Thread: VA - Immigrant detention center protest set for tomorrow

Immigrant detention center protest set for tomorrow


JAMIE C. RUFF
Published: March 6, 2009

FARMVILLE -- Opponents of a privately run immigrant detention center proposed for Farmville said yesterday that 300 protesters are expected to turn out for a rally and march tomorrow.

"The calls continue to come in every day, so that [number] could change," said Jeff Winder, a spokesman for the Virginia Immigrant People's Coalition, which is organizing the event and is described as a network of organizations concerned with "immigrant justice."

Among the localities from which protesters will be coming are Northern Virginia, Lynchburg, Washington, Richmond and Fredericksburg, said Winder, who is from Nelson County.

Opponents are to gather at noon in the town's Riverside Park. At 2:30 p.m. they will march downtown to Town Hall, where there will be speakers and music, Winder said. The protest is expected to last until 5 p.m.

Opponents hope to derail plans for a privately owned, 1,040-bed detention center, though Town Manager Gerald J. Spates has said efforts to build the facility are on track, with the site cleared and the permits obtained.

Spates said the protest efforts are misdirected.

"Everybody's got a right to protest," Spates said. "The protest should be with the federal government. . . . We're just trying to provide a facility where these people will be housed in comfort."

The contract to operate the facility will be between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the town. A subcontractor, ICA-Farmville, will run the $21 million, 125,000-square-foot facility.

Town officials have said the center will provide 200 badly needed jobs and an $8.2 million payroll, and generate $716,730 in taxes annually.

Opponents are using the late-November death of Guido Newbrough in the Piedmont Regional Jail's illegal-immigrant detention center against the project.

Jail officials say the death was due to natural causes and could not be helped, but opponents fault the level of care received at the facility and point to it as an example of what is wrong with the system.

"We think this is a really inappropriate way to revitalize our economy," Winder said. "If we think locking up human beings is a way to revitalize our economy, we're in bad shape."



Contact Jamie C. Ruff at jruff@timesdispatch.com.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/l ... 021/223137

Saturday, March 7, 2009
Detention center for illegals sparks anger
Dena Potter ASSOCIATED PRESS

RICHMOND | Nearly 60 years after young black students took historic steps toward desegregation by walking out of their Farmville school to protest its deplorable conditions, the small town is again at the center of a social movement.

On Saturday, groups from across Virginia plan to protest a detention center being built there to hold illegal immigrants until they can be deported. They say the center and others like it across the United States are an extension of failed immigration policy. Some liken for-profit detention centers to modern-day slavery.

Ricardo Juarez, leader of the Washington-based immigrant advocacy group Mexicanos Sin Fronteras (Mexicans Without Borders), said it is fitting to call for justice for immigrants not far from where Moton High School students walked out in 1951. Their protest sparked a lawsuit that joined with others and led to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which struck down school segregation.

"Today we are living here, we are working here. We have many positive contributions to the social life, so at some point the immigrants' struggle is part of the entire civil rights struggle," Mr. Juarez said.

Farmville signed a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in September to house illegal immigrants. The town subcontracted with private investors, Immigration Centers of America-Farmville, who are putting up the $21 million to build the center. ICA will get about $60 per day per detainee from the federal government, while the town will keep $2 each.

Plans call for a 1,040-bed facility that could be expanded to house about 2,500 detainees.

The project's principal investors did not return several messages seeking comment.

Town Manager Gerald Spates said Farmville sought the contract because it would increase jobs and tax revenue, plus it would allow a central location for immigrants now scattered throughout the region in jails. The immigrants are detained even though many have committed no offense other than being in the United States illegally.

"These illegal immigrants that were picked up are being put in prisons, and they've committed no crime," Mr. Spates said. "We thought it would be a good idea to build a facility that was like dormitory-style housing where it wasn't a prison setting and these people were treated humanely."

The facility was expected to be running by the end of June, but the deepening recession hindered the financing, Mr. Spates said. The investors now have secured the funding, and the center likely will open in September.

Opponents say it's not too late to stop it.

ICE will not commit to housing detainees there until the facility is finished, and construction has yet to progress very far.

Opponents also hope that the change in administrations may work in their favor.

Under former President George W. Bush, the average daily total of ICE detainees in custody grew from 21,000 in 2005 to more than 31,000 in 2008. President Obama has promised a shift from workplace raids and toward more comprehensive immigration reform.

"The prospect of actually shutting down the building of the prison certainly has some promise to it at this moment," said Les Schmidt, a Catholic priest from Big Stone Gap who has worked to block the center.

www.washingtontimes.com

The push for cheap labor in this country by the coporate lobbyists is what is driving a wedge between the Mexicans and Americans on all social levels. If our immigration laws were enforced at the border and in the workplace, the Mexicans would begin to respect our laws.