#EndFamilyDetention
#not1more
#BrownLivesMatter
#IndigenousNotImmigrant