No One is Illegal-Vancouver
Visit our blog at http://noiivan.blogspot.com
CANADA
1) Security certificate detainee released on bail
2) Canadian boy caught in Texas detention
3) Deportation cases not properly reviewed
4) Red tape leaves spouses in residency limbo
USA
5) US Immigration News Briefs
6) Privatized prisons for immigrants
7) 51 workers detained in immigration raids in Seattle
INDIGENOUS
8) Another Six Nations political prisoner
9) Native Youth Movement warrior arrested at anti-Olympic protest
10) Correction re: Trevor Miller article
11) Kwakiutl: 'We are going to start fighting'
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Court orders release of suspected terrorist on hunger strike
CBC News, February 15th
Mohammad Mahjoub, an Egyptian held in Canada without charge for years as a
suspected terrorist, is to be released pending a review of his case.
The Federal Court decision was released Thursday, the 84th day of
Mahjoub's hunger strike to protest his treatment.
"I wish to stress that this will amount to a form of house arrest and that
Mr. Mahjoub will be returned to custodial detention if he violates the
terms and conditions," Justice Richard Mosley wrote in the decision.
Mosley also said he believes Mahjoub perjured himself and still poses a
potential danger to Canadian society.
Among the conditions of release are that Mahjoub:
* Wears an electronic monitoring device.
* Posts a $32,500 release bond.
* Resides with his wife in Toronto.
"We wish it hadn't taken this long," said Mahjoub's lawyer, John Norris.
"We find it tremendously heartening that judges are now looking at these
cases and are seeing that release terms can be fashioned. "
Mahjoub's wife, Mona Elfouli, told the CBC Thursday she has been getting
calls from friends, supporters and the media all day.
Elfouli said she cried Thursday morning when she was told that her husband
will soon come home to their two children. But she added her family's
ordeal is far from over.
"There's still the fight going on for security certificates itself, for
[pieces of] evidence we don't know what they are," she said. "We are
completely in the dark. I need to find the truth."
Mahjoub, 46, has been held since 2000 on a security certificate that
allows detention without charge or disclosure of evidence. He was accused
of being linked to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
He was ordered deported in 2004 even though Ottawa agreed he might be
tortured if returned to the country of his birth.
In December, a Federal Court judge ruled that decision to be "patently
unreasonable" and ordered the government to review his case.
Mahjoub is one of five people being held by the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service on security certificates based on secret evidence.
Under federal law, the government can hold a suspect indefinitely if it
can convince a judge that the suspect is a threat.
Mahjoub has consistently alleged that prison guards have beaten and
humiliated him during his detention. He also says the guards have
encouraged other prisoners to beat him up.
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Canadian boy caught in Texas detention
Toronto Star, February 16th
Michelle Shephard
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/182470
A 9-year-old Canadian boy is in a Texas detention centre after his flight
to Toronto made an unscheduled stop and U.S. officials detained his
family.
Now the boy's Iranian parents are pleading with Canadian officials to help
secure the family's release from the immigration holding facility, which
has come under fire for allegedly detaining children in sub-standard
conditions.
"All the time he is asking me, `Why am I wearing the uniform? Why I am
here?'" the boy's mother said, as she sobbed during a telephone interview
from the detention facility yesterday.
"We didn't do nothing. My child is innocent."
The parents, who have no status in Canada, asked that their names not be
published out of fear of eventually being returned to Iran, where they say
they were previously imprisoned and suffered physical and sexual abuse.
The family's complicated journey began after the couple fled Iran and
arrived in Toronto in January 1995. They lived here for 10 years while
seeking asylum, giving birth to a son. But on Dec. 6, 2005, with all legal
avenues exhausted, the parents were deported back to Iran.
The boy's father claimed he had been originally persecuted in Iran after
he was discovered with novelist Salman Rushdie's book. Once they were sent
back there from Canada, they were detained and tortured for three months
while the boy lived with relatives. Once released from custody, they again
fled, reaching Turkey with the help of relatives. They bought fake
passports and eventually travelled to Guyana, the parents said.
On Feb. 4 they boarded a direct flight from Guyana to Toronto aboard Zoom
Airlines, planning to seek refuge again in Canada. The boy's father said
the plane was diverted to Puerto Rico after a passenger suffered a
mid-flight heart attack.
Once they disembarked, U.S. officials discovered the family was travelling
with the fake Greek passports. They were detained for five days, then
flown to the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center in Taylor, Tex., the
boy's father said.
Immigration rights groups have condemned the detention facility since it
opened last May and last Saturday, officials opened its doors to the media
to try to deflect some of the criticism. The New York Times reported that
the American Civil Liberties Union is studying conditions there as it
considers filing a lawsuit contending that the laws protecting detained
juveniles are being violated.
On Tuesday, the boy's father phoned the University of Texas's immigration
clinic and spoke with Matthew Pizzo, a student worker there. Pizzo then
called the Canadian consulate in Dallas, where an unnamed employee told
him the consular officials would investigate the detainment.
When he didn't receive a return call, Pizzo said he called back late
Wednesday and left a message. There's been no further word from Canadian
officials and consulate spokesperson Henry Wells could not be reached for
comment yesterday.
"The interesting issue here is they weren't even trying to get into the
U.S.," said Francis Valdez, a supervising attorney at the university's
immigration clinic. "They were just trying to get back to Canada."
The parents said they hoped to reapply for asylum in Canada armed with
evidence of what happened to them in Iran after they were deported.
Authorities at the Hutto detention centre have acknowledged holding 170
children there, says Barbara Hines, a University of Texas law professor.
It's a frightening experience for children, she said. Families are held in
prison cells that have had the locks taken off. Laser beams detect when
people get out of their beds, the professor said.
"Families get 15 minutes to eat and then the food is thrown out," Hines
said. "Have you tried to feed a child and then yourself in 15 minutes?"
