FOLLOW THE MONEY: CCA (Detention Center) Profits at an All Time High!

With the passage of SB1070, Arizona is building new detention centers to jail the hundreds of thousands of "illeegals" they plan on deporting. But they do not want to deport them quickly. Their plan is to let them sit in vermin infested detention centers and rot until their court dates. The court dates take months. Imagine the backlogs in the Detention Centers and the backlogs in the courts; meanwhile private prisons are reaping record profits while they stuff the pockets of their political cronies. Both laugh all the way to the bank...all on the backs of Latino Human Misery!

Business of Detention.com reports:

The math is simple. More demand for immigrant detention beds, plus more government funding, equals more business for Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Every year since 2003, the company has made record profits. CCA generated its highest revenue ever in 2006 when ICE doubled its detention beds from 19,500 to 27,500.
The company won contracts to provide about half of these new beds.

“We’ve never seen the wind at our back like it is today,” CCA’s President and Chief Executive Officer, John D. Ferguson said after discussing $1.3 billion in revenue during a May 2006 conference call with investors.
The infusion of detention center contracts marked a high point for the company after it had struggled for several years to expand. In 1999, independent auditors expressed doubt that CCA could even stay in business after the company suffered a net loss of $72 million mainly due to an abundance of empty beds. That year, CCA spun off its real estate operations, Prison Realty Trust, from its correctional management services in a failed move that required a bailout from well-connected private equity firm, The Blackstone Group. The firm brought in Lehman Brothers and Bank of America to lend $350 million in exchange for four seats on the company’s board and 25 percent of company stock.

Blackstone’s Senior Managing Director, Thomas Saylak, convinced the Wall Street partners that the infusion of capital would allow CCA to “maximize growth prospects. Over time, we believe this new direction will be recognized and rewarded by investors.” The restructuring of CCA’s board led to the departure of one of its founders, Doc Crantz, who was replaced John D. Ferguson as CEO and president. Proceeds from the debt and equity financings included in the deal provided capital to fund the company’s growth. Concerns about federal reliance on private contractors melted away after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The government needed thousands of new detention beds, and it seemed only the private sector could provide them fast enough, especially large prison services providers like CCA with significant inventory on hand.

The biggest change in CCA’s fortune came after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff complained to Congress that as much as 80 percent of immigrants from countries other than Mexico were failing to show up for deportation hearings. The problem, he argued, was a lack of detention beds to hold them until their hearing. The next year, CCA’s federal revenues increased by 15 percent because of three new ICE contracts at its T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center, its Stewart Detention Center and its Eloy Detention Center.
ICE argues the Hutto detention center has been key to the success of its “catch and remove” policy. Formerly a medium security prison, the 600-bed facility in Taylor, Texas was shut down in 2005 when its population fell to 60 federal inmates. CCA brought it back “online” in May 2006 as a “family residential center” that housed families of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers – fathers, mothers and their young children.
Chertoff argued in March 2006 that “up until now, we have not had the ability to detain families that have come across as a group because we don’t have the capability to keep them together in a detention facility.”

Investors recognized CCA’s inventory of prison beds meant the company was best suited to meet a flood of demand. Over the next few years, CCA’s stock price more than doubled. In 2004, the company’s stock traded at a low of $12.15 and by March 2008 investor confidence had lifted the price to $26.86. “Certainly, the forces of supply and demand are working in the company’s favor,” observed Bank of America analyst T.C. Robillard, who had a buy rating on the CCA stock in February 2007. In fact, each new program to increase immigration enforcement has been a business opportunity for CCA. Today, amid high demand, CCA has been able to charge as much as $200 per day in its contract to hold detainees at its Hutto facility. The average rate at its prisons is $54 per day. Currently, CCA relies on contracts with ICE and the US Marshals Service for about 40 percent of its total revenue.

Five of the company’s lucrative contracts to detain immigrants have no end date. Several of its other contracts contain “take or pay” clauses that guarantee a certain amount of revenue regardless of occupancy rates, as well as periodic rate increases. All of the contracts are renewed at a rate of almost 95 percent, any cost savings CCA reaps are kept for the company, not passed on to the taxpayer. “At the federal level there is such a demand for beds and private operators are able to do it cheaper and build the facility at half the cost of the federal government because they don’t have to go through procurement red tape. And the government tends to go with who they built with before,” said Gregg Klein, a corrections analyst with BNP Paribas.

