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Spring 2016 National Immigrant   Solidarity Network Monthly News   Digest and News Alert!   National Immigrant Solidarity Network No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights! URL: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org e-mail: Info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org Information about the Network: FLYER Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990 Los Angeles: (213)403-0131   Every Donation Counts! Please Support Us!   Send check pay to: National Immigrant Solidarity Network/AFGJ National Immigrant Solidarity Network P.O. Box 751 South Pasadena, CA 91031-0751 (All donations are tax deductible)

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3/10: A Shocking Glimpse Inside America’s Privatized Detention Facilities For Immigrants

Tom Benning and Dianne Solis – Dallas Morning Post

The opening of Maribel Zelaya’s letter was bleak.

“I cannot bear this punishment any longer,” she began. “I’m dying of desperation, of this injustice, of this cruelty. We are immigrants, not criminals. To treat us like this, it’s as if they must not have hearts, as if we weren’t human. They treat us like dogs.”

Zelaya was fed up. For more than six months, the 29-year-old asylum seeker had been locked inside the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, an immigrant detention facility in rural Texas. The building, formerly a medium security prison, is a bleak concrete complex surrounded by a wall of chain link fence. Zelaya found the conditions inside the center disturbing; her health began to deteriorate and she fell into a deep depression. At the end of October, she released a searing letter in Spanish describing life inside Hutto, the nation’s only all-women’s detention center.

Like so many of the women at Hutto, Zelaya — whose attorney asked that her full name not be used to protect her safety — was fleeing abuse and a city held hostage by gang violence. But she soon became disillusioned with the grim reality of detention, and decided to stop eating in protest. “I am glad to participate in this hunger strike,” she wrote. “It’s an insult, I came here to find shelter but what I got instead is punishment.”

Read the rest of the article:

Part One http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1703

Part Two http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1704

Part Three http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1705

3/11: ICE Has “Accidentally” Deported Thousands of American Citizens

Kevin Mathews Care2

Stories of immigration detention centers are already upsetting enough, but can you imagine how traumatic it must be for legitimate U.S. citizens to be put through this process? It happens more often than you’d think. As Vice News reports, since 2003, over 20,000 U.S. citizens have been either wrongfully detained or outright deported from the country by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Let’s be perfectly clear: U.S. citizens are absolutely protected constitutionally from being deported or even detained in this manner. However, the system we have in place is such a mess that a large number of Americans slip through the fairly wide cracks and become unjust victims of ICE.

Jacqueline Stevens, director of the Deportation Research Clinic at Northwestern University, has studied these accidental detentions and deportations and found them to be surprisingly, and horrifyingly, common. Since there’s no official citizenship database, even U.S. citizens can have trouble proving they were born in the country, as even the current president can attest.

On top of that, immigration courts are overwhelmed, meaning many cases are pushed through quickly without proper research. People accused of being in the country illegally aren’t even guaranteed legal representation; As such, many go through the process without understanding their own rights or someone to help verify their citizenship. Essentially, the system is so flawed that wrongful deportations are the natural conclusion. “It would be truly shocking if this did not result in the deportation of U.S. citizens,” Stevens said.

Link to the article: http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1706

3/30: Border patrol union defies AFGE, endorses Trump

Carten Cordell - Federal Times

An affiliate of the American Federation of Government Employees decided to break ranks with the union and endorsed Donald Trump for president.

The National Border Patrol Council, which represents approximately 18,000 border patrol agents, said that the issue of security led it to make its first presidential endorsement for the outspoken Republican on March 30.

“We think it is that important: if we do not secure our borders, American communities will continue to suffer at the hands of gangs, cartels and violent criminals preying on the innocent,” the group said on its website. “The lives and security of the American people are at stake, and the National Border Patrol Council will not sit on the sidelines.”

The move could be seen as bewildering to some, especially since AFGE endorsed Hillary Clinton in December 2015. The pick didn’t sit well with the NBPC at the time, as it said AFGE acted without its endorsement and didn’t address its concerns over border security.

“We recognize that our agenda is not always AFGE’s agenda and so do our supporters on Capitol Hill. This is why, our strategy to work both sides of the aisle to advance legislation has benefited agents and their families as well as border security,” the group said in a Dec. 11, 2015 release.

In its release, the NBPC said Trump’s outsider, populist appeal has drawn attention to the challenges its members face in enforcing border security. It also took shots at President Barack Obama and Trump's primary rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

“America has already tried a young, articulate freshman senator who never created a job as an attorney and under whose watch criminal cartels have been given the freest border reign ever known.”

AFGE officials directed inquiries to the NBPC.

Link to the article:

http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=1718