Support PUENTE Hunger Strike for NOT ONE MORE DEPORTATION!

PUENTE means bridge in Spanish, which is what these folks build - bridges to help eachother be more empowered and liberated. They've done amazing work recently helping community members get released from detention, stopping deportations, and publicizing the injustices of immigration raids, laws, and prosecutorial practices, particularly in Maricopa County.They have taken on the prison industrial complex most impressively, even locking themselves down in front of busses and to the gates of a detention center. Responding to the concrete needs of families, too, they did a fundraiser and purchased a van to make sure people can visit their imprisoned loved ones when detained in Florence pending hearings. THe art that comes out of PUENTE is moving and powerful, and they do their own silkscreening.

PUENTE can speak for themselves, though - below is their latest press release. I plan to be there to support them Monday - I hope other readers will turn out as well.  Below is the facebook link for the action.

 from their site:

"PUENTE Arizona is part of the global movement for migrant justice and human rights. As a grassroots community-based group Puente promotes justice, non-violence, interdependence and human dignity. Puente Arizona works to empower the community and build bridges by working collaboratively with various organizations and individuals."

-----from PUENTE (2/14/14)---

español abajo

Sometimes tactics and strategies are planned far in advance, developed and premeditated, other times it comes from a place that cannot be designed. In this case it comes from a mother’s will and community desperation, an expression of suffering and willingness to do anything to keep families together.

Most undocumented families in the United States have already lived through the risks of getting here and the dangers of the work we do. We’ve lived through days of unplanned hunger and now accept it willingly.

Starting on Monday February 17^th on Presidents Day, members of our communities will have our last meal and start a hunger strike, to demand Not One More Deportation. We will be in Front of the Phoenix ICE office 2035 N Central Ave Phoenix to demand the release and halt the unnecessary deportation of our loved ones.  We also wish to expose the most important piece missing from this debate, the human cost caused by the extraction of members from our community.

RSVP on Facebook to stay updated about ways you can support our hunger strike in person and from wherever you are

We’ve watched the debate in public and suffered in private. We have gone to bed with our arms empty, aching for our loved ones, and now it is time to make that suffering known to the world.  Anselma’s son, Elder, has been in immigrant detention for two years and is at the brink of deportation. It was her who in a community meeting said she had nothing else left but to sacrifice herself and her health for her son and to end all the suffering in our communities.

It will be a joint effort from families on the outside and detainees on the inside, detainees who not only risk their health by not eating but the punishment they will receive by guards while on Hunger Strike inside detention.

We have no one but ourselves to look too, this immigration debate continues to be a political game in which both parties are content with the status quo that they take to the polls for elections, cements a permanent underclass and creates a constant flow of profits.

Politicians may tell us to be patient. Advocates may say that our tactics threaten the debate. But if there is not room for us, mothers who miss our sons, at the center of this conversation, than we hope our empty stomachs change that conversation.

As long as we keep our suffering to our kitchen tables and half empty beds, they will keep their policies the way they are.  Our sons’ imprisonment hasn’t been enough to get them to act. We hope our hunger strike will. If not, what happens to us will be on their hands.

Join us, and support the Hunger Strike for Not1More Deportation!

Thank you,

 The Hunger Strikers: Lourdes Hernandez, Hermina Gallego, Anselma Lopez, Jose Valdez, Jovana Renteria, and our loved ones currently in detention

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

Hay situaciones cunado tácticas y estrategias son planeadas por adelantado, desarrollado y premeditado, en otras situaciones viene de un lugar que no puede ser diseñado. En este caso viene de la voluntad de una madre y la desesperación de nuestra comunidad, es una expresión del sufrimiento y voluntad de hacer lo que sea para mantener nuestras familias juntas.

La mayoría de familias indocumentadas en Estados Unidos ya han vivido los riesgos al venir aquí y el riesgo del trabajo que hacemos. Nosotros hemos vivido por días si hambre no planeada y ahora la aceptamos por nuestra propia voluntad.