Now Ferguson has his eye on the next opportunity for a growth spurt in detention beds stemming from a zero tolerance program for immigrants crossing the border, called Operation Streamline. “The intent now is to detain everyone that’s apprehended at the border and charge them initially with something called entry without inspection,” Ferguson explained to investors. “That will be a misdemeanor, requiring somewhere between 15 and 30 days of detention. So then persons with deportation or a minimum conviction, which means someone who is then committed misdemeanor will face a felony charge, which could lead to six months to two years of detention or incarceration.” Later in the call, Ferguson optimistically eyed the President’s fiscal year 2009 budget. “We see that the budget supports the detention population of 33,000 inmate detainee beds – that’s up from 27,500 the previous year and quite above what the President’s original budget was,” Ferguson said. “What I am most encouraged about is everything we are hearing says 33,000 is still not enough.”

In fact, CCA’s confidence in future demand is so great, it’s not worried about an abundance of unused beds and lost profits. The company is already slated to develop 10,700 beds by 2009 in order to meet anticipated demand from federal and state customers. That’s good news for Ferguson, who in 2007 took home close to $3 million in executive compensation

BREAKING NEWS! ALARMING!! ICE RAID SENDS WORKERS TO GEO DETENTION CENTER NOTORIOUS FOR ABUSES!!

ALARMING BREAKING NEWS:

JANET NAPOLITANO HAS A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO!!!

Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- PLEASE ASK HER THESE QUESTIONS:

1. Why are the ICE Raids continuing?

2. What Happened to your drive to arrest Felonious Criminals vs Workers?

3. Why are workers being sent to deplorable Detention Centers with history of Abuses?

4. What happened to your plan to have the Detention Centers investigated?

CHC: THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW!!

The Seattle Times reports:

Immigration officers today raided an engine remanufacturing plant in Bellingham, arrested 28 illegal immigrant workers and began processing them for deportation. The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at Yamato Engine Specialists in Bellingham. ICE officials say the 25 men and three women — most of them from Mexico — may have gained employment at Yamato using phony social security numbers and other counterfeit identity documents.
Yamato officials, who said they had been cooperating with ICE since last fall when investigators began looking at employment documents, were shocked by today's raid.
In fact, three of the workers arrested today had been cleared as having legitimate documents during an employment records audit by ICE in 2005, said Yamato spokeswoman Shirin Dhanani Makalai.
We have been audited before so we do due diligence to get the proper paperwork," Makalai said. "People bring you paperwork that by law you are required to accept. You can't always tell if it's not correct."
With about 100 workers, Yamato specializes in rebuilding Japanese car engines and transmissions.
ICE investigators began looking into its employment records following the arrest of a criminal illegal immigrant who had previously worked there.
After being processed earlier today, officials released three of the immigrants on humanitarian grounds. The others are being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.
"The lure of jobs in the United States continues to be one of the primary factors fueling illegal immigration," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Seattle. "ICE remains committed to investigating cases where the evidence shows employment laws are being violated."

Northwest Detention Center Examples of HISTORY of Abuses:

1. Food illnesses at GEO detention facility.
Hundreds of detainees fell sick from apparent food poisoning at the Northwest Detention Center near Tacoma, Washington. Northwest is a 1,000 bed immigrant detention center owned by GEO, a private corporation that holds contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for facilities across the country.

2. Public document showdown averted
Posted by Scott Fontaine @ 03:18:06 pm
A court battle over open records and the company that operates the Northwest Detention Center has been avoided. The GEO Group, which has operated the 1,030-bed Northwest Detention Center since 2004, filed a petition in Pierce County Superior Court last week to block the release of several documents requested through public-disclosure laws.

3. Quarantine ends for most at Northwest Detention Center

The quarantine of more than 900 of the 1,000 immigrants held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma ends Wednesday, six days after a detainee fell ill with chickenpox and federal officials locked down the facility. Court cases for immune detainees resumed Tuesday, and deportations start again as early as Wednesday, said Lorie Dankers, a spokeswoman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

4. Report: Conditions at the NW Detention Center are inhumane and violate international law and the U.S. Constitution A Report on Human Rights Violations at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) confirm human rights abuses are taking place at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on the tide flats of Tacoma.