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Deportation cases not properly reviewed
Embassy, February 14th
Brian Adeba
Refugee agencies want pre-risk assessments moved to the Immigration and
Refugee Board, while one MP is critical of the judges' inexperience. Two
representatives from agencies dealing with refugee issues raised concern
yesterday about the high rate of refugees being deported to their home
countries. Speaking before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and
Immigration, Claudette Cardinal, from the Canadian francophone section of
Amnesty International, said cases for deportation are not being properly
reviewed, and this puts refugees at risk when they are forcefully sent
back to their home countries.
Richard Goldman, co-ordinator of Refugee Protection, a Montreal-based
advocacy group, told the committee that to solve the problem the
government must remove the Pre-Risk Assessment process from Citizenship
and Immigration Canada and incorporate it into the Immigration and Refugee
Board.
"This is because the IRB is already expert on refugee issues and it is
independent of the government," he said in an interview.
"It seems to us to make sense to have the same experts decide whether a
person at the end of the process would face prosecution in their home
country. It makes no sense to have two different teams, one at CIC and the
IRB to do that."
Ms. Cardinal testified that because of improper assessment by Pre-Risk
Assessment officials, her office has received reports that refugees who
were deported ended up disappearing or receiving death threats, while some
were forced into hiding. She gave the example of a a former slave from the
West African nation of Mauritania who, upon learning that slavery was
illegal in his country, embarked on a process of educating others held in
servitude. The man later fled to Canada because he was threatened with
death. However, his application for refugee status was rejected. He was
subsequently deported and now his whereabouts are unknown.
Only one to three per cent of applicants are accepted in the Pre-Risk
Assessment process. After rejection, most refugees go to a federal court
to seek redress. The process takes two to three months, during which time
refugees have no source of income. The total review process takes one to
three years once it is before a federal judge, Mr. Goldman said.
PRA officials also came under criticism from some MPs for their
inexperience. Meili Faille, citizenship and immigration critic for the
Bloc Quebecois, said in Montreal the average age of PRA officials is 22 to
25 years.
"I don't know if you have come across a citizenship judge who is 25 years
old–this is troubling," she told the committee.
Both Ms. Cardinal and Mr. Goldman recommended that the government
implement the Refugee Appeals Board and ban deportations while hearings on
refugee eligibility are going on.
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Red tape leaves spouses in residency limbo - MP calls for more hiring
Vancouver Sun, February 12th
Norma Greenaway
Kenyan-born Mohamed Khandwalla is living in a frustrating limbo in
Toronto, despite being armed with a masterÂ’s degree in pharmacy from
Britain, fresh credentials as a registered pharmacist in Canada and the
love of a good woman.
Khandwalla says his wait to get permanent residency in Canada, which he
expected would be about six months, has stretched to a year, and could
last another 10 months or so based on what the local immigration office is
telling him.
The 29-year-old says the waiting is getting him down because he is barred
from working or travelling outside Canada while his application is
pending.
"Trust me, itÂ’s a problem, itÂ’s very sad," said Khandwalla, an only child
whose father has not seen him since he married his Canadian bride in
November 2005.
Khandwalla says he knows that with his education and skills, he could
secure faster residency in several other desirable countries. But he says
his wife Amina, who was a preschooler when her parents immigrated to
Canada from Kenya, wants to stay here.
"She loves Canada. I cannot be selfish and drag her elsewhere," Khandwalla
said in a telephone interview.
"WeÂ’ve come to a compromise that weÂ’ll wait it out."
Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis says wait times have become unacceptably long,
and that itÂ’s time for the Conservative government to hire more people for
the system.
Karygiannis, MP for the immigrant-dominated riding of
Scarborough-Agincourt, says the process of sponsoring a spouse or
common-law partner used to take six or eight months.
He urged Diane Finley, the new minister of citizenship and immigration, to
focus on boosting staff at the processing centre in Vegreville, Alta.,
which handles spousal sponsorship applications made from within Canada.
He said the lengthening wait times show the Conservative government has
not lived up to its promise to "do things better" than the former Liberal
government.
Two years ago, the former Liberal government moved to make it easier for
foreign spouses to apply for permanent residency status. It said
individuals who were in a genuine marriage or common-law relationship but
who did not have legal status in Canada would be allowed to remain in
Canada while their applications were being processed.
The move, which was said to affect about 3,000 couples a year, was widely
applauded at the time.
On its website, Citizenship and Immigration Canada advises applicants the
current estimated processing time at the Vegreville centre is nine to 10
months.
Karygiannis said the estimate does not include the time it then takes to
sign off on the file after it has been sent to the applicantÂ’s local
immigration centre.
He said delays beyond a year add to the applicantsÂ’ headaches because,
among other things, their medical seal of approval expires after one year.
Iranian David Firoozian, 52, is another restless potential immigrant. His
Canadian wife says Firoozian has been battling boredom as he hangs around
their house in Toronto waiting to get his residency status.
He applied about six months ago, but given current processing estimates,
will likely remain in his jobless prison for several more months.
Firoozian, a skilled labourer and carpenter, could "get a job in a
second," said his wife Zohreh Kashanian Monfared, who immigrated to Canada
in 1988 as a young widow.
Though Kashanian Monfared, an esthetician, jokes that she loves having a
house husband, and that her friends are jealous, she says her husband is
"desperate" to work so the couple can buy a house and get on with their
new life.
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Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 10, No. 4 - February 10, 2007
1. Baltimore: Day Laborers Arrested
2. Chicago: Cleaning Workers Arrested
3. More Military Base Arrests
BALTIMORE: DAY LABORERS ARRESTED
On Jan. 23, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested
24 undocumented day laborers in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience
store in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. ICE
spokesperson Marc Raimondi said the agents were part of a fugitive
operations team on an unrelated assignment when they stopped at the
convenience store. A group of day laborers approached the agents' unmarked
vehicles, believing they were contractors looking for workers. According
to Raimondi, the ICE agents then determined that all 24 men assembled at
the store were out-of-status, and brought them to an ICE holding facility
in Baltimore. "Although ICE conducts targeted enforcement actions, we will
not ignore immigration violations we encounter during the course of doing
business," said John Alderman, acting director of ICE's Baltimore field
office. Ten of the arrested men were Honduran, eight were Mexican, five
were Salvadoran and one was Peruvian. According to ICE, six of the men had
criminal records in the US, eight had failed to comply with final removal
orders from an immigration judge and one had been caught at the border on
four occasions.