A partir del lunes 17 de Febrero  el Día de los Presidentes, miembros de nuestra comunidad van a tener su última comida y comenzar una huelga de hambre, exigiendo Ni Una Más Deportación. Vamos a estar en frente de la oficina de ICE en Phoenix 2035 N Central Ave, para exigir la liberación y parar la deportación innecesaria de nuestros seres queridos. También queremos exponer el pedazo más importante que falta en este debate, el costo humano causado por la extracción de los miembros de nuestra comunidad .

RSVP en Facebook para mantenerse informado acerca de las maneras en que puede apoyar nuestra huelga de hambre en persona y desde donde se encuentre

Hemos visto el debate en público y sufrimos en privado. Hemos ido a la cama con los estómagos vacíos, sufriendo por nuestros seres queridos, y ahora es el momento de hacer que el sufrimiento se conozca por todo el mundo . El hijo de Anselma, Elder, ha estado en detención de inmigración por los últimos dos años y está en el borde de la deportación. Fue ella quien en una reunión de la comunidad dijo que no tenía nada más, sino sacrificarse ella y su salud para su hijo y para poner un fin a todo el sufrimiento en nuestras comunidades.

Será un esfuerzo conjunto de las familias en el exterior y de los detenidos en el interior, los detenidos que no sólo arriesgan su salud al no comer, pero el castigo que van a recibir por los guardias, mientras que participan en la huelga de hambre en detención.

No tenemos a nadie mas que a nosotros mismos en que depender, este debate sobre la inmigración sigue siendo un juego político en el que ambos partidos están satisfechos con las cosas como son, beneficiándolos en las urnas, asegurando una subclase de personas permanente y creando un flujo constante de ganancias.
Los políticos pueden decirnos que seamos pacientes. Los que dicen hablar por nosotros en Washington pueden decir que nuestras tácticas amenazan el debate. Pero si no hay espacio para nosotros, las madres que pierden a nuestros hijos en el centro de esta conversación, entonces esperamos que nuestros estómagos vacíos cambian esta conversación.

Mientras mantenemos nuestro sufrimiento a nuestros hogares y camas medio vacíos, van a mantener sus políticas tal y como son. El encarcelamiento de nuestros hijos no ha sido suficiente para que ellos actúen. Esperamos que nuestra huelga de hambre lo hará. Si no es así, lo que nos sucede estará en sus manos.

Únete a nosotros, y apoya la huelga de hambre para Ni1Mas Deportación!

Gracias,

 Los huelguistas de hambre : Lourdes Hernández, Hermina Gallego, Anselma López, José Valdez, Jovana Rentería, y nuestros seres queridos en detención.

Eloy Detention Center: 70 women join DREAM 9 hunger strike.

AUG 7: UPDATE: DREAM 9 ARE FREE!!!!

Eight members of the Dream 9 gather just moments before crossing the U.S.-Mexico border  

Photo: Steve Pavey/One Horizon Institute (COLORLINES)

Most of my advocacy for prisoners here is on behalf of those incarcerated at the AZ Departemnt of Corrections. I have a lot of conflicting feeling about the DREAM act and current versions of "immigration reform" - I think there's way too much emphasis on not only militarization of the border, but the commodification and militarization of migrant children, as well. Arizona is a hotbed of activity for private prisons warehousing immigrants, too - here's a story from one such place, Corrections Corporation of America's Eloy Detention Center in Pinal Cunty. 

This hunger strike spreading is remarkable and heartening. Please help bring the DREAM 9 Home: follow this site  and hit this petition to support these youth in their struggle for liberty and justice. And stay tuned for more on Eloy Detention center, where activists have been regularly holding vigils...

 NATIONAL IMMIGRANT YOUTH ALLIANCE

-----------from COLORLINES-------

‘A Girl Hanged Herself Here’

by Aura Bogado, Thursday, August 1 2013, 9:30 AM EST 

When the Dream 9 entered the Eloy Detention Center last week in Florence, Arizona, they planned to start organizing. That effort has now grown into a hunger strike protesting the conditions in one of the most notorious immigrant detention centers in the country—and a deportation machine that continues to remove more than 1,000 people per day out of the United States.