GEO Group History of Abuses:

The GEO Group is an international corporation that operates prisons around the country and is frequently in the news for its abuse of prisoners in its care resulting in many preventable deaths.

Detention Center Death Case Goes to Court! More Health Care Neglect/Abuse by a Privately Owned Prison!

In August, 2008, Jason Ng, a 34-year-old computer engineer from New York, died from complications of cancer and a fractured spine after being denied medical care at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, and a Vermont jail where ICE contracts for detainee bed space. Ng was denied proper medical care and legal access at Wyatt, where he spent the final month of his life as his undetected, undiagnosed cancer withered his body, and fractured spine left him unable to walk.
Ng, a computer engineer from China, paid the ultimate price for overstaying a visa, and getting lost in a sprawling system that some have likened to a gulag. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not comment because of a continuing investigation. But court affidavits tell a story of shocking neglect:
Although he complained of excruciating back pain for months, and grew ever frailer in custody, officials at the Rhode Island detention center where he was being held denied Mr. Ng an independent medical evaluation and even a wheelchair. At one point, according to the affidavits, he was shackled and taken in an ambulance for a two-hour drive to Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to stop appealing his case and accept deportation. When lawyers finally persuaded a judge to insist on suitable medical treatment for Mr. Ng, the long-deferred diagnosis was dire. Prison officials had said IT WAS ALL AN ACT. It was terminal cancer — and a broken spine. Mr. Ng was taken to the hospital, and died five days later.
“It’s clearly a violation of human rights; we believe that it’s a criminal act to deny someone medical care and cause their death like that,” said Shannah Kurland of the Olneyville Neighborhood Association.
Kurland and other speakers cited documented accounts by the media and human-rights organizations of detainees’ deaths in ICE custody across the country. That includes a Brazilian illegal immigrant who died in 2007 after convulsing at the ICE office in downtown Providence.
Ng's widow and naturalized citizen Lin Li Qu filed a lawsuit today, 2-9-09, suing the owner of the Detention Facility and Federal immigration authorities. The lawsuit alleges Jason Ng was denied medical care at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility. It says he was taunted and abused by staff who accused him of faking illness.

We can only hope Janet Napolitano and Dora Schriro, her special advisor on Detention and ICE Removal, complete investigations of the Detention Centers, particularly those privately owned with histories of prisoner abuses and take actions to not only correct the problems but in many cases, close them!
References:
R.I. lawmakers seek federal probe into death

Mr. Ng’s Death

Cornell Companies - wikipedia

Widow sues over man's death at immigration center

ICE Raids - Detention Centers Not About Immigration, All About Money!

What did Deep Throat Say? "Follow the Money!"
In 2007/2008, ICE stepped up their raids across the country. Ask yourself WHY!!

Let's start with three of the largest, most recent ICE raids. In New Bedford, MA., 300+ Seamstress Workers making backpacks were swept away to Texas Detention Centers. In Postville, IA, 500+ Meatpackers were swept off to Texas Detention Centers. In Laurel, MS, 600+ technical workers were swept off to a GEO Detention Center in Jena, LA. As I previously reported, GEO's Jena facility was newly opened in late 2007, projecting they would fill to capacity in 2008. The 2008 Laurel raid filled them to capacity.

How do these privately run prisons profit? They are paid per diem (per head/per day). Maximum profit is made if the centers are filled to capacity.

GEO Group has a long history of prisoner abuse. Records show these prisons have been cited for feces on walls, on sheets, on beds, vermin - rats, roaches, prisoners dying in custody due to no healthcare, prisoners sexually abused. The lawsuits detail the abuses. Contracts have been rescinded across the country due to the abuse. Last weekend, the second prison riot occurred within 2 months in the RCDC in Pecos Texas due to charges of inhumane treatment and death.

Ask yourself why GEO Group now focuses their lobbying to receive Detention Center contracts? Does anyone listen to the complaints of those in Detention Centers? Does anyone care about their abuse? Is the media reporting the conditions or the reason for rioting in the RCDC in Pecos, TX? Does anyone question why the GEO Detention Centers continue to be filled to capacity with detainees? The detainees should NOT be incarcerated for long periods of time, yet they are, many for months and years on end. Our nation is spending billions of dollars to detain hundreds of thousands of uncharged detainees. In some locations, entire families are incarcerated. Why? Per diem $$ paid per head/per day.

