Privatized Prisons for Immigrants

[Joanne98]

March 9, 2007 Privatized Prisons for Immigrants
by XicanoPwr
http://xicanopwr.com/2007/03/privatized-prisons-for-immigrants/

In the nation’s response to the tragedy that occurred in 9/11 attacks, the border acquired new significant importance in the “war on terror.” Among the most relevant of the changes that transpired, the immigration issue is now assigned to the Department of Homeland Security. Although Mexico has no significant Islamic population and houses no known terrorist cells, the border has once again been depicted in terms of “national security.” Given that border security means stopping undocumented immigration, unfortunately, US border policies have had very real negative consequences.

In Texas, there is an expression we like to say, “everything is big in Texas.” Within the continental United States, Texas is the biggest state by area, and the second biggest among the 50 states, only Alaska is bigger. The people of this state take pride in their bigness, from number of big oil companies to our prison system. Texas has the largest number of “immigration prisons” in the US to house the undocumented immigrants once they have been rounded up (here, here, and here); and Texas can proudly claim to the largest concentration camp in the US federal system’s archipelago of immigration prisons.

In June 2006, Willacy County commissioners entered into a two-year contract with the US Department of Homeland Security to build a futuristic cluster of tent-like domes in the Rio Grande Valley. Like a thief in the night, the prisons were quietly built in the rural town of Raymondville. The Willacy County Detention Center is one of a host of new or expanded prisons, both public and private, that ICE has commissioned for an expected rush of illegal immigrant detainees. According to the Washington Post, about 2,000 undocumented immigrants are housed within the 10 giant tent city home for weeks, months and perhaps years before they are deported back to their home countries.

As the government invokes national security to sweep up and jail an unprecedented number of immigrants, the private-prison industry is booming. The $65 million camp build by Utah-based Management and Training Corporation (MTC), is a sprawling squat of inflatable domes plopped down on top of massive concrete slabs. The facility was quietly built last summer between a federal prison and a county jail where,

…illegal immigrants are confined 23 hours a day in windowless tents made of a Kevlar-like material, often with insufficient food, clothing, medical care and access to telephones. Many are transferred from the East Coast, 1,500 miles from relatives and lawyers, virtually cutting off access to counsel.

Marc J. Moore, field officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Detention and Removal Operation, told the Brownsville Herald that the Willacy County Detention Center will be set up with 10 huge circus-like tents, surrounded by “14-foot-tall razor wire fences stand around each dome” with “two rows of razor wire fences” surrounding the 200,000-square foot prison site. The new prisons are made out of.. continued.
http://xicanopwr.com/2007/03/privatized-prisons-for-immigrants/

Please go to the link, this is a really, really well researched article.


:thumbsup:

[no_hypocrisy]

1. More internment camps for inmates to be held indefinitely without

even the mere hope of a hearing or contact with the outside world.

Now I understand why there wasn't an outcry during WWII when there were Japanese-American internment camps: They were regarded as a disposable population. If anyone has the right to cry for justice in this situation, it's the living Japanese former inmates and their descendents.

Remember, the camp-prisons today are for the "alien" and the "foreigner". Tomorrow, they could be for any of us. (Google "Rex 86")

[Joanne98]

2. They're already privatizing them for us...