Thread: Standing up for immigrants

Standing up for immigrants

Web Posted: 06/24/2007 01:19 AM CDT

Nancy Martinez
Express-News

What do we want?
Justice!

Where do we want it?

Texas!

When do we want it?

Now!

Si se puede! Si Se puede! Si se puede!

The chants were as constant as the flag waving.

Tourists visiting the Alamo got an eye and ear full Saturday, witnessing a rally of more than 150 immigration advocates demanding equal rights for immigrants, especially children.

The rally, organized by the Southwest Workers Union and several other local advocacy groups, focused mainly on what they allege are prison-like conditions at a family residential facility in Taylor, about 35 miles northeast of Austin.


The T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, which opened a year ago, is the nation's largest detention center for immigrant families. The 512-bed center — detractors call it a prison, the government calls it a shelter — has been a constant target for immigrant advocates.

A 72-page report from the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service recommended that the center be closed because the conditions are too much like a prison. The two advocacy groups were allowed inside Hutto and a similar detention center in Pennsylvania.

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have denied those claims, saying the Hutto center provides safe and secure conditions for detained undocumented immigrants. In February, reporters were given a quick tour of Hutto's classrooms, playgrounds and cafeteria but were not allowed to talk to detainees.

The rally was the first stop of the day for the local groups of advocates that call their caravan "The Freedom Bus." After the 30-minute protest, people packed into a bus for a trip to the Taylor facility, where they planned to meet hundreds of others from throughout Texas and Washington, D.C., in protest.

Tourists Clyde McCormick and his wife, Terri, of Cincinnati watched the rally from a wall across the street from the Alamo. "We didn't know why they were protesting," Terri McCormick said.

That is until Madeleine Dewar, a member of the San Antonio Area Progressive Action Coalition and a State Democratic Party committee woman, stopped to tell them.

Dewar buttonholed several tourists about the group's cause — hurriedly giving some facts about the facility, including the cost to taxpayers, and encouraging them to learn more about it. Some tourists stood and listened. Others walked away.

Rosa Rosales, president of the national League of United Latin American Citizens, said she has had meetings with Homeland Security officials about the facility but has not been granted a tour. She said out of 400 people detained in Hutto, 286 are children.

"No child should be in a jail because their parents don't have papers," Rosales said.

Lydia Williams, 41, of Carlsbad, N.M., said she was part of a Southwest Organizing Project group of about 100 who stopped for the protest on their way to a forum in Atlanta.

"We are really trying to make positive changes in the world today," she said.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/mexico ... e49e3.html

She could take all the children home with her if she doesn't want them in jail.

First they moan becasue they say families are being torn apart. Now they moan becasue they are being kept together. What is it that they really want, aside from total amnesty for all their crimes? These lawbreakers live better inside these facility than they did in their home countries. At least they have running water, toilets, electricity, food and shelter.

These lawbreaking invaders have some nerve. They deliberately choose to break the law, then they complain when they get caught. Maybe if they obeyed their orders to appear in court, they might not have to be held in detention, but they always ignore their orders to appear, something like 85% and more refuse to appear to face their immigration charges, so they need to be detained or else they'll just flee into the community and hide from the law.

Our Immigrants don't have a problem, its just illegal aliens that do...

Rosa Rosales, president of the national League of United Latin American Citizens, said she has had meetings with Homeland Security officials about the facility but has not been granted a tour.

I guess Ms. Rosales thinks she's special.