The Lobbyists:

The GEO Group spends millions of dollars lobbying and filling the pockets of Republican Texas State Congressmen and National Politicians, including their friends, George W. Bush and Tom Delay.

This article shows the following examples:

First, Ray Allen, the former Texas representative from Grand Prarie who chaired the House Committee on Corrections, and his former chief of staff, Scott Gilmore, are two of the biggest private prison lobbyists in the state. Gilmore and Allen took heat several years ago for working as lobbyists even while Allen was still a state representative. Allen was a major privatization advocate while a state representative and both he and Gilmore lobbied, while in office, for the National Correctional Industries Association - a group that advocates for prison labor and includes private prison corporations amongst its members.
Second, the troubled GEO Group spent the most on private prison lobbying in 2007 and actually upped its lobbying expenditures after scandals forced state hearings into private prison oversight. According to the report:
With its starring role in the scandal, Geo Group increased its Texas lobby spending tenfold, accounting for more than half of the lobby money that the industry spent in 2007.
(click here for details)

It is imperative that Janet Napolitano and her teams investigate the GEO Group, the abuse in their centers and report back why GEO continues to abuse detainees or any prisoners. Ask why detainees are held for such long periods of time. Determine if it is the best use of ICE Funds to incarcerate seamstresses, meatpackers and technical workers for such long periods of time. Ask why these raids and suppression sweeps are not used for felonious criminals, gangs and stopping guns from going back into Mexico.

Prison Riot Underway Due to Inhumane Treatment & Death! GEO Group Cited for Worst Prisons Ever!

A Prison Uprising is underway at the Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC). This is the second uprising in 2 months. The detainees say prison conditions are inhumane and they lack needed medical treatment. The trigger setting them off in December was a prisoner dying.

This center is located in Pecos, Tx, an extremely "out of the way" location. It houses approximately 2,400 minimum security inmates and immigration detainees. It is operated by the GEO group. GEO attempted to cover up the reason for the prisoner's death by saying the young prisoner died of natural causes. The detainees, risking their lives, protested.

As I have previously reported, the GEO Group, is an international corporation that operates prisons around the country and is frequently in the news for its abuse of prisoners in its care resulting in many preventable deaths. At least eight people died at the Geo Group-operated George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania, the state's only privately run jail. Several of those deaths resulted in lawsuits by family members who say the facility did not provide adequate medical care or proper supervision for inmates.

GEO, based in Florida, also has been under fire in Texas, where it operates more than a dozen correctional facilities. Last fall, the Texas Youth Commission abruptly canceled its $8 million contract with GEO after investigators found unsanitary living conditions at its juvenile facility. Several of the teens said they were sexually assaulted by a guard who was a convicted sex offender, according to lawsuits. GEO lost its contract at an adult facility in west Texas last year after an inspector reportedly characterized the prison as "the worst correctional facility I have ever visited." The inspection was sparked by an inmate's suicide.
Texas legislators have called for a review of all of GEO's contracts with state and local agencies.

Message to Janet Napolitano: Please investigate the conditions in Detention Centers operated by the GEO Group.

Background:

The Reeves County Detention Center (RCDC), built in 1998, is publicly owned by the Reeves County Detention Center Trust and is the largest employer in Reeves County.

The center is funded based on per diem (charge per inmate/per day) paid by the Board of Prisons (BOP).

In 2003, most of the beds were empty and the center was going bankrupt. The County was in trouble. Federal contracts with county facilities do not stipulate how many prisoners are to be housed at a facility, and the 1000 beds in the latest addition to the RCDC remained empty. The BOP stated the problem was the location (out in the middle of nowhere) and it was far too costly to transport prisoners there.

In the summer of 2003, when default seemed imminent, county Judge Jimmy Galindo wrote a letter to his friend, President Bush, asking him to intervene and save the local economy by providing BOP prisoners for the facility. In November, 2003, the GEO Group, a large RNC contributor, was brought in to operate/manage the prison.

References:

1. Dec. 12, 2008 Uprising: Texas: Detainees Protest Death, Seize Hostages, Inmates protesting medical care give up, release hostages

2. Jan. 31, 2009 Uprising: Recent Uprising, Officer: Inmates riot again at West Texas prison

3. GEO Group Abuses - Wikipedia

4. Public Bonds

5. Jail Overcrowding (Randy DeLay (brother of Tom DeLay) hired)

Postville Update: ICE Raid Ends In Town´s Devastation!