At a press conference later the same day in front of the 7- Eleven where
the arrests took place, the immigrant advocacy group CASA of Maryland said
the "illegal raid" unfairly targeted Latin Americans and was beyond ICE's
authority. "Asking a bunch of people about their immigration status is
well beyond the confines of a specific warrant," CASA spokeswoman Kim
Propeack said. Other immigrant advocates and faith leaders joined in the
press conference to protest the arrests and call for reforms to the
country's immigration system. [Washington Times 1/24/07]
CHICAGO: CLEANING WORKERS ARRESTED
On Jan. 23, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents
arrested 11 women immigrants from Poland who worked cleaning residences
and businesses in the Chicago area. The women were employed by CleanPol, a
cleaning service company operated out of a residence in Glenview, just
north of Chicago. All 11 had entered the US on visitor visas and
overstayed. They have been placed in removal proceedings.
ICE initiated the investigation into CleanPol in October 2006 after
receiving information that out-of-status immigrants were employed there.
ICE subsequently discovered that CleanPol employed workers who were picked
up in a van each day and driven to various job sites. ICE agents stopped a
van at an intersection on Chicago's north side and made the arrests after
watching the driver pick up workers at several locations. [ICE News
Release 1/24/07]
MORE MILITARY BASE ARRESTS
On Jan. 17, ICE agents and US Army security personnel arrested 24 contract
workers as they attempted to enter Fort Benning, Georgia, to build a
barracks for soldiers. Three of the workers had overstayed visas and are
to be placed in removal proceedings; the other 21 face federal charges in
the US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia in Columbus for
identity theft and immigration violations, including improper entry and
reentry after deportation, according to ICE.
In Virginia on Jan. 18, ICE arrested 14 undocumented workers on
administrative immigration charges--three of them at the Quantico Marine
Base, three in Fredericksburg and eight at an apartment complex in
Dumfries. ICE arrested two other men--one of them a US citizen--at the
same Dumfries
apartment complex the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia has
charged the two with conspiracy to harbor "illegal aliens." A third man is
being sought. The three men are accused of hiring undocumented immigrants
to work on a construction project on Quantico Marine Base. They are also
accused of leasing apartments for the workers and providing them with
transportation onto the base using trucks bearing Department of Defense
decals.
On Jan. 18, ICE agents and Nellis Air Force Base security officers
arrested two immigrants at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs,
Nevada. The two were employed by a masonry construction company to
construct aviation electronics buildings on the base. According to ICE,
one of those arrested is a Nicaraguan who "is a member of MS-13,
considered to be one of the most dangerous gangs operating in America."
The investigation into is ongoing, says ICE.
Agencies assisting in the three operations included the US Marshals
Service, the US Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, the
Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, US military
security personnel and the police department of Prince William County,
Virginia. [ICE News Release 1/19/07]
During the week of Jan. 22, federal and Florida state agents arrested 13
individuals at the Naval Air Station in Key West, Florida. ICE reported
that two of those arrested were undocumented and "in possession of
fraudulent" green cards; the US attorney's office has agreed to prosecute,
ICE said. Two other men were arrested on outstanding state warrants and
nine on state fraudulent identifications charges, ICE reported. More than
120 individuals who did not have proper naval IDs were escorted off the
base. All those arrested and escorted off base were employed by general
contractors, the agency said. Other agencies involved in the operation
included the Naval Air Station Key West, the Naval Criminal Investigative
Service, the Key West Police Department and the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement. [Miami Herald 1/29/07]
Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on
the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St,
New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674- 9499; fax 212-674-9139; wnu@igc.org. INB
is also distributed via email; contact nicajg@panix.com for info.
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This alien life: Privatized prisons for immigrants
CorpWatch, February 5th
Deepa Fernandez
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14333&printsafe=1
The small town of Florence, Arizona, sits at an epicenter of a new boom in
private prisons for immigrants. The one-lane highway from Tucson to this
desert prison town runs through cacti, red rock, and occasional mountains.
Then out of nowhere, a roadside sign breaks the spell: "State Prison: Do
Not Pick Up Hitchhikers."
Florence hosts ArizonaÂ’s state prison, two privately run prison complexes,
and one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration jail.
Florence "has a prison economy and a prison consciousness," says Victoria
López, an attorney who runs the town’s only pro bono legal center that
helps immigrant detainees fight their cases. "Florence is another world.
Here most locals are people whose families have for generations worked in
the prison system. Life revolves around the prisons."
As the government invokes national security to sweep up and jail an
unprecedented number of immigrants, the private-prison industry is
booming. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks on New York,
immigrants have become the fastest growing segment of the prison
population in the U.S. today. In fiscal year 2005, more than 350,000
immigrants went through the courts. "A growing share of them committed no
crimes while in the United States - 53 percent this year, up from 37
percent in 2001 - even though Bush administration officials repeatedly
have said their priority is deporting criminals," the Denver Post
reported.
>From Mining to Prisons
Many locals have family roots in the mining industry that was the
lifeblood of rough and tumble town until the silver boom petered out.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the territorial prison moved to town.
But the town really came back to life after Tennessee-based Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA) one of the nation's biggest prison companies,
built two prisons in Florence, and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) began renting bed space, and then built its own prison out
of a town's old World War II prisoner-of-war camp. The influx of immigrant
prisoners created jobs that drove the economy and sparked construction of
new housing complexes on the outskirts of town, followed by big retailers
such as Wal-Mart.
