URGENT ACTION: Call for Just Treatment and Accountability in Reeves Detention Facility; Support Immigrant Detainees' Rights
Urgent Action Request – Call & Fax to Support Prisoners Rights & Demands
Detainees Take Action Protesting Inhumane Conditions in
Immigrants awaiting deportation who are being held in a private jail run by the GEO Group began a protest last Saturday, January 31. The protest began after a group of immigrant prisoners attempted to meet with the detention facility’s authorities, demanding that a gravely ill detainee be released from solitary confinement and be taken immediately to a hospital. The prison authorities refused to listen and did not take action. The detainees responded by protesting after being ignored. Read more on the immigrant prisoners protest below, after action request.
DEMAND (see talking points below)
Humane Conditions and Treatment
Independent Access
Emergency Medical Care and Accountability
· The media, legal observers or lawyers and family members are not being allowed to see what has happened.
· Demand accountability from the GEO Group and the Reeves County Sheriff; they must be pressured to dramatically improve the conditions, provide medical care and attention to all inmates and be held accountable for the deplorable conditions and treatment they have given immigrant prisoners.
Call and fax -- Demand accountability and safe treatment for the inmates! (see talking points below)
* The
Tel (432) 447-2926 Fax (432) 447-9224
* Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties –
Toll Free (866) 644-8360 [(202) 401-1474] Fax (202) 357-8298
Timothy.keefer@dhs.gov and civil.liberties@dhs.gov
Office of Inspector General, DHS:
Fax (202) 254-4285
Office of Professional Responsibility, DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement:
Tel (877) 246-8253 Fax (202) 344-3390
ICE Office of Investigations Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Offices
Tel (703) 285-6709 Fax (703) 285-6700
AFTER YOU TAKE ACTION
Please call or send an email message to lrivas@nnirr.org or agarcia@nnirr.org after you have made a call or sent a fax. Please share a copy of your communications and any response you may receive.
(510) 465-1984 ext. 304 and ext. 305
TALKING POINTS
1. Investigate immigrant prisoner deaths and other brutal treatment being committed by guards and other local authorities at the
Immigrant prison eyewitnesses have reported that in the last five months at least five prisoners have died in their cells and have been removed.
Independent media, legal observers and immigrant and human rights organizations must be allowed to meet and interview detainees and others to determine the changes needed to uphold the immigrant detainees’ rights.
The Office of Inspector General and other responsible authorities must investigate the abuses and bring those responsible for the brutal treatment to justice.
2. Inmates are demanding medical care for all detainees, especially for those who need special treatment, such as diabetes and others who are in dire need due to negligence and/or no treatment.
Demand that the GEO group guards and warden stop punishing immigrants needing medical attention. Prisoners report that when prisoners ask for medical attention they are punished and put in solitary confinement.
Prisoners are demanding immediate transfer out of this facility because the prison is overcrowded and uninhabitable due to these deplorable conditions.
3. No retaliation against prisoners who report or complain about the conditions. When inmates complain they are immediately punished by sticking them in the “hole” – solitary confinement.
Prisoners are punished for complaining about the poor food provided and the lack of sanitary conditions (rat and cockroach/insect infestation) in the cafeteria, hallways and cells.
4. Provide adequate and healthy food; provide heating and adequate clothing, bedding and other amenities immediately.
Prisoners are being forced to eat rotten food; the prisoners that prepare the food complain that the kitchen is infested with cockroaches and they have to cook the food under these unsanitary conditions.
BACKGROUND
Immigrants awaiting deportation who are being held in a private jail run by the GEO Group began a protest last Saturday, January 31. The protest began after a group of immigrant prisoners attempted to meet with the detention facility’s authorities, demanding that a gravely ill detainee be released from solitary confinement and be taken immediately to a hospital. The prison authorities refused to listen and did not take action. The detainees responded by protesting after being ignored.
After the inmates continued to raise their complaints to the guards and the warden about the treatment and deplorable conditions they were being subjected to in the “Reeves County Detention Facility” in
After the detainees began a spontaneous protest, a melee ensued. A fire broke out during the protest and guards immediately left the premises, locking in the prisoners behind. Some prisoners broke windows to get to other detainees who were choking and fainting, overcome by the smoke.
Then the guards got into SWAT vehicles (or some type of armored vehicle described as a “tortuga,” a turtle, by an inmate) and began firing teargas and rubber bullets at the prisoners who had been abandoned in the facility that was on fire.