The Agriprocessor´s plant, ICE Raided of hundreds of workers in May, 2008, has shut down and filed for bankruptcy. Their managers have been criminally charged. Bail was denied for owner´s son Rubashkin, although later released on $1M bail. Since the ICE Raid in May, hundred of workers were sent to detention centers, prisons or shackled in ankle bracelets. Related businesses have also closed. Around the country, supermarkets and butcher shops supplying Jews who observe strict dietary laws have reported extreme shortages of kosher meat. Since there are only a handful of processors nationwide who slaughter animals according to Jewish law and under the supervision of rabbis, the shutdown has cut the kosher meat supply to the bone.

This week, Agriprocessors may reopen, but only briefly. There are hundreds of thousands of chickens which will soon be too old to slaughter. A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee said he hopes to rehire about 170 workers and start processing chickens Monday or Tuesday this week. The mayor said they might have trouble finding workers because many former Agriprocessors employees have gone to work for meatpackers in Waterloo and Marshalltown. Another stumbling block is Agriprocessors owes their former workers several weeks of backpay. The trustee said employees who return immediately will receive their back pay and have a job. However, under the bankruptcy process, he said it would take weeks to get back pay.

Meanwhile, the local churches, free clinics and food pantries are feeding Postville´s hungry and unemployed families. While many may disagree about the issues of Immigration, Mass Deportation, ICE Raids and Detention centers, one thing is clear. Postville, Iowa provides a clear example of the devastation that occurs to a town when ICE Raids and Mass Deportation are deployed. Now, more than ever, our country is in dire need of Comprehensive Immigration Reform!

References:

Large Iowa Meatpacker in Illegal Immigrant Raid Files for Bankruptcy

Agriprocessors halts production at Postville plant

Rubashkin Bail Denied

Financial problems close Gordon slaughterhouse

Iowa & Illinois digest

Postville raid, economy spike rise in usage at free clinic, food pantry

Detention Center Abuses in GEO Group´s Jena Prison!

LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, La., owned by GEO Groups, a large RNC contributor, is where federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent hundreds of immigrant workers after they were arrested at Howard Industries in Laurel on Aug. 25, 2008, the largest raid at a workplace in the history of the nation. Detainees were held for three weeks without formal charges or ability to see an attorney, forced to share one toothbrush with as many as 60 other workers, and dumped into single rooms holding as many as 250 inmates, according to testimony gathered by the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA). Female immigrant workers arrested at Howard - many of them mothers with young children - were forced to wear monitoring devices on their ankles and forbidden to leave Mississippi.

So far no charges have been filed against Howard Industries, where a spokesman declined to comment. Alvarez-Montgomery says ICE will gather evidence about the company’s practices based on interviews with immigrant detainees, and says that “if there is evidence against supervisors, owners, or the company in general, the information will be turned over to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Jacksonville for consideration. It’s up to them at that point if they will pursue criminal charges against the employer.”

The GEO Group is an international corporation that operates prisons around the country and is frequently in the news for its abuse of prisoners in its care resulting in many preventable deaths. Its operations in Texas have been sharply criticized over poor conditions and the treatment of some of its prisoners.

The Jena detention facility was formerly a juvenile prison. It was designed to be a model corrections center, but ended up being shut down after conditions got so bad that the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in 2000 against the management—GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut)—for abuse and violence. The investigation found that the mostly white guards used "cruel and humiliating punishments" and "routinely used excessive force" on the mostly Black youth inmates. A judge in the case said, "The way this facility operates or has operated in the recent past is that young people are treated as if they walk on all fours. These young people deserve to be treated like human beings, not animals.''

Breaking News: VP Cheney and Gonzo Indicted for Detention Center Abuse and Cover-Up

As I have frequently reported, the privately owned Private Detention Center Prisons are rife with abusive treatment of detainees, poor oversight and owned by Cronies of the Bush Administration!

Today, V.P. Cheney has been indicted for his association with his crony prison owner friends, their abuse and his role in former Attorney General Gonzales´cover-up!

ABC News reports:

McALLEN, TX -- A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers. The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies.
Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers. Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.

Information is coming out slowly. I will provide updates as they are released.

