[Pnews] Retaliation Measures Taken at Texas Detention Facility as Detainees Resume Hunger Strike in Tacoma

[Prisoner News]

    Retaliation Measures Taken at Texas Detention Facility as Detainees
    Resume Hunger Strike in Tacoma

Friday, 28 March 2014 09:46 By Candice Bernd 
<http://truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/47429>, Truthout 
<http://truth-out.org>

http://truth-out.org/news/item/22742-retaliation-measures-taken-at-texas-detention-facility-as-detainees-resume-hunger-strike-in-tacoma#.UzXd1EUDTZs.email

Family members of detainees on hunger strike at the Joe Corley Detention 
Facility in Conroe, Texas, say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
(ICE) officials have retaliated against three detainees they believe to 
be "leaders" of the ongoing peaceful protest by isolating and shackling 
them and scheduling another for deportation.

Truthout reported on 
<http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22586-from-tacoma-to-texas-hunger-strikers-challenge-private-immigration-detention-centers-federal-deportation-policy> a 
hunger strike at a privately run GEO Group immigration detention center 
in Tacoma, Washington, that inspired a similar strike at the Conroe 
facility, also owned by the GEO Group, last week. Since then, the hunger 
strike at the Tacoma detention center has resumed and instances of 
retaliation at both facilities are apparent.

The wife of one detainee at the Joe Corley Detention Facility says her 
husband, Rubén Rodriguez Bonilla, phoned her Tuesday morning with news 
of ICE plans to deport him to Honduras on Thursday.

"They're trying to disappear my husband," Sandra Bonilla said in a 
translated statement released by the grassroots Houston group Alianza 
Mexicana. "Instead of treating the detainees like human beings they want 
to treat them like animals. And if they ask for better, they try to get 
rid of them. My husband should be home with our family, not in 
detention. He doesn't want to be treated like a dog, and so they're 
punishing him even more. There's nothing humane about that."

According to family members, lawyers and immigrant justice groups 
working on their behalf, another three men have been isolated at the 
Texas facility, and shackled at the ankles, wrists and connected by the 
waist to steel beds with no blankets or pillows.

ICE officials did not publicly acknowledge a hunger strike at the Texas 
facility last week, despite two letters outlining a list of demands 
released by detainees who have since been isolated at the facility.

This week, Houston ICE spokesman Greg Palmore acknowledged that at least 
three detainees are participating in a hunger strike, saying the men 
"have been separated from the general population and placed under 
medical observation." Palmore told Truthout that no punitive actions 
have been taken against individuals who are participating in the protest.

He confirmed to Truthout that Rodriguez Bonilla was not scheduled for 
deportation Thursday and that his case is going through appeal. But 
Palmore said ICE does not provide "removal information for detainees for 
security reasons." Palmore did not confirm whether ICE officials would 
force-feed detainees.

But detainees and others who have visited the facility have told 
Truthout retaliatory measures are being taken at the Texas facility.

Rodriguez Bonilla told his wife that he has not been isolated but was 
put into a smaller cell with other detainees, some of whom are on hunger 
strike. He told her four detainees have been removed from his cell this 
week; he believes them to have been deported. He has also alleged that 
detention facility officials have attempted to coerce the detainees into 
signing voluntary departure forms 
<http://photos.state.gov/libraries/jamaica/231771/PDFs/ice_form_i_210.pdf> to 
speed their deportation.

The current number of hunger-striking detainees is difficult to confirm 
this week because visitation with civilians has been limited since 
detainees launched the hunger strike last Monday. At one point, at least 
120 men were on hunger strike at the Texas facility, but the detainees 
have been separated from each other, according to family members, and 
put into smaller group cells, making the number of hunger strikers 
difficult to confirm.

"Joe Corley detention center is shut down like Fort Knox," said Hope 
Sanford, who organizes with Alianza Mexicana. "It's ... opaque. That's 
how [prison officials] are keeping it."

Sanford and family members told Truthout that prison guards purposely 
unshackle the detainees who have been isolated when any visitors 
approach. The three isolated detainees are allowed only one visit per week.

*Tacoma Strikers Negotiate, Inspire Legislative Action*

Meanwhile at least 70 detainees at the Northwest Detention Center have 
resumed hunger striking Monday, but exact numbers remain difficult to 
assess. Retaliatory measures also may have been used against detainees 
at the Tacoma facility, such as placing some detainees in solitary 
confinement and threatening to force-feed them, according to immigration 
rights activists working with and visiting the detainees in Tacoma.

Organizer Maru Mora Villalpando told Truthout that prison guards at the 
Tacoma detention center have been listening in on the detainees' 
conversations and that the detainees have responded to by finding more 
"creative" ways to communicate.

Congressman Adam Smith, a Democrat from Bellevue, among other 
representatives, visited the Northwest Dentention Center last week after 
news of the detainees' massive hunger strike made national headlines. 
Smith met with three detainees and agreed with the men that their 
concerns about the center's conditions were valid. Smith plans to 
introduce legislation that would create minimum standards by which 
immigrants can be detained.