Shortly after arriving at Eloy, the Dream 9 say their phone use was unfairly restricted. In protest, they began a hunger strike—but six were placed in solitary confinement for their decision to do so. Most are back in the general population, but two remain. At the time of publication, 24-year-old Lulu Martinez and 22-year-old Maria Peniche have spent 104 out of the last 108 hours in complete isolation. Mohammad Abdollahi works with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), which organized the action that resulted in the Dream 9’s detention, and he remains in steady contact with the nine. He says that when Martinez and Peniche are brought out of their individual cells and into the yard once a day, they are shackled and interact only with guards.

But Martinez and Peniche aren’t the only ones facing horrid conditions at Eloy. Thesla Zenaida, who met the Dream 9 at Eloy and is now participating in a hunger strike along with other women detainees, explained in a phone call that a guard’s treatment at the detention facility drove a fellow detainee to suicide.

Look, a girl hanged herself. A girl was hanged here. [After] she was hanged, they didn’t want to take her body down. And for the same reason—because they treat us poorly. A guard treated her poorly, and that guard is still working here. They us like the worst dogs.

There were in fact two apparent suicides at Eloy in as many days in March of this year.

The NIYA’s presence at and near Eloy is also inspiring those on the outside with loved ones in detention as well. Jesus Magaña, 24, says that his sister Alejandra Pablos has been at Eloy for two years. Magaña says the 29-year-old had permanent residency after arriving to the U.S. at the age of two—but was picked up by authorities after two misdemeanor convictions. The vigils outside of Eloy have renewed his hope that his sister might be released. Pablos refuses to allow herself to be deported to Mexico because she has no family there, and is afraid what she’ll face in a country she doesn’t know.

Magaña returned from service in the Air Force one year ago, and recently moved from California to Arizona in order to be closer to his sister, whom he visits every weekend. He says he can’t imagine being separated from his sister, who has always supported him and wrote him for the four years he was on duty. “It’s like we were both deployed—she was in Eloy and I was in Kuwait,” says Magaña. “But they get treated worse here than I was in deployment.”

Magaña says that treatment includes humiliating remarks and the constant threat of solitary confinement. He adds that Pablos explained that she’s been told by guards that 70 women in various pods have joined the hunger strike—but that she was warned that if she did so, she would “face charges.”

The NIYA has started a campaign encouraging supporters to hold a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with the strikers inside Eloy.

--------------these are the DREAM 9---------

Undocumented Activists take giant risk to return home.
COLORLINES / Tuesday, July 23 2013
Aura Bogado

A historic border crossing took place Monday, not under the cover of darkness or through a desert wilderness but in broad daylight near the Nogales border patrol station with thousands of supporters on the United States and Mexico sides cheering.

Nine people, all transnational activists working with the National Immigrant Youth Alliance (NIYA), are now being held at the Florence Detention Center in Arizona after petitioning to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. This is the first time a group of longtime U.S. residents who are technically Mexican nationals have attempted to return to the states by petitioning for humanitarian parole. Monday’s action attracted more than 10,000 viewers from around the world who tuned into a Ustream live feed to see what would become of the so-called Dream 9....

go to COLORLINES for the rest...

Bill Montgomery, migrant families, and the cruelty of his convictions...

PUENTE's sidewalk this weekend...

You know, people whose crimes were working, supporting their family, and contributing to another person's retirement account have not perpetrated the kind of harm on individuals or the community that we reserve higher felony designations, imprisonment and deportation for, so I don't understand how Montgomery's chosen course of action could possibly NOT be a racist abuse of prosecutorial discretion.

Lets get real: we took this region by brute force -  just as we keep it by inflicting violence against any who might challenge the reign of white supremacy here...By allowing Montgomery to do this unchallenged by all but those who are directly affected, we are permitting the undermining of all of our communities, ripping decent people away from their homes and loved ones for every reason except the pursuit of justice. 