BREAKING NEWS: IT LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER JUDGE IS NOW STANDING UP TO BUSH-CHENEY´S "RULE OF TYRANNY!" THE GITMO DETAINEES, MANY OF WHOM WERE HELD WITH NO CAUSE, ARE NOW BEING RELEASED! IS THE CHENEY REIGN OF TERROR OVER?

Judge orders release of 5 Gitmo detainees
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Washington Thursday ordered five Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prisoners released, saying "seven years is enough" in captivity. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon, in the first ruling that carries out the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on detainee rights, said a single classified document the government used to hold the five wasn't convincing, Scotusblog.com reported. The government claimed, based on the document, the five -- plus one other detainee -- planned to travel to Afghanistan to participate in terrorist activities against U.S. and allied forces.

As our President chastises China for their Human Rights Abuses,Americans familiar with Migrant Detention Centers are asking "What has America become?"

As all of America learns more and more about Crony owned Detention Centers, they are appalled and outraged, asking themselves "How can this be happening in America?"
What Have We Become?
Medical Neglect in Immigrant Prisons Reveals America at Its Worst
New America Media, Posted: Aug 17, 2008
BOSTON -- On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, while Bush was preparing to express his "deep concerns" over China's human rights record, Chinese immigrant Hiu Lui Ng was dying in the custody of our great nation's own U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. For months 33-year-old Mr. Ng had complained of excruciating back pain. Officials accused him of faking it. When a judge finally ordered that Mr. Ng be brought to a hospital, it was discovered that he had a fractured spine, cancer all over his body, and very little time to live. He died five days later, leaving behind a wife and two young sons. Even as President Bush scolds the Chinese government for its human rights abuses, he is presiding over a humanitarian disaster in his own country. Millions of migrants, authorized and unauthorized, have come to the U.S. in recent years to exercise their unalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What many of those migrants have encountered is a society that is unrecognizable from its founding ideals.If a U.S. citizen were to die of medical neglect in a Chinese prison it would be an international incident. The death of Mr. Ng is just business as usual for the Bush administration. Mr. Ng is just one of dozens of migrants in the past few years who have died from apparent medical neglect in ICE's sprawling detention system. In a case very similar to Mr. Ng's, Salvadoran migrant Francisco Castaneda went for almost a year in detention without treatment for a very painful penile lesion. When finally allowed to go to a hospital, Castaneda had to have his penis amputated, and he eventually died from cancer that had spread all over his body. A federal judge described the treatment of Castaneda as "beyond cruel and unusual".While Bush was expressing his "firm opposition" the detention of dissidents in China, his administration was imprisoning migrant children in family detention centers like the Don Hutto Residential Facility. In 2007, then Kevin Yourdkhani, wrote this in crayon from Don Hutto: "I don't like to stay in this jail. I'm only nine years old. I want to go to my school in Canada. I'm sleeping beside the wall...his place is not good for me. I want to get out of the cell. Just pleace give visa for my family."It's cases like these that have led many U.S. citizens like myself to ask, "What have we become?".

EPITOME OF EVIL: Agriprocessors Continues to Pursue Latino Workers (Legal or illegal) Rather than Improve Working Conditions and Pay Livable Wages

Agriprocessors the most egregious corporation in US History is continuing to seek Latino Workers, legal or illegal, rather than improve their deplorable, unsafe working conditions or pay livable wages to Local Workers. The Rubashkins have a history rife with crime. From abusing workers, violating Child Labor Laws, illegally working children 11 hours a day with no overtime pay to providing illegal workers False Green Cards, this Company and all like them must be stopped and the owners responsible imprisoned. They have destroyed a nice town, exploited countless workers and stood as a model of unpunished corruption for others to follow. When will the Government and Law Enforcement finally put these heinous employers behind bars? Or do those GOP donations really afford them the opportunity to avoid prosecution for their crimes?

The Iowa Indepedent Reports:

Ryan Regenold, a spokesman for Des Moines-based Jacobson Companies, said his staffing company was relying on two Texas agencies, one in Amarillo and another in McAllen, for recruiting in that state. “I represent Jacobson Staffing, and we were brought here on June 2 to basically bring in an entire new community — at least that’s how it seems,” Regenold said. “There are two outside-sourced agencies that Agri is using that were bringing the people from Texas. As I’m sure most have already heard, they are coming in from Amarillo and McAllen (TX-MX border town). To shore up that, we are screening those people a little bit better, we will be starting to have them drug-screened and background-checked prior to their coming to Postville. The wave of people that you might have seen in the past, those causing the police chief to do a little bit of extra paperwork on his weekends, hopefully will begin to stop.”...One of the firms being utilized by Jacobson is Bravo Labor Agency in McAllen, Texas. Although the company’s Web site has been taken off-line, a May 30 cached version of the page indicates that the firm began in 1987. One of the specialties highlighted by the firm is its ability to “lower overhead, with inexpensive labor from South Texas and Mexico.” ...

