Stop Incarcerating People for Profit - Occupy the Essex County Freeholders

Immigrants are being incarcerated for profit in Essex County thanks to the help of the Essex County Executive and the Board of Chosen Freeholders who have decided to sell the liberty of 1250 people to ICE for $108/person/day.

Join us December 7 beginning at 4:00 pm with a rally & press conference in Military Park and then march with us to the Hall of Records to Occupy the Freeholders at their meeting at 7:00 pm. We will be presenting them with thousands of signatures on a petition to revoke the ICE contract and tell them to STOP INCARCERATING PEOPLE FOR PROFIT!

For years, Essex County has been partnering with the private for-profit company Community Education Centers (CEC) to negotiate a contract with ICE to detain 1250 people in the Essex County Jail and the neighboring privately run Delaney Hall. The agreement between ICE & Essex County was signed and approved earlier this fall.

After Essex County secretly negotiated with ICE, making representations to ICE that CEC would be the subcontractor, Essex County put the sub-contract up for public bid. Surprise, surprise CEC was the only bidder in two separate rounds of RFP's.

It just so happens that CEC has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Essex County politicians.

It just so happens that one of CEC's primary lobbyists was Chris Christie.

It just sot happens that Bill Palatucci, Chris Christie's close friend and political confidant, is currently a Sr. VP for CEC.

As we know, the system is rigged to line the pockets of corporate interests while working class people suffer. This is just one more example.

Wall Street Execs destroy the economy & get a bailout. Immigrants work hard & end up in jail. Immigrants are the 99%.

The NJ Legislature's 1st Order of Business - Eliminate Affordable Housing

"We recognize that changes are needed to the COAH process, but what's really broken in this state isn't housing, but the fact that we aren't planning for our future, to link homes, jobs, transportation, and environmental protection in a way that gets us sound, sustainable growth," Staci Berger – Housing & Community Development Network in a statement to the press about a bill in the NJ Legislature that would eliminate the Council on Affordable Housing.

During the toughest economic times to hit our state, the first order of business for the NJ Legislature is not increasing funding to our overstretched food banks, or providing job training programs it is the complete elimination of the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). The bill S-1 would turn authority over how much affordable housing should be built to the individual municipalities. Just over two years ago these same municipalities we ordered by way of a new law from the NJ legislature to stop paying poorer communities to build their share of housing for them in an attempt to end decades of economic segregation.