Having massacred and kenneled nearly all the Indigenous people in the first few decades of our own invasion of the deep southwest, Arizona's war on Latinos is all about protecting the "right" of white settlers to continue to assert our dominance over this stolen land and its living creatures as if we were divinely entitled to do what we please with them. That is really at the core of what we still call "justice" in America - especially here -  and it makes me sick.


So, perpetrating racist violence in the name of law and order is what this is really all about, Bill.  I had hoped you'd be above the ego, politics, and defensive posturing alongside the other Good Old Boys here - it's such a shame to find you wallowing in the mud with Arpaio and his mad posse on this one...

Photo: Ivon Matamoros and her baby daughter

Arizona Prosecutions Bar Undocumented From Legalization

 New America Media

 News Report

 Valeria Fernández

 Posted: Mar 14, 2013

PHOENIX--Ivon Matamoros has been packing most of her baby daughter’s clothes and blankets to start a reluctant journey back to Mexico. Matamoros, 24, could be among hundreds of youth who qualify for a deportation reprieve under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But she didn’t apply.

Matamoros didn’t think she would qualify because she has a felony on her record -- for working with false documents as a cashier and buser at a Pei Wei chain restaurant.

An immigration judge told her this was a “crime of moral turpitude” and that she would have to leave. He gave her a date to do so, willingly: March 21.

“The judge said it reflected badly on my character,” said Matamoros. “If I didn’t have that felony, I would have been able to qualify for DACA.”

Groups Denounce Raids, Prosecutions

As discussions ramp up in Congress to come up with a federal comprehensive immigration reform bill, pro-immigrant groups and attorneys in Arizona are denouncing the raids and prosecutions of workers like Matamoros, which could hurt their chances of becoming documented residents.

Most immigration reform proposals exclude people with criminal records; millions of workers currently using false documents to work on the United States could lose out if they get arrested.

Matamoros was among hundreds of unauthorized workers in Maricopa County who ended up in deportation proceedings as a result of business worksite raids carried out by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Workers in her situation are being charged with multiple counts of identity theft, typically a Class 4 felony, and offered plea bargains to a lower charge, such as “taking the identity of another,” a Class 6 violation.

“Maricopa County is the only county that is doing these raids. They don’t have to do these raids--that is immigration’s job,” said Carlos Garcia, director of Puente, a pro-immigrant and human rights organization in Phoenix.

Puente organized a march this week to protest Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery for prosecuting these cases and charging undocumented workers with felonies that can lead to their deportation.

“Immigration reform starts at home,” Garcia stated. “If we don’t stop Arpaio and Bill Montgomery, the people from the 71 raids are never going to be able to obtain citizenship or any other legal status in the country because of the felonies.”

“Criminalizing the Community”

In February, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and a group of immigration attorneys denounced Montgomery, alleging that he engages in discrimination for bringing charges against undocumented immigrants and essentially ensuring their deportation.

“This office will not engage in any sort of systematic effort to ensure people are deported from the U. S.,” said Montgomery in response during a press conference.

The county attorney acknowledged that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provided his prosecutors their customary training on the types of charges that could have an immigration-related consequence for people.

Immigrant rights advocates argue that Montgomery could choose whether or not to offer plea deals that won’t have an immigration-related impact, but claim that he is deciding not to do so.

Montgomery, who has expressed support for SANE (Solution to Federal Immigration Reform), a comprehensive platform developed by the Real Arizona Coalition, said he is simply following the law.

But Garcia countered, “Bill Montgomery is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one side he’s supporting the SANE platform and on the other, he is criminalizing the community. If he’s doing this, he is just as bad as Arpaio.”

Recently, Los Abogados Hispanic Bar Association asked Montgomery to explain what the group calls “unequal treatment” toward undocumented Latino workers.

In a letter to Montgomery, Los Abogados Board President Gaetano Testini wrote, “Over the last year, we have witnessed a marked change in the charges filed, the plea offers made and the negotiations entered into, with respect to this class of noncitizens.” The letter goes on to claim that Montgomery’s office “purposely provides plea offers that guarantee a noncitizen’s deportation from the United States and denies them their day in Immigration Court.”