The “bad apples” aren’t the first to come to Postville for work at Agriprocessors only to seek exit shortly after their arrival. Labor Ready, a multinational staffing firm with a branch in Waterloo, Iowa cited health and safety concerns as the reason it pulled roughly 150 workers out of the Agriprocessors plant 10 days after they started employment there. Another group of workers from the company’s Nebraska plant opted to return west, claiming the working conditions in Postville to be far inferior to their original location.

---------------------------

Agriprocessors and the Rubashkins make me angry! Why is it that rather than improve their working conditions and pay livable wages, they seek Latino workers in Texas, legal or illegal? The answers are clear. 1. GREED, 2. they have no regard for the workers they deem inferior and 3. they know their GOP Cronies will allow their crimes to go unpunished. These employers are the epitome of EVIL!

Latino Trail of Tears: 66 Died in Heinous Family Detention Centers! (for a CIVIL Violation!)

What do we tell our Children?
How do we say we did NOTHING but sit on our hands as 66 people died in Family Detention Centers for NOTHING more than a Civil Violation as our Administration stays hindered by armies of those pushing for restrictionist laws and our government can not move forward with Comprehensive Immigration Reform!?!
The 66 risked their LIVES to provide their Children the Opportunity for the American Dream! Did they die in Vain?

The New York Times Reports:

Immigration Agency’s List of Deaths in Custody
Published: May 5, 2008
The document that follows, “Detainee Deaths 2004-November 2007,” is the government’s fullest account to date of deaths in immigration detention. Compiled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, it lists the names of 66 people who died, their dates of birth and death, where they were last held, where they died and the cause of death...The list does not mention the immigrants’ nationalities or where they lived in the United States. Some names and birth dates appear garbled. For example, No. 39 on the list is Reinaldo Prado-Arencilia, who died in a Houston hospital after an “unwitnessed arrest” in a privately run detention center. (Note: Who is really dying in the Detention Centers? How are they dying? Are they murdered? Who is accountable? Who even cares? These heinous Family Detention Centers reside in such a Veil of Secrecy!) A nationwide database search turned up no one with that name, but found a person named Reinaldo Prado-Arencibia who had lived in Florida. No. 18, N. Enriquez-Betancourt, is missing a first name. The birth date provided for No. 27, Yvel Fils-Aime, would have made him 48 when he died, but a newspaper obituary reported that a 29-year-old named Yvel Filsaime died on the same day in 2004, in the same place in Virginia. On Friday, immigration authorities confirmed that the birth date on the list was incorrect. Mr. Filsaime was born Nov. 2, 1975, they said, not Oct. 3, 1956. The list does not say where two of the detainees were being held, but it does provide locations for the others. It shows that 38 percent of the detainees were held in centers operated by county or local governments, and 27 percent in those run by the federal government. Privately run centers had 32 percent of the deaths, even though they housed only 19 percent of detainees over all, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
There are more than 300 detention centers around the country, but one private operator, the Corrections Corporation of America, had 13 deaths in its centers, including 5 at one in Eloy, Ariz. One locally run detention center, Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Va., had 4 deaths, and another, Kern County’s Lerdo Detention Complex in Bakersfield, Calif., had 3.
The government produced the list after a Congressional hearing last fall into medical care and deaths in immigration custody. Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the chairwoman of the House subcommittee that held the hearing, pressed for information on detainee deaths.
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To all of my Readers,

The heinous Detention Centers are as bad as or worse than all of the atrocities that have gone before! Consider the Trail of Tears, the Japanese Internment Camps, the Holocaust! How can anyone, anyone deny what is happening and somehow, attempt to justify it!!

This is the NEW SHAME of OUR GENERATION!!

It MUST STOP!

STOP THE HEINOUS FAMILY DETENTION CENTERS!!

THERE IS NO EXCUSE!!