In 2000, the industry was carrying more than $1 billion in debt and was
violating its existing credit agreements. CCA saw its stock plummet 93
percent and Business Week noted that the correction "industryÂ’s heyday may
already be history."
At the time, the American Prospect, a national magazine, explained the
decline:
"The private-prison industry is in trouble. For close to a decade, its
business boomed and its stock prices soared because state legislators
across the country thought they could look both tough on crime and
fiscally conservative if they contracted with private companies to handle
the growing multitudes being sent to prison under the new, more severe
sentencing laws. But then reality set in: accumulating press reports about
gross deficiencies and abuses at private prisons; lawsuits; million-dollar
fines. By last year, not a single state was soliciting new private-prison
contracts. Many existing contracts were rolled back or even rescinded. The
companiesÂ’ stock prices went through the floor."
Then came the the September 11th attacks on New York in 2001. The
government began to target non-citizens with mass arrests during sweeps
through immigrant communities, increased prosecutions of undocumented
border crossers, and the use of immigration law to hold people while
looking for criminal or terrorist charges against them. The INS was
subsumed into a new agency named the Department of Homeland Security.
The government claims that locking up people without legal status is the
only way to ensure that they do not disappear into the country. A December
2004 DHS report from the Office of the Inspector General concluded that
all the evidence proved the "importance of detention in relation to the
eventual removal of an alien. Hence effective management of detention bed
space can substantially contribute to immigration enforcement efforts."
The speed and scope of the Bush administration round up and jailing of
non-citizens created a dramatically increased need for immigrant detention
space. And saved the flailing corrections industry.
The DHS-run Special Processing Center is a massive one-stop-shop, where
immigrants can be jailed, tried in an immigration court, appealed before
an immigration judge, and ordered deported—all without leaving the
self-contained complex. While DHS does not refer to its facilities as
jails, the Special Processing Center in Florence is ringed by concertina
wire, surrounded by chain-link fences, with inmates locked into cells.
They face zealous prosecution and in many cases are left to languish for
weeks and months without trial or sentencing.
The complex in Florence is part of a 300-facility-strong network of
immigrant incarceration facilities. The average time an immigrant is
detained is 42.5 days from arrest to deportation. At $85 a day per
detainee, that adds up to $3,612.50 per person. In 2003, DHS was holding
231,500 detainees, and the budget to cover this was $1.3 billion. Since
2001, the DHS budget for detention bed space has increased each fiscal
year as has the number of beds. In 2003 there was more than $50 million
slated for the construction of immigrant jails.
Corrections Corporation of America
Contracts for these new jails flowed to the private prison industry
despite the previous history of mismanagement and scandal. Yet the
problems have not been solved – today detainee advocates still decry the
treatment of immigrant inmates. They accuse prison companies of cutting
corners in training guards and in providing basic services. The government
has done little to regulate prison administration, but has sanctioned
exploitive labor practices and rip-off telephone costs for inmates.
Philippe Louis-Jean, a veteran who saw combat in Iraq detailed some of
abuse. A Haitian immigrant who had lived in the U.S. since he was five,
the Marine had advanced quickly though the ranks. On return from Iraq,
when he attempted to have his battlefield promotions honored, his
superiors looked into his past and found an old military conviction for
which he was served 37 days. The government used that record to begin
deportation proceedings and threw Louis-Jean into CCA-run San Diego
Correctional Facility (SDCF). He was appalled by conditions and
treatment.
"The guards would scream and shout at us as if we were little kids. If we
would ask them to stop, they would threaten to lock us down for a few
days, which would happen constantly. Three people being locked in a
two-man cell, in a 12 x 7 room. This happened a lot; sometimes as
punishment for the actions of one or two inmates, the other 105–115
detainees would suffer."
"Other times, it seemed ‘just because.’ A lot of the detainees would be
missing money on their accounts, which I was recently told by a detainee
who keeps in contact with me was being stolen by the staff, according to
[an] OIG investigation. We would get underserved during meal times. When
we complained to the unit manager she would say that we were given the
right amounts, which in my opinion is the appropriate portion for a ten or
eleven year old. Some of the guards and staff would curse at us. They
would purposely lower the televisions so we couldnÂ’t hear them, just to
mess with us. During our free time they would take their time turning on
the phones so we wouldnÂ’t be able to call our families. Just to be cruel."
One of his guards, an ex-marine, told Louis Jean "he was taught to not
really pay attention to our complaining and to treat us like second-class
citizens ... since we will be deported anyway."
A 2003 report by the DHS Inspector General forcefully condemned the
treatment of immigrants inside various jails in it report, "The September
11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration
Charges in Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks."
Infractions included routine abuse of basic prisoner rights, mental and
physical abuse, denial of health care and medical treatment, prison
overcrowding, and a lack of working showers, and toilets.
Despite a long record of problems, CCA continues to promote privatization
and win contracts. "The private prison industry, to increase the demand
for its services, exerts whatever pressure it can to encourage state
legislators to privatize state prisons," wrote Sharon Dolovich in the Duke
University Law Journal. "[T]he industry is adept at lobbying legislators
and targeting campaign contributions to promote its privatization agenda."
Indeed, some critics charge that the company's success is related to its
deep rooted ties to elected officials. In addition to CCA's record of
campaign contributions to the Republican Party since 1997, there are
significant connections between executives and government officials. J.
Michael Quinlan, former head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, has been an
executive at CCA for the past decade. CCAÂ’s chief lobbyist in the state of
Tennessee is married to the speaker of the house. And CCA is a member of
the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that
writes and pushes bills on policy such as sentencing guidelines.
For the second quarter of 2005, CCA announced that its revenue had
increased three percent over last year, for a total of almost $300
million. CCA calculates that it expenditure of $28.89 per inmate, per day
allows it to make a daily profit of $50.26 per inmate. Meanwhile, on July
1, 2005, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded CCA
contracts to continue running the 300-bed Elizabeth Detention Center in
New Jersey and the 1,216-bed San Diego Correctional Facility. Both of
these contracts are for three years with five three-year renewal options.