Targeting Workers, Not Employers

The worksite raids began in 2008, after Arizona passed an employer-sanctions law meant to impose civil penalties on companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers. But Sheriff Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas decided to use the new law to crack down on workers using false documents and charge them with identity theft.

Thomas said at the time that this was a strategy to ensure that a criminal record would keep undocumented immigrants from ever becoming U.S. citizens.

When Thomas –who was eventually disbarred in connection to alleged ethic violations--left office to run for the state’s attorney general, the interim county attorney Rick Romney discontinued the prosecutions.

Montgomery, though, began prosecuting people arrested in Arpaio’s sweeps, as soon as he took office, he said, in order to fight identity theft.

Although hundreds of workers were arrested in the 71 Maricopa County worksite raids, only three employers faced civil sanctions for knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

“I have to deal with these cases as I have them,” Montgomery said. “If I started seeking different resolutions just because I wanted to improve relationships with a particular part of the community, that would be the worst example of prosecutorial discretion I can imagine.”

When the raids started five years ago, many immigrant families didn’t know about the legal ramifications of pleading guilty to a Class 6 felony charge.

In some instances, undocumented immigrants who find themselves in deportation proceedings can apply for the cancellation of their removal, if they’ve been in the United States for more than 10 years and have a relative who is a U.S. citizen.

But that isn’t possible if they have a felony charge from working with false documents, explained immigration attorney Dori Zavala.

“When it comes to immigration, they say they don’t qualify because they have this crime of moral turpitude,” said Zavala.

Challenge to Felony Charges
Last year Zavala and her colleague, attorney Delia Salvatierra, decided to take their battle to the criminal justice courts by challenging these felony charges.

Zavala currently represents Miguel Venegas, an embroidery factory worker arrested with a dozen others on Feb. 8. Unlike Matamoros, Venegas now has a chance to fight against the felony charges.

“He is willing to do anything he can, because he’s been living here for 20 years,” said Venegas’ wife, Julia Ojeda, who joined the protest with the Puente group.

Ojeda said her husband was the main breadwinner for her and their three U.S.-born children.

“Sometimes the kids catch me off guard when they ask me when their dad will be released,” she said.

Zavala explained that the conditions in county jails for many of these workers, who have never been in a jail before, and their inability to afford an attorney often deter them from asserting their innocence.

“I took the plea because I couldn’t be in that awful jail anymore,” said Matamoros. “I didn’t know what was going to happen later.”

Several immigration attorneys have told Matamoros that her case is a “lost cause,” she said. She has accepted that she’ll have to go back to Mexico and leave her husband, Luis, behind so that he can support the family.

Matamoros was arrested on March 4, 2011, the day before her wedding was supposed to take place. She was finally able to get married four months later when she was released after paying bail of over $12,000—all of their savings.

Arguing to Stop Deportation
As an attorney, Zavala said immigrants like Matamoros have few options once an immigration judge orders the person’s voluntary removal.

But Zavala argues that ICE should grant people affected by these immigration sweeps a stay of their deportation, considering that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing the sheriff for alleged racial profiling involving traffic stops and worksite raids.

In its December 2011 findings, DOJ said the Criminal Employment Squad (CES) from the sheriff’s office “routinely raid businesses in a manner that harms innocent Latino workers.”

DOJ found, “Specifically, CES's deputies typically detain and investigate the immigration status of all employees at a raided worksite, whether or not the employees are listed in the warrant authorizing the raid.”

Zavala argues, “ICE should say any convictions coming from that should be considered differently.”

Matamoros is worried about returning to a country she hasn’t been in for almost a decade.
She worries about the violence in Mexico and about the type of health care her American daughter will get.

She wishes she’d had a chance to continue her education, rather than having to go to work.

If she’d gone to school instead of working, she wouldn’t have been arrested and charged with using false documents -- a felony that prevents her from being eligible for DACA now or any kind of regularization of her status in the future.

“We were just working to get ahead,” she said. “Families are being separated every day because of this.”

