Dignity Not Detention - Preserving Human Rights & Restoring Justice

Arizona

For the last three years the Federal Government, the Department of Homeland Security and more specifically the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been cooperating and working with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office (MCSO). This collaboration between the Federal Government and Maricopa County Sheriffs Office has created a Human and Civil Rights crisis in Maricopa County. With the aide of the Federal Government Sheriff Joe Arpaio has led a rampant campaign of racial profiling; terrorizing of Maricopa County neighborhoods and atrocious conditions and treatment of all inmates at Maricopa County Jails. Arpaio’s actions are the result of the federal government’s failure to protect basic human rights and fundamental due process in its enforcement of immigration laws and use of detention. Arpaio is just one example of the gross mismanagement and lack of federal oversight of immigration enforcement programs and detention facilities.

Congressional hearings have taken place; Federal Investigations by the Justice Department and FBI into Arpaio’s conduct are currently underway; yet MCSO continues on its quest to single-handedly terrorize Maricopa County with Federal Authority Supervision. Given current conditions in Maricopa County, Puente calls for the Federal Government to terminate all ICE and Federal contracts between the Federal Government and the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office. Arpaio should not be allowed to continue his reign of terror under federal governmental authority.

For more information about Puente please contact Carlos Garcia at carlos@puenteaz.org or call 602-314-5870

Yogi's Blog via Deportation Nation
This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.
Click here to read Yogi's posts

Georgia

Georgia has three immigration detention centers, including two which are run by the Corrections Corporations of America, the country's largest private prison corporation. With a capacity of 1700+, the Stewart Detention Center based in rural southwest Georgia is one of the largest corporate-run immigration detention centers in the country. The recently-opened North Georgia Detention Center is located in Gainesville and has a capacity of 500.

With the growth of the immigration detention system in Georgia, a growing number of concerned residents have taken part in vigils, several humanitarian visitations, and the April 2009 release of a Georgia Detention Watch report that documented violations of immigration detention standards at Stewart. The reports of human rights abuses at Stewart were compounded by the March 11, 2009 death of Roberto Martinez Medina, a 39-year-old immigrant from Mexico detained there who died of a heart infection. To date, many questions about his death remain unanswered.

We now call upon the Hall County and Stewart County Commissioners to end the contracts with the Corrections Corporation of America for the operation of the North Georgia Detention Center and the Stewart Detention Center respectively due to CCA’s deadly track record and lack of adherence to ICE’s own standards; and we call on the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to:

• Institute binding standards for treatment of immigrant detainees that correspond to international human rights norms.
• Utilize community-based and humane alternatives to detention.
• End detainee transfers away from loved ones and communities of support.
• End local enforcement programs that are contributing to the growth of the immigration detention system.

Read this fact sheet from the ACLU of Georgia and Georgia Detention Watch: Securely Insecure: The Real Costs, Consequences& Human Face of Immigration Detention.

For more information please contact PJ Edwards at info@travelerstogether.org or Azadeh Shahshahani at ashahshahani@acluga.org

Texas

Texas has one of the highest concentrations of detention centers in the country with a capacity to detain more than 10,000 immigrants at any one time. The largest detention center in the US, the 3,086 bed Willacy County Detention Center (aka Tent City because it is largely built out of a series of kevlar pods) has seen repeated allegations of human rights abuses. Owned by the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation (MTC), Tent City is one of many detention centers run for profit and with little federal oversight. As we called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to investigate, however, detainees at the ICE-owned Port 1,500 bed Isabel Detention Center (PIDC) launched a hunger strike. The problems at PIDC show that ICE oversight cannot solve the problems at Tent City, and so Texans United for Families calls on the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to:

• Close Tent City and the Port Isabel Detention Center.
• Respond to human rights abuse allegation through a transparent grievance process.
• End detainee transfers away from loved ones and communities of support.
• Ensure due process by reducing Texas immigration court dockets to reasonable levels.

For more information about Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families please contact Bob Libal at blibal@grassrootsleadership.org or call 512-971-0487