In 2005 CCA also secured new prison contracts with the Kentucky Department
of Corrections, the state of Kansas, and the Florida Department of
Management Services.
Business is good for CCA and the more people it stuffs into its prisons
the better it becomes. "As you know, the first 100 inmates into a
facility, we lose money, and the last 100 inmates into a facility we make
a lot of money" CCA Chief Financial Officer Irving Lingo said on a 2006
company conference call.
Wackenhut
Florida-based Wackenhut, a major private security company, has also
received a great boost in the years since the September 11th attacks on
New York. Its poor record has not undermined its ability to reap lucrative
government contracts. Before 2001, Wackenhut, like CCA, had been at the
center of all manner of inmate-abuse scandals: Guards were caught having
sex with underage inmates, there were routine reports of extreme
mistreatment of inmates, and there was even a disproportionately high
level of deaths in their facilities.
Wackenhut CEO George Zoley has been flippant about the cases of abuse.
After a CBS Television report exposed the repeated rape of a 14-year-old
girl at a Wackenhut juvenile jail and two guards were found guilty, Zoley
said, "ItÂ’s a tough business. The people in prison are not Sunday-school
children." Still more worrying was WackenhutÂ’s record with
inmate-on-inmate killings, which, contrary to public perception, are not
very common in America’s prisons. In 1998–99 alone, Wackenhut’s New Mexico
facilities had a death rate of one murder for every 400 prisoners. For the
same period in all U.S. prisons, the rate was about one in 22,000.
Wackenhut's most visible response was to change its name. Now as the GEO
Group, it is still headed by George Zoley, and it continues to run the
Wackenhut facilities and get new contracts. In 2005 the State of
California Department of Corrections gave GEO the contract for the housing
of minimum security adult male inmates at the 224-bed McFarland Community
Correctional Facility estimated to generate $4.1 million in annual
revenues. On August 8, 2002, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
awarded GEO a contract for the company's Broward Transitional Center in
Miami. The contract has been extended through September 2008.
Under a 2005 ICE contract GEO also manages the Queens Private Correctional
Facility, where it expects to reap $10.5 million in annual revenues. The
Mississippi Department of Corrections also renewed GEO's contract for the
continued management and operation of the 1,000-bed Marshall County
Correctional Facility. Meanwhile, also in 2005, GEO announced a merger
with Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) that will add approximately
$100 million in revenue to GEOÂ’s coffers. GEO is especially excited about
the earning potential from CSCÂ’s 1,000-bed expansion of its State Prison
in Florence, Arizona.
GEO executives are overjoyed about the boom in business. In 1999, the
feds farmed out less than 3 percent of beds; but seven years later, the
number had reached almost one in five. "That's a remarkable turnaround,"
GEO Group CEO George Zoley told his fellow executives."And it's continuing
to lead in that direction, that for minimum-security beds by the BOP
(Bureau of Prisons) to house criminal aliens and illegal aliens by either
the U.S. Marshal Service or the BOP or immigration service, they are
turning to private companies."
"I think we're in a new era that I could never predicted, really, this
scale of acceptance by the federal government. We talked about it for
many, many years, but we're finally on the verge of it... ." added Zoley.
Cost Savings
The corrections industry has routinely argued that privatizing prisons
dramatically lowers costs. A 1996 U.S. General Accounting Office report
concluded, however, that there was no clear evidence supporting this
contention.
Prison companies do have clear advantages over other corporations: They
are able to save large amounts of money on labor practices that would
illegal under any other circumstances. Inmate jobs in all prisons pay a
pittance, but immigrant prisons are even worse. Because DHS guidelines
mandate that non-citizen prisoners cannot earn more than $1 per day, the
company gets janitors, maintenance workers, cleaners, launderers, kitchen
staff, sewers and grounds keepers at almost no cost.
With the increase in prison beds for immigrants comes the pressure to fill
them - a scenario that has immigrant advocates extremely worried. Isabel
GarcÃa, attorney and human rights activist in Tucson, sees the drive to
jail immigrants as fueling the same prison-industrial complex that first
flourished with the war on drugs.
"The war on drugs has conveniently become a war on immigrants," says
GarcÃa, "and there is a lot of money to be made in detaining immigrants."
The grown industry of incarcerating immigrants is facilitated by the tight
connections between the private-prison industry and the federal government
and the extent of the industry's powerful and well-funded lobby. GarcÃa
worries that the profit motive behind detaining immigrants will promote
the criminalization of immigrants.
In the name of national security, the Department of Homeland Security has
let industry lead the way in implementing systems and procedures that
purport to protect America from future terrorist attack. However, in many
cases it is immigrants and non-citizens with no connections to terrorism
who get tangled in the net.
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51 held as illegal workers at two Auburn warehouses
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 15th
Casey McNerthney
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/303767_ins15.html
Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 51 foreign
nationals Wednesday morning believed to be working illegally at two Auburn
warehouses.
The Customs-bonded warehouses, which were the subject of a federal civil
inspection warrant, are operated by UPS Supply Chain Solutions. The
majority of the workers taken into custody were temporary laborers, many
of them working for Spherion Corp., which provides temporary employees for
UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
The warehouses are secure, licensed storage facilities used to store
imported goods. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents said they
consider the warehouses critical buildings -- the same as airports and
military bases -- because workers with access to such sites are vulnerable
to exploitation by terrorists and other criminals.
"When individuals use fraudulent or false documents to gain employment,
they hide their true identity and history," said Mike McCool, deputy
special agent in charge of the Seattle's Immigration and Customs
Enforcement office of investigations.
Those false identities pose a potential threat to the nation's commercial
infrastructure, he said.
The workers were taken into custody after agents from Immigration and
Custom Enforcement -- an agency within the Department of Homeland Security
- audited employment records of UPS Supply Chain Solutions and Spherion
after a routine employment compliance exam by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection.