"It is really problematic having a private company running this," Smith 
told The Stranger 
<http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/03/25/rep-adam-smith-slams-shocking-conditions-at-immigrant-detention-center>, 
emphasizing that the GEO Group contracts out the handling of meals for 
detainees to third parties. "So I can imagine that the less they pay for 
the food, the more money they make."

Immigrant rights activists acted on behalf of Tacoma hunger-striking 
detainees during negotiations with ICE officials in Seattle on Friday, 
presenting the detainees' list of demands. Organizers said ICE officials 
invited organizations that had nothing to do with negotiations, and that 
one group declined the invitation for this reason.

ICE officials told the group that the Tacoma facility is one of the top 
detention centers in the country. "If that's true, then it tells me the 
rest of the country is in terrible, terrible shape," Villalpando told 
Truthout in response.

When negotiating over the detainees' food concerns, ICE officials 
offered to provide the detainees chicken with bones. When Villalpando 
took that information back to hunger striking detainees, one detainee 
told her that ICE's response was "literally just throwing a bone at 
[detainees] to make them quiet."

ICE officials also told the group that the detainees' personal anecdotes 
about medical care at the facility were not enough evidence to agree to 
any of their demands concerning adequate care.

But perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the negotiation 
process was the discussion concerning the center's profit margins, the 
length of time it takes for detainees to be released and the rate of 
bond at the center.

"One thing that we learned is that because we have a detention center 
here, really, it's a priority to fill up that place and not to offer 
alternatives to detention," Villapando said. "It really means that if we 
didn't have these private detention centers here, people would be more 
likely out with their families in their homes with alternatives to 
detention, going through civil proceedings."

ICE hasn't yet followed up with the group concerning the negotiations, 
but the group did provide a report about their meeting to Congressional 
representatives.

*Pressure Mounts for Immigration Reform Vote, Halt to Deportations
*

The hunger strikes at the privatized detention facilities continue this 
week as immigrant justice organizers increase pressure on the Obama 
administration to put an immediate halt to deportation and to pass 
immigration reform legislation through a range of tactics, including 
nonviolent civil disobedience.

Protests have erupted this week at the GEO Group's headquarters in Boca 
Raton, Florida, as well as at ICE's headquarters in Portland, Oregon. 
And on Monday, seven activists with the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant 
Justice were arrested 
<http://www.acij.net/seven-alabama-immigrant-activists-arrested-blocking-of-entrance-of-etowah-county-detention-center-in-gadsden-alabama/> while 
blocking the entrance of the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden, 
Alabama, with two undocumented immigrants among them.

Another group, Presente.org <http://presente.org/>, launched a new 
campaign Wednesday aimed at Obama's immigration legacy. Several regional 
and national immigrant-rights groups have worked together to unveil the 
"Obama Legacy Project <http://www.obamalegacy.com/>." The groups hope 
the campaign will hold Obama accountable by providing a comprehensive 
account of his immigration record, saying he risks becoming "the worst 
president in history on immigration."

The projects looks at Obama's record on a long list of issues such as 
deportation, border militarization, mass incarceration of undocumented 
immigrants, racial profiling policies, hate crimes, the Secure 
Communities program <https://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/>, the 
experiences of immigrant women in detention centers and oversight of 
border patrol, among others.

"It is a tipping point for the president," said Jesús Iñiguez, a 
campaigner with Presente.org who is openly undocumented. "He can either 
be remembered as deporter-in-chief, the worst president in history on 
immigration, responsible for the record deportations that have ripped 
hundreds of thousands of families apart, or he can choose to act."

House Democrats tried once again Wednesday to force a vote 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/us/politics/democrats-to-try-long-shot-tactic-for-house-immigration-vote.html?_r=0> on 
immigration reform legislation with a rarely used procedural maneuver 
called a discharge petition that would circumvent the Republican 
majority and skirt the regular committee process to bring the 
legislation to the floor. The move has been called a long shot and is 
designed mostly to put pressure on House Republicans to act on a reform 
package before the year's end, according to /The New York Times/.

"I applaud the efforts of Democrats in the House to give immigration 
reform the yes or no vote it deserves,"  Obama said in a statement 
released by the White House. "Like the Senate bill, the House bill would 
strengthen our borders, modernize our legal immigration system, and keep 
more families together. It would make sure everyone plays by the same 
rules by providing a pathway to earned citizenship for those who are 
living in the shadows."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reaffirmed Tuesday 
<http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/cbo-immigration-bill-scorecuts-deficit-900-billion-over-20-years/> that 
the House immigration reform package, which is very similar to the 
Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act 
that passed out of committee in the Senate, would reduce the federal 
deficit by about $900 billion over 20 years.

The move comes after Obama, citing concern about family separation, 
called for a review of his administration's immigration-enforcement 
policies this month, to look into whether enforcement could be 
accomplished "more humanely within the confines of the law."

Iñiguez, though, says that these statements - unaccompanied by action - 
are not enough.

"The debates happening in Congress seems to be more theatric between 
both political parties than they are constructive. Meanwhile, immigrants 
continue to suffer on a daily basis because President Obama has strayed 
from providing any kind of relief by using his executive authority," 
Iñiguez said.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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