Immigration and Mass Incarceration in the Obama Era

The New Operation Wetback

Counterpunch.org
By JAMES KILGORE

Last week Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) joined a demonstration in Washington D.C. to protest the refusal of President Obama to use his executive powers to halt the deportations of the undocumented. Gutierrez’ arrest came only two days after Obama had addressed a conference of the National Council of La Raza. Conveniently forgetting the history of the civil right struggles that made his Presidency a possibility, Obama reminded those attending that he was bound to “uphold the laws on the books.”

With over 392,000 deportations in 2010, more than in any of the Bush years, many activists fear we are in the midst of a repeat of notorious episodes of the past such as the “Repatriation” campaign of the 1930s and the infamous Operation Wetback of 1954, both of which resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Latinos.

But several things are different this time around. A crucial distinction is that we are in the era of mass incarceration. Not only are the undocumented being deported, many are going to prison for years before being delivered across the border. While the writings of Michelle Alexander and others have highlighted the widespread targeting of young African-American males by the criminal justice system, few have noted that in the last decade the complexion of new faces behind bars has been dramatically changing. Since the turn of the century, the number of blacks in prisons has declined slightly, while the ranks of Latinos incarcerated has increased by nearly 50%, reaching just over 300,000 in 2009.

A second distinguishing feature of the current state of affairs is the presence of the private prison corporations. For the likes of the industry’s leading powers, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, detaining immigrants has been the life blood for reviving their financial fortunes.

Just over a decade ago their bottom lines were flagging. Freshly built prisons sat with empty beds while share values plummeted. For financial year 1999 CCA reported losses of $53.4 million and laid off 40% of its workforce. Then came the windfall - 9/11.

In 2001 Steven Logan, then CEO of Cornell Industries, a private prison firm which has since merged with GEO, spelled out exactly what this meant for his sector :

"I think it's clear that with the events of Sept. 11, there's a heightened focus on detention, both on the borders and within the U.S. [and] more people are gonna get caught…So that's a positive for our business. The federal business is the best business for us. It's the most consistent business for us, and the events of Sept. 11 are increasing that level of business."

Logan was right. The Patriot Act and other legislation led to a new wave of immigration detentions. By linking immigrants to terrorism, aggressive roundups supplied Latinos and other undocumented people to fill those empty private prison cells. Tougher immigration laws mandated felony convictions and prison time for cases which previously merited only deportation. Suddenly, the business of detaining immigrants was booming. PBS Commentator Maria Hinojosa went so far as to call this the new “Gold Rush” for private prisons.

The figures support Hinojosa’s assertion. While private prisons own or operate only 8% of general prison beds, they control 49% of the immigration detention market. CCA alone operates 14 facilities via contracts with ICE, providing 14, 556 beds. They have laid the groundwork for more business through the creation of a vast lobbying and advocacy network. From 1999-2009 the corporation spent more than $18 million on lobbying, mostly focusing on harsher sentencing, prison privatization and immigration.

One significant result of their lobbying efforts was the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona, a law which nearly provides police with a license to profile Latinos for stops and searches. The roots of SB 1070 lie in the halls of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a far right grouping that specializes in supplying template legislation to elected state officials. CCA and other private prison firms are key participants in ALEC and played a major role in the development of the template that ended up as SB 1070.

For its part, GEO Group has also been carving out its immigration market niche. Earlier this year they broke ground on a new 600 bed detention center in Karnes County, Texas. At about the same time the company bought a controlling interest in BI Corporation, the largest provider of electronic monitoring systems in the U.S. The primary motivation for this takeover was the five year, $372 million contract BI signed with ICE in 2009 to step up the Bush initiated Intense Supervision Appearance Program. (ISAP 11). Under this arrangement the Feds hired BI to provide ankle bracelets and a host of other surveillance for some 27,000 people awaiting deportation or asylum hearings.

