Immigrant Detention Blues
BY DIANA WELCH
In October 2001, the Ibrahim family, Palestinians seeking asylum from life under Israeli occupation, entered the U.S. legally. The family's requests for asylum, in which members described repeated beatings at the hands of Israeli officials and health complications from gas attacks in occupied territories, were denied. According to their lawyer, John Wheat Gibson, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents invaded the family's house after midnight on the night of Nov. 3, 2006, and arrested everyone inside. The entire family remains imprisoned today.
Salaheddin Ibrahim is currently separated from his family in a prison in Haskell, Texas. Hanan, his pregnant wife, shares a cell at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, with her 5-year-old daughter, while her 7- and 12-year-old daughters are together in a separate cell. Her 15-year-old son is alone in another. The Ibrahims' 3-year-old daughter, who was born since their arrival in the U.S. and is therefore an American citizen, is living with Salaheddin's brother, Ahmad Ibrahim, in the Dallas area. Ahmad says the family has been told they are to be deported, but they don't know when or to where. Applications to get them Jordanian papers have been denied, and ICE, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, is apparently contacting the Israeli embassy – the country from which the family was seeking asylum in the first place – for papers. As it stands now, the family will remain in custody until its members are deported. "I just can't understand the jailing of 5- and 7-year-olds," Ahmad said over the phone as his 3-year-old niece's voice jabbered in the background. "They have done nothing wrong."
The Ibrahims are just one of the families being held in a 512-bed prison in Taylor, just northeast of Austin in Williamson County. There's no way of verifying exactly how many families are being held there, as Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison company that ICE pays more than $2.8 million a month to run the facility, is restricted by ICE from commenting on the population. According to ICE Enforcement Officer Nina Pruneda, a population breakdown cannot be released to the public due to – you guessed it – "reasons of homeland security."
<snip>
The agreement between ICE, CCA, and Williamson Co. is as follows: ICE pays CCA $2.8 million per month for up to 512 prisoners (plus $19.23 per hour for off-site guard services, $125,000 per month for medical care, and contraceptives, immunizations, and off-site medical care billed at additional cost). On top of that, ICE pays $79 per day extra per head plus $8 for medical care. Meanwhile, as part of its Intergovernmental Service Agreement with CCA, the county collects $1 per prisoner (child or adult) on a monthly basis – a total of up to $500 a month, in theory. A growing grassroots movement has been staging vigils and protests to try to shut down what it calls the Hutto prison camp; they were focused on this month because the county's contract with CCA was set to expire Jan. 31 (though in April 2006, Williamson Co. commissioners approved the prison contract with ICE "indefinitely unless terminated in writing" with 120 days notice).
more at link:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A441523
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