A spokeswoman said the audit revealed discrepancies that made agents
believe a number of the company's employees used counterfeit identity,
including fraudulent Social Security numbers, to obtain their jobs.
UPS spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg would not specify the company's
relationship with Spherion, but said UPS is "cooperating with the
authorities to find out more information" about the arrests.
A Spherion spokesman said the company adheres to all state and federal
employment regulations and is "taking this matter very seriously."
The majority of the unauthorized workers, 44, were from Mexico, but the
group included four foreign nationals from Guatemala and three from El
Salvador. Agents are reviewing the backgrounds of each of the workers
taken into custody to determine how to handle the individual cases,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said.
"I want to emphasize that there have been no charges filed against UPS,
but this is an ongoing investigation," Dankers said. "Everyone apprehended
today was apprehended on an administrative immigration violation, meaning
that they were not picked up on criminal charges."
Dankers would not specify how long agents had investigated the warehouses,
and did not know whether any of those arrested had criminal histories.
The arrested workers are being held at an immigration detention facility
in Tacoma pending further proceedings.
They have the opportunity to appear before an immigration judge, but
Dankers said some would likely return to their countries voluntarily.
During the 2006 federal fiscal year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
arrested 718 people nationwide on criminal charges in worksite
investigations and apprehended another 3,667 illegal workers on
immigration violations - a more than threefold increase compared with
2005, the agency said.
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Support Chris Hill: Six Nations indigenous prisoner
Stop the Criminalization of Indigenous Resistance to Colonial Land Theft!
On January 3rd, Six Nations Police, in accordance with the demands of the
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), arrested and imprisoned Chris Hill, a 20
year old Mohawk man of the Wolf Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River
Territory, for allegedly "assaulting a police officer with a weapon" on
April 20th, 2006 – the very day that the OPP and the RCMP invaded Douglas
Creek Estates and violently attempted to evict the people of Six Nations
from their land. That day, the OPP used tazer darts and batons on unarmed
people, including women and youth, and arrested 16 people on a day that
brought nation-wide attention to the struggle of Six Nations for land
rights and autonomy.
Since the Haudonausaunee of Six Nations reclaimed Douglas Creek Estates,
some 30 indigenous people have been charged by the settler-colony of
Canada in relation to the Reclamation. Chris Hill is one of the latest to
be charged. Interestingly, the warrant for his arrest in relation to April
20th was issued 6 months later in October of 2006. Since January 3rd, he
has been sitting in Barton Street Jail in Hamilton, Ontario where he is
locked up for 18 hours a day.
Chris Hill was denied bail on the basis of his record of "failure to
comply" when he was a young offender. Chris Hill was denied access to
legal aid on the basis of him not having a permanent address. His mother,
Rhonda Martin, is a mother on assistance who just underwent surgery, and
now faces lawyersÂ’ fees in the thousands in order to be able to free her
son.
Chris Hill sits behind bars for having defended his land. The proceedings
at the Cayuga courthouse have proven to be extremely lengthy, as nearly
all court appearances have resulted in remand after remand.
Chris Hill needs moral, political and financial support and solidarity.
Please send reading material and write letters of support to Chris Hill
for him to receive while he awaits a trial date. Furthermore, please
contribute to Chris HillÂ’s legal defense fund. Please continue to demand
the end of the criminalization of the Six Nations Land Reclamation.
Address your letters of support to Chris Hill to:
Chris Hill
Wentworth Detention Center.
165 Barton Street East
Hamilton, Ontario
To contribute to the legal defense fund of Six Nations:
Send checks marked “legal defense” to:
Janie Jameson
RR1
Ohsweken, Ontario
N0A 1MO
Alternatively, to support Chris Hill directly, send checks, marked “legal
defense” to
Rhonda Martin
P.O. box 383
Ohsweken, Ontario
N0A 1MO
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Native Youth Movement warrior targeted and arrested at anti-Olympic
protest February 13th, unsurrendered Squamish Territory (Vancouver, BC)
Three Native Warriors were targeted and arrested yesterday during a
protest against the 2010 Winter Olympic Games planned to take place in
Vancouver/Whistler, KKKanada. NYM Warrior, Tselletkwe, of the Secwepemc
Nation, Gord Hill of the KwakwakaÂ’wakw Nation and Lynn Highway of the
Anishnabe Nation and the Indigenous Resistance Organizing Committee
(IROC), were hauled away by the Vancouver Police, who are notorious for
police terrorism they inflict on Indigenous Peoples.
The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee and the Vancouver Board of
Trade (businessmen) were celebrating the unveiling of a "3 year countdown
clock" in the downtown business district in Vancouver, marking exactly 3
years until the Olympic Games invade Indigenous Territories here in
Vancouver, BC. Just as their festivities were to begin, one Native Warrior
stormed the stage and took over the microphone, yelling, "F*#! the
Olympics," until he was captured by Vancouver police and rushed off stage.
Native People from across BC participated in this rally along with
non-natives from the Anti-Poverty Committee, who are protesting the
gentrification of their neighborhood and the eviction of hundreds from
low-income housing in the downtown eastside. A total of seven protesters
were arrested during this Anti-Olympic protest.
NYM Warrior Tselletkwe made a statement upon her release, stating "Our
land is not for Sale, we are still at war with KKKanada, we have never
surrendered our land. We want the whole World to know not to come to our
country and to boycott KKKanada and the 2010 Olympic Games. Tourism is not
welcome here."
This is not the first time Natives have been arrested protesting the 2010
Winter Olympics, Pacheedaht, Nuuchahnulth Elder Harriet Nahanee was
arrested and sentenced to 14 days in jail for protesting the expansion and
development of the Sea-to-Sky Highway, leading from Vancouver to Whistler,
in preparation to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The destruction of
indigenous Territories and Sacred Sites must be stopped.