Sadly, the Obama presidency has consistently provided encouragement for the likes of CCA and GEO to grow the market for detainees. While failing to pass immigration reform or the Dream Act, the current administration has kept the core of the previous administration’s immigration policy measures intact. These include the Operation Endgame, a 2003 measure that promised to purge the nation of all “illegals” by 2012 and the more vibrant Secure Communities (S-Comm). Under S-Comm the Federal government authorizes local authorities to share fingerprints with ICE of all those they arrest. Though supposedly intended to capture only people with serious criminal backgrounds, in reality S-Comm has led to the detention and deportation of thousands of people with no previous convictions.

At the National Council of La Raza’s Conference Obama tried to console the audience by saying that he knows “very well the pain and heartbreak deportation has caused.” His words failed to resonate. Instead Rep. Gutierrez and others took to the streets, demonstrating that “I feel your pain” statements and appeals to the audacity of hope carry little credibility these days. It is time for a serious change of direction on immigration issues or pretty soon, just as Michelle Alexander has referred to the mass incarceration of African-Americans as the New Jim Crow, we may hear people start to call the ongoing repression of Latinos a “New Operation Wetback.”

James Kilgore is a Research Scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois. He is the author of three novels, We Are All Zimbabweans Now, Freedom Never Rests and Prudence Couldn’t Swim, all written during his six and a half years of incarceration. He can be reached at waazn1@gmail.com

"Streamline" Immigration Hearings unlawful: Rule 11

From No More Deaths:
------------------

Dear No More Deaths Supporters:

Below is great news about ending Operation Streamline!  The 9th Circuit Court ruled these trials illegal and have been told they must stop holding these hearings!!  This is great news; hopefully, these trials (held in Tucson daily) will end immediately. 

“The problem generated by the massive caseload on the court understandably led the court to adopt a shortcut. Abstractly considered, the shortcut is not only understandable but reasonable. 

The shortcut, however, does not comply with Rule 11. We cannot permit this rule to be disregarded in the name of efficiency nor to be violated because it is too demanding for a district court to observe. We act within a system maintained by the rules of procedure. We cannot dispense with the rules without setting a precedent subversive of the structure.

Accordingly, on this challenge by an intrepid federal public defender to the Tucson court’s taking of pleas en masse, we hold the procedure to be contrary to Rule 11.”

 

 http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/12/02/08-10396.pdf

Or, read the AP article:

Court: Mass criminal immigration hearings unlawful

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL (AP) – 12 hours ago

EL PASO, Texas — Immigrants who have been arrested in zero-tolerance zones along the Mexican border must not be tried at mass criminal immigration hearings because the proceedings violate federal rules, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

A three-judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that a federal court in Tucson, Ariz. — where mass hearings have been held for defendants arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents — had violated Rule 11, which requires that each defendant be read their rights and be given an explanation of what a guilty plea means.

Any immigrants found in zero-tolerance zones established along the Mexican border under Operation Streamline can be arrested and prosecuted in a federal court on charges of illegal entry.

The program was initially credited with curbing illegal border crossings, but critics have long argued that immigrants are pushed through the system without being given a chance to fairly defend themselves or understanding the proceedings.

Most immigrants scooped up under those circumstances answer "yes" en masse when asked if they understand their rights and the consequences of pleading guilty, according to the ruling posted on the court's Web site. Most are not individually questioned by the judge, it said.

In a 19-page ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, said the mass hearings were understandable, given the number of immigration cases.

"Abstractly considered, the shortcut is not only understandable but reasonable," Noonan wrote in the ruling. "The shortcut, however, does not comply with Rule 11. We cannot permit this rule to be disregarded in the name of efficiency nor to be violated because it is too demanding for a district court to observe."

Jason Hannan, Tucson's assistant federal public defender who argued the case, did not immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke, whose Tucson office handled the appealed cases, said some procedures would be changed as a result of the Appeals Court decision.

"While changes will have to be made to some change-of-plea proceedings to comply with the Ninth Circuit's decision, we are confident that the decision will not adversely impact our ability to prosecute individuals who violate the laws of the United States," Burke said in a written statement.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

--
Laura Ilardo
No More Deaths-Phoenix
(602)818-5447