Afterwards, the prison guards forced the immigrant inmates to stay outdoors in the prison facility yard on Saturday night. Since then, they have only been fed once a day; they have little or no water and have only three restroom facilities for almost 3,000 prisoners.
Last night the prison authorities said they would let the inmates back into the facilities. But the prisoners are being forced back into a smoke-damaged building contaminated with carbon monoxide from the fire. The facility now has little or no ventilation since windows have been boarded up.
The Geo Group already has more than 2,800 prisoners in a facility meant to hold 2,400.
Now, GEO guards are trying to force them to be held in the hallways and in around the cells.
To see more on the Reeves
http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/node/2064
Reeves County Detention Complex
Go to map
TEL: (432) 447.2926
Fax: (432) 447.9224
Facility Operator: GEO Group
This is a Private facility
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Frontera NorteSur
February 2, 2009
Immigration News
Immigrant Prisoners Stage Uprising
Details are still sketchy of an inmate uprising at a privately-operated federal detention facility in
Initial accounts report the uprising spanned two days, with inmates setting fires and possibly even seizing guards' radio communication equipment. An unidentified
The uprising is now declared over, and as many as 700 former Pecos prisoners are reportedly confined at another detention center in Sierra Blanca,
The January 31 uprising was the second time inmates have staged violent protests at the prison in a period of less than two months. Although a complete assessment of injuries and property damages was not officially disclosed, at least three inmates could have been injured and hospitalized in the latest incident.
Managed by the Florida-based Geo Group, the Pecos facility is among many immigrant detention centers in the
Formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation, Geo Group calls itself a "world leader" in the privatized management of correctional institutions. According to the company's web site, "The North American market is growing rapidly, and we are focused on expanding Federal procurement opportunities."
Geo Group reported raking in $1.024 billion in revenues during 2007, with income totaling nearly $42 million. Besides the
Sources:
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu
_____________________________________________
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados
Tel (510) 465-1984 ext. 305
Fax (510) 465-1885
www.migrantdiaries.blogspot.com
posted by Arnoldo Garcia | La carpa del FEO @ 6:36 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Sheriff Arpaio Chains Together Immigrants and Forces March
February 4, 2009 by Guest Blogger
Filed under: Immigration
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By Dan Weiss
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix, AZ will chain together hundreds of detained immigrants tomorrow and force them to march out of a detention facility and into a “Tent City”.
Arpaio’s Maricopa County office released a media advisory titled, Arpaio Orders Move of Hundreds of Illegal Aliens to Their Own Tent City, that can be described as eerily familiar to the first phase of Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic propaganda. The statement describes detainees being housed in an outdoor city of tents surrounded by an electric fence, with misbehavior punishable by forced labor on a chain gang.
They will be treated like all other inmates incarcerated here with two exceptions. Arpaio wants them to be instructed in American immigration laws, as a way to help them understand that the violation of these laws has serious consequences not only to them but to society as a whole. And anyone found to violate jail rules, may end up on a chain gang. This chain gang will work to clean the areas of the valley, which have been impacted by human trafficking trade.
The release even quotes Arpaio himself:
“This is a population of criminals more adept perhaps at escape,” the Sheriff says. “But this is a fence they won’t want to scale because they risk receiving quite a shock - literally.”
Wow. One of the more disturbing parts of the statement is the description of when and how the immigrants will be forced to march along with a map and parking instructions for those who wish to witness the event. Parading shackled detainees for public viewing is disgusting.
As a Jewish American it is deeply offensive to see an elected official brazenly flaunt the oppressive treatment of a people whose only crimes were entering the United States without documentation. The dire situation in Arizona is a shameful insult to the democratic freedoms of this country, and should draw cries of outrage from anyone who values the sacrifices our nation has made in the face of oppression.
We’ve seen this pattern in history before. First comes the bigoted propaganda and deprivation of basic human rights, then the intimidation, the detentions, the chains and the forced labor, and sometimes, god forbid, we see the worst. We saw it in Nazi Germany, the Killing Fields of Cambodia, the Japanese American Internment Camps, the Trail of Tears…the list goes on.
It’s the same old story. Just with a different tyrant - Joe Arpaio.
*Dan Weiss is a Chicago Hip Hop artist and the coordinator of the Center for New Community’s Hip Hop Project.
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