NYM spokesperson, stated in response to the arrests that, "Human and
Indigenous Rights violations here in KKKanada must stop, the governments
and corporations continue to drive our People from our homeland and
destroy our food and medicine harvesting areas and basic necessities to
survive our traditional, ancestral way of life. The Olympics is a global
event and it will take the global community to awaken their conscience to
boycott this 17-day event."
For more information or to join the Anti-Olympic Coalition contact: Native
Youth Movement
nymcommunications@hotmail.com
604) 682-3269 ext. 7845
or
Warrior Publications
Warrior-Publications@hotmail.com
NATIVE YOUTH MOVEMENT
FIGHT FOR LIFE
WARRIORS UNITE FROM ALASKA TO ARGENTINA
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**please note that the quote from Stuart Myiow has been corrected. The
correct version of the article is below**
Trevor Miller set free after declaring Mohawk sovereignty to the colonial
settler-state of Canada
Sarita Ahooja
On February 9, 2007, Trevor Miller, a 31 yr-old Mohawk man charged by the
colonial authorities due to his participation in the Six Nations Land
Reclamation, and who was sitting behind bars for over 7months, was finally
released on bail. Trevor Miller was greeted outside the courthouse by his
supporters with tears and applause.
At a prior court appearance, Trevor declared to the Cayuga court "I am a
sovereign Mohawk man, and you have no jurisdiction over me." Trevor is
being
represented by his lawyer Justin Griffin, as well as Stuart Myiow, a
representative from the Mohawk Traditional Council of Kahnawake (MTCK).
As Trevor stood proudly in the witness booth, dressed in traditional
regalia, he greeted the full courtroom of supporters who rose and stood in
his honor. Bonnie Swain was also present,having traveled from Grassy
Narrows,Ojibway territory, Northern Ontario, where the fight to stop
clear-cutting on their lands by Abitibi Consolidated and Weyerhaeuser has
been on-going since the blockade began in 2002.
The defense lawyer began the proceedings by stating that Trevor's ongoing
detention is contrary to the principles of due process and public justice
outlined in colonial common law and the Canadian Charter of Rights. Mr.
Griffin pointed to the court transcripts which were not made available by
the Crown earlier despite a court order), stating that the Crown misled
the court and the police have withheld crucial video evidence. Although
Judge Borkovich immediately dismissed this issue, he stated, "I would be
prepared to grant him bail, but what gets me is that he doesn't recognize
this court's jurisdictionÂ…He can't have it both ways. He must respect this
court, if he wants respect for his sovereignty."
Stuart Myiow of the MTCK intervened to address certain racist comments
uttered by the Crown and explained to Judge Borkovich, "the initial act
DIDN'T come from Trevor. It isan act that is part of the continuing
genocide that has been brought upon our people." Mr. Myiow assured the
judge that "if Trevor is released into our custody, we will guarantee that
he attends other court dates". In 1998, a Six Nations Mohawk man, facing
charges of assault was released from the colonial court system proceedings
and into the care of the Mohawk Traditional Council of Kahnawake. All
charges were dropped in a pre-trial agreement.
The Crown's rebuttal claimed that the risk was too high as the
Haudenosaunee Confederacy had advised the accused not to appear in court,
and Trevor had "fled his warrant." He insisted on cross-examining Stuart
Myiow to see how the supervision would take place,claiming that there are
no legal consequences for the MTCK if Trevor were not to obey. Judge
Borkovich denied the crown's request and responded, "Why shouldn't I
believe this man's word? The Mohawk Nation has its entire reputation at
stake." The sighs of relief and tears of joy overwhelmed the courtroom.
Judge Borkovich then granted Trevor's release to the Mohawk Nation, and
ordered a 10,000 deposit to be paid as well as two acceptable sureties.
The judge also imposed a series of conditions which include keeping the
peace, early curfew, non-association with co-accused, to remain 200m in
distance from the land reclamation, no driving,and that he live and follow
the rules of his aunt's home.
Trevor must appear in court again on March 7, one day after the Superior
court hearings for the jurisdictional challenge put forth by Kanohnstaton
defender Erwin Ron Gibson, represented by his lawyer Stephen Ford.
Although there is a lot of organizing and fundraising to do, the months of
agonizing and worry for Trudy,Trevor's mother, are over. "I feel so
uplifted. When they said the words Mohawk Nation, I felt our power Â… we
can do anything."
Trevor Miller is among a growing number of young first peoples who are
taking action by directly challenging the colonial legal system, and
raising the hopes of their elders and their people towards liberation.
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Kwakiutl: “We are going to start fighting”
Zoe Blunt, February 13th
http://gnn.tv/articles/2921/Kwakiutl_We_are_going_to_start_fighting
"Our world is falling apart," Basil Ambers, a hereditary chief of the
Kwakiutl First Nation, warned the crowd. "Everything we hold dear is
gradually eroding away."
"We are putting you on notice that we are going to start fighting for
those things."
The Kwakiutl and their supporters gathered in Victoria, BC on Monday
February 12 to protest a government-approved land transfer. The deal
between Western Forest Products and the province would take private land
out of three Tree Farm Licenses on northern Vancouver Island, including
over 1400 hectares claimed by the Kwakiutl. Almost a hundred people, most
of them native, filed into the traditional longhouse outside the BC
Museum.
After building a fire in the longhouse, two dozen people in tribal regalia
lined up to beat drums, dance and sing traditional songs. The drummers led
the crowd to the steps of the Legislature, where the Kwakiutl held a press
conference.
It was a slow walk, the sun was mild and the breeze was balmy. But Andrews
looked grim as he addressed the crowd: "It seems like we always have to
get together because of things the white folks have done to us," he said.
"This is not the first time for our tribe, or the first time across
Canada. They have been doing too many things to us that we canÂ’t ignore."
The hereditary chiefs, band councillors and elders, along with some of
their children and grandchildren, drove from Port Hardy to Victoria to
make a statement about aboriginal rights on their land. Despite promises
from BC Premier Gordon Campbell about a "new relationship" with First
Nations, they say nothing has changed.
