Former US Attorney General Meese was
told in Flores v.
Meese, 681 F Supp 665 (1988) to stop the unlawful
incarceration
of immigrant minors in California based private prisons, and, to abide
by
strict standards relative to any human being that was detained by any
US
enforcement agency. Contrary to said case law, Michael Chertoff
and
officers of Guantanamo Bay Prison incarcerated five children in
that leased
facility. Then, in 2006 the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency
(ICE)
and other agencies cooperated to "build or lease private prisons
nationwide as per secretly developed contracts designed for
incarcerating
innumerable immigrants rounded up under the pretense of new
Congressional
laws" ,,, acting without town hall meetings where issues were debated
universally allowing public consent to be developed. A huge
prison
building and contracting campaign, that increases the number of human
beings
detained from 19,718 a day in 2005 to about 26,500 in February '07, or
about
32,000 by June 2007 is underway. See more details in alternative media
coverage. A Congressional
and Senate (click on either) inquiry designed to
stop
these denials of human rights have been demanded. Why?
Dialoguemakers urge where psychological humiliation, taunting,
retaliation, coercion, pushing, slapping, keeping the lights lite 24
hours daily, poor and improperly prepared food is given to inmates
causing up to fifty per day to vomit or be clinically depressed
produces torture and repression and an environment where prison rapes
occur. These outcomes arise over and over in the private prisons under review by citizens making
walks all across Texas and along the Texas-Mexico border. 
Detention center protesters joined on behalf of human rights on 3-17-07
at Austin's anti-Iraq-war protest
just 35 miles from the Taylor Center pictured.
Visualize the razor fencing prevalent around "residential centers" in
sparsely populated Texas towns i.e., T Don Hutto - Taylor;
Rolling Plains Jail - Haskell; Brooks County Detention Center -
Falfurias; La
Villa - Hidalgo County; the tent city - Raymondville; the
International Emergency Shelter - Fresnos and Port Isabel - Bayside.
T. Don Hutto
Residential Center, a
converted former failing jail, holds 512-beds for children taught under
conditions not equal to Taylor ISD). The
youth stay with and apart from Mothers, Fathers & Grandparents from
30
countries. Note however, Rusten Weber 10, Hamde Weber, 5 & Nebil
Weber, 9 pictured above are outside and Aziza Mohamed their Mother is inside T Don Hutto. This difficult
situation represents a serious Constitutional violation as none are
known criminals but the government is. Solely the housing costs
taxpayers $7,000/month. Imagine
razor wire
around schools in your home town or Corrections Corp of America (CCA)
deciding
it will rename a building in your home town by one of its corporate
leaders.
Don Hutto is one of the three founders of CCA. This "anything- goes
police-state harangue" grows if no one protests razor wire
or
private prisons for profit being used for children. 
At left see Rolling Plains Jail & Residential Center in Gov. Rick Perry's home town of Haskell, a small West Texas town 60 miles from Abilene near George W & Laura Bush early
stomping ground. At
Rolling Plains the use of a full body cavity check by Emerald
Corrections
Management Corp for assessing a prison rape, taunting, coercive
humiliation and
molestation amounts to an inappropriate adherence to the Prison
Rape
Elimination Assessment Manual. Why?
Insufficient forensic detail was reported to eliminate future
rapes or bring about the victim's
Federal
Court release or a dismissal of prison personnel.
Nearly 380 miles south, Brooks County Detention Center -- Falfurias, Texas where Lafayette La for profit prison contractor's Lt.
Teague told Psychotherapist Koym 3-21-07,
"This is a private business. It belongs to Lafayette Corrections Center. So no one can take pictures
here!!" But corporate
profits do result every time the US Government vehicles parked in front of
this private prison are used per police
state orders. Local citizens were denied the right to object to such contracts. 
Eighty miles South razor wire tops La
Villa in Hildalgo County Texas where US Marshals guard detainees moved from less
well-planned shelters. 
According
to Clergy Victor Villegas, a jail minister for the International
Emergency
Shelter (ICE) @ Los Fresnos, when it's full, ICE serves 99
unaccompanied boys
and 58 girls subject to Immigration & Naturalization Act 8 USC Sec
1251
(a)(1)(B) deportation. Many never see counsel or translators in person.
Nelly
Weaver, Administrative Assistant for Operations at the International
Educational Services Inc says, "a US Dept of Health & Human
Services
$5,534,950.00 grant of 2-7-06 makes it feasible" for the nearly 82
employees to provide "foster care." This is done in temporary trailer
home facilities just beyond Los Fresnos city limits at 13303 FM 1847.
To
communicate or get special information ICE Weaver acknowledges "we are
forced at times to connect youth in our care with translators
telephonically so
we can improve efforts to meet their needs." Besides this lack of
direct
heart to heart communication, Koym learned a Korean and Brazilian child
were
held when he visited the Shelter 3-22-07; though Dr. Ruben Gallegoes
was unavailable then, we learned at least one girl was
pregnant due to rape. On
point, Lisa Graybill, Legal Director for the ACLU of Texas said in a
Public
Hearing of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission at UT Austin
Law
School 3-27-07, "Due to inadequate guidelines relative to females, it
is
not likely untrained jail personnel can use the Prison Rape
Assessment
Manual (2005) to provide a detailed forensic report fitting with
the Prison
Rape Elimination Law of 2003. This may occur principally because the
guidelines
are inadequate." In the case of unaccompanied minor females that are
accustomed to speaking one of perhaps 50 languages not often used in
the US
(and then they are given no direct access to the person they are asked
to speak
to over a phone), how can a child tell their inner most feelings via a
phone hook
up, during an investigtion of sexual violence, taunting, torture or
insensitive
staff to inmate or inmate on inmate rape in the confines of any
International
Emergency Shelter? This is highly questionable. Neither Congress nor
the Senate
Committees on Homeland Security, the Office of the President or any
Federal
Court may duck their fullest responsibility under US or international
law.
Why wasn't a thorough investigation of
sexual molestation or rape done in a federal facility in Nixon, Texas?
Among youth detained in Nixon
where Texas Shelter Care personnel were charged with sexual
molestation. ICE moved 72 minors to other facilities rather than fire
the sexual predator. 
Sadly FBI agent Erik Vasys said,
"wrongdoing by staff related to minor children." He and US Attorney
Johnny Sutton failed to invoke the
Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 - 42 USC Sec
15601 et esq. or to follow Prison Rape Manual Reporting Procedures
2005. No firing took place and 136 bed facility remained licensed.
Why do County Jail Managers Seek Peak Occupancies &
High Profits?
Dollars of course.
As of 2-28-07 Brownsville had 1,390 inmate beds; by 3-25-07 it had 83 available for incomers.
The remaining 1,307
beds were occupied at Carrizalez-Rucker Detention Center in Olmito, Detention Center I and II and Cameron County Jail on East
Harrison Street
in Brownsville. The County accommodates 300 federal
inmates detained by the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Border Patrol and other federal
agencies. It receives
$36.35 per federal inmate per day, says County Auditor Mark Yates. In 2006, Cameron took in
$5.5 million
housing federal inmates; when a large portion were below Texas Commission on Jail Standards this
forced prisoners to be transfered.
But beyond the County held detainees,
Homeland Security makes
maximum
use of the Port Isabel Detention Center in Bayside [not pictured here] a
little town of 291
taxpayers. There almost no
one asks what happens in Port Isabel DC. When Jay Johnson Castro led an
entourage
there 3-22-07 a four-person Homeland Security team
took
photographs and video tapes for 45 minutes hoping to repress public
distaste for
police
state affairs.
The tents in Raymondville Texas give
MTC low dollar high profit private prisons, essentially an illegal ICE
boondoggle, aka US Friendship Mission.
Ten tents were hastily built though $64 million were committed by ICE.