In the 1850Â’s, the Douglas Treaties secured aboriginal rights for First
Nations on Vancouver Island. The treaty declared First Nations could
continue hunting, fishing, and gathering plants on their traditional
territory, and that village sites would be respected.
But the Crown breached the treaty when it made land grants to private
individuals, the natives say. Until now, some of the private lands claimed
by Western Forest Products, a giant logging company, were managed under a
provincial Tree Farm License. Western Forest Products has applied to take
the land back in order to log it and sell it off to developers. The
province has quietly agreed to transfer 28,000 hectares (70,000 acres.)
Western Forest Products plans to sell an undisclosed amount of the
property for housing and recreation use to help pay off its roughly
$200-million debt.
"The prime driver and the prime reason why weÂ’ve been looking at doing
this is the company has a high debt level and we still have a very high
interest rate on that debt," company president and CEO Reynold Hert told
the Victoria Times-Colonist on January 31.
Western Forest Products stands to make millions on the "log it and flog
it" deal. But the natives get no economic benefit from the resource
extraction on their land. And according to Rupert Wilson, a Kwakiutl Band
Councillor, the Kwakiutl have nowhere to go.
"The whole treaty area – a lot of it has been given away by government. We
are surrounded on all sides in Port Rupert," Wilson said. "ThereÂ’s no land
left. ThereÂ’s no economic development and people are having a hard time."
"ItÂ’s time we really look at land claims, and not stop until we get some
justice." Removing the land from the Tree Farm License means the company
has less stringent environmental and logging regulations to deal with,
according to Ken Wu, campaign director for Western Canada Wilderness
Committee. The
transfer will allow it to cut more trees and ship raw logs out of the
province in three years, he noted in a release February 1.
But the law may be on the side of the Kwakiutl, at least as far as holding
the government to high standards of consultation and accommodation, So
far, the Supreme Court has not returned any land to the natives, but
several rulings have sided with First Nations when they could demonstrate
that the government failed to meaningfully consult with them.
The Kwakiutl Band Council says that the government sent letters about the
application, but it did not consult the band, which is still waiting for
official notice of the January 31 decision. The Kwakiutl learned the land
transfer was approved through news broadcasts.
"They said they consulted with us," Ambers said. "That, I have to say, is
an absolute lie."
A strongly worded letter to Forest and Range Minister Rich Coleman on
February 5 blasted him for allowing the forest company to "blatantly
disregard their obligations by your ‘watchdogs’ to notify First Nation
communities of their harvesting plans."
"We can only surmise that the Kwakiutl First NationÂ’s rights and title
have effectively been removed from the tracts of land that are now Western
Forest ProductsÂ’ private lands," the Band Council wrote. When Coleman did
not acknowledge the letter, the band released it to the press.
Coleman defended the MinistryÂ’s decision on CBC Radio February 12. "I
sought the legal advice that was necessary," Coleman told CBC. "I looked
at the files from the right perspective. I felt the proper consultation
had taken place. There are remedies for the band."
But the only remedy for the band now is a lawsuit – one the Kwakiutl can
hardly afford. Nevertheless, the North Island Gazette reported February 7
that two options were proposed at a community meeting: filing for an
injunction, and holding “nation actions” like road blockades.
The Kwakiutl have resorted to peaceful civil disobedience in the past,
when they occupied Deer Island to assert their territorial claim.
"We got together for Deer Island to prove to ourselves how strong we can
be when we get together," Ambers said. "We won the fight for Deer Island,
now itÂ’s ours."
"What this government does is make deals before consulting with First
Nations, to hamstring your community from getting what it deserves," NDP
forest critic Bob Simpson told the crowd assembled at the Legislature
building.
"How many court cases will it take before [the BC Liberals] realize they
have to have meaningful consultation and hear your voices before a project
goes ahead?" he asked. "The meaning of consultation and accommodation has
to be more than letters and telephone calls," said Albert Robinson, the
KwakiutlÂ’s senior administrator. "It seems to me the BC government is able
to define ‘oppression’ but it’s having a difficult time defining
'consultation’ and ‘accommodation.’"
While the legal battle looms, the Kwakiutl are struggling to take stock of
the land they are about to lose. The area in question includes old-growth
coastal rainforest and a network of lakes, wetlands, and rivers on the
northeast coast of Vancouver Island. The cedar, Douglas fir and hemlock
forest supports populations of bears, deer, salmon, and marbled murrelets,
along with berries and edible plants. The community drinking watersheds
for the town of Port McNeill and the KwakiutlÂ’s Cluxewe Reserve may also
be affected by the logging.
Across much of Vancouver Island, over-logging and development have
decimated wildlife and plant populations, disrupted soil hydrology and
inflicted erosion and stream damage.
"As it stands now, if we do nothing, Western Forest Products can do
anything they want with that land," Robinson said.
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--
To subscribe to low-traffic email annoucement list email noii-van@resist.ca
web: http://noii-van.resist.ca
email: noii-van@resist.ca
(604)682-3269 x 7149
Office 714, 207 West Hastings, Vancouver BC V6B 1H7
No One is Illegal-Vancouver is a grassroots anti-colonial
immigrant/refugee rights community collective with leadership from members
of migrant and/or racialized backgrounds. As a movement for
self-determination that challenges the ideology of immigration controls,
we are in full confrontation with Canadian border policies; denouncing and
taking action to combat racial profiling, detention and deportation, the
national security apparatus, law enforcement brutality, and exploitative
working conditions of migrants.
We struggle for the right for our communities to maintain their
livelihoods and resist war, occupation, and displacement; while supporting
indigenous sisters and brothers fighting theft of land and colonization.
We also place ourselves within the broader movement for global social
justice that struggles against capitalism, militarism, oppression,
poverty, imperialism, and other systems of domination and exploitation.