Having learned of the bad food, sewerage back up and other horrors, a
walk was used to draw attention to this tent city after the Regional Director of
ICE denied access to prisoners rights briefings, previously given inside these
tents by pro brono Attorney Jodi Goodwin until November 2006. Then, John
Torres ICE's
Director ordered "only 12 prisoners could be briefed at a time",
increasing Goodwin's work load tenfold. This Willacy County Jail & Detention Center is 50 miles from Brownsville and 260 miles from
Austin; T. Don Hutto
Residential Center of
Taylor 34 miles from Austin. Not shown are Brooks County Jail & Detention Center in Falfurias and Port Isabel Detention Center
in Bayside.
Officers at these
facilities denied exterior picture taking or a chance for a visiting
MD, business owners, a mental health specialist, teachers, parents etc.
to ask them questions. 
The picture on
the left shows a Homeland Security Officer who refused to
speak to visitors though given the business card in officer's left
hand. Below advocates protested behalf of 2000 former tax payers held in
Willacy Detention Center. They seek less intrusive alternatives.
After ICE deported Mariela Santos
Torres - a taxpayer of 20
years on 6-18-07, Bill Rovira -- a South Texas businessman and her
fiance must visit her in Cuidad Arce, Libertad, El Salvador. Bill is
pictured on the right. His lady Mariela was held in the Tent prison for 4.5
months.
Note,
not shown is a 1,524-bed CCA
facility
of Stewart County, Georgia, and untold other such centers about the
Nation. Research results shows the same corporation house detainees in
at least seven other countries, meaning US taxpayer dollars may reach
contractor run private prisons in countries like Australia,
the Republic of South Africa, or in Europe and Asia.
What's
on the horizon?
Congressional voted in a plan for temporary foreign workers and the
legalization of up to 12 million "illegal" immigrants now in the US. Yet law abiding
citizens have not seen
the paper work approving of these facilities; nor have they voted to
approve of
a) Rolling Plains Jail & Residential Center in Haskell Texas - Gov
Perry's
hometown; b) the San Diego Corrections Center or c) in fact up to 300
hastily
built or acquired settings nationwide, particularly in Pennsylvania,
Colorado,
Louisiana & Georgia. All have been rushed into existence to enforce
laws
aimed at rounding up immigrants and fining employers, or for holding
and
deporting those caught by the U.S. Border Patrol. At the same time, the
administration and its allies argue that even additional detention beds
will be
overwhelmed without new channels for legal immigration. These illegal
sites
(where no assurance that torture in not committed) are run by
contractors such
as the Corrections Corporation of America, Emerald Company Corporation
and Geo
Group Inc without regard to standards established in 1948 and 2005 with
regard
to Native American families held in prison camps between 1942-47 when
130,000
Japanese were similarly held in WW II and contrary to Flores
(1988),
Geneva Convention International Accords and United Nations Children's
Rights
Accord.
Countering these
police state actions, Texas Rep Eddie Rodriguez filed HCR 64 in Feb 07;
Rep Anchia co-sponsored the bill recognizing rights of children do not
violate US laws when their parents come to the US attempting to feed
them. Town hall meetings and voter demands could turn the tide on such
inhumane acts.
Letters to Federal
Congressmen (click to the right)
requesting legislation
& Town
Hall Meetings asking that Congress compel leaders to comply
with Stare
Decisis, case law, US Statutes, notable Geneva & International
Treaties
and Accords. Secondly
click here to see a
letter now part of the US Congressional Record.
Take a Video Tour - See Where Children
Are Detained
Take a
tour of the Taylor Gulag for families. Click/see how fat cow jail
operators
run private prisons at $7000/month per human being held. Immigrants
coming from
28+ countries, principally not from Latin America. Sadly some of the children turn out
to be US born. Behalf the US citizens, a Federal Court Class Action
suit -- Mancha v ICE was
filed in
late
2006 by the Southern Poverty Law Center against US Immigration &
Customs
Enforcement (ICE) officers and Homeland Security administrators who
participated in rounding up alleged law violators.
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