The Human Stories Behind the Immigration Detention Contract in Essex County

Since Essex County signed its contract with ICE to expand immigration detention to 1250 people this past fall, Essex County has been in the news. Not just for the shady back doors deals and political contributions from the private for-profit company that received the immigration detention subcontract but also for the suffering that this contract is causing to local residents and their families.

In October, there was the story of Neida Lavayen whose fiance was taken into custody one week before their wedding and held at Delaney Hall until he was deported to Ecuador.

In November, there was the story of Michell and Yasser Valle who migrated to the US legally with their mother when they were in kindergarten and first grade, and although they were eligible for relief under ICE's new policy of prosecutorial discrection it looked as if they would be spending Thanksgiving in Delaney Hall.


In December, there was the story of Atanas Entchev who was invited to the US over 20 years ago as a visiting scholar and brought his 2 year old son, Enislav with him. Though both Atanas and Enislave were also eligible for relief under the policy of prosecutorial discretion they were taken into custody and held in Delaney Hall for 65 days.

Just before Christmas we learned of the story of Jose Pereira, the father of 2 US citizen children and the spouse of a US citizen who was incarcerated in the Essex County Jail awaiting deportation.

Just before New Year's the story of Charley Chehoud appeared in the press. Charley is currently being held in solitary confinement in the Essex County Jail despite entering the US legally 30 years ago and recently cooperating with police to solve several crimes including a murder.

These are just the stories that made it into the mainstream media. Each and every one of the people being held in immigration detention has his or her own story. Immigrants in detention include the parents and spouses of US citizens, asylum seekers and torture survivors. They include students, business owners, and community leaders. They include long time residents, legal permanent residents, and sometimes even US citizens who are wrongfully imprisoned.

Essex County is netting less than $20 per detainee per day. It is using this revenue as to justify participating in an inhumane system. The County refuses to recognize the immorality of incarcerating people for profit.

If you can, please join us on Wednesday February 22nd in our latest protest against the inhumane immigration detention system and the expansion in Essex County and NJ. We will be starting in Jersey City with a 12 with a mile walk to the Elizabeth Detention Center that includes stops at the Essex County Jail, the ICE Field Office and several houses of worship.

We will close the day with a vigil and prayer service at the Elizabeth Detention Center at 6 pm

Whether or not you can attend, please do not forget to sign the petition to tell the Essex County Freeholders to get out of the business of immigration detention because profiting from other people's misery is not a business that Essex County should be in.

All She Asked Was That Her Brother Be Treated Humanely

"Please we need help from each & every one of you." the sister of a man held at Delaney Hall, a for-profit immigration detention center in Essex County said.

On October 9th outside of Delaney Hall, the private, for-profit correctional facility that is housing ICE detainees as part of a deal with Essex County, protesters met a woman who had waited an hour and a half to see her brother only to be turned away. She told us how badly her brother was being treated and with tears in her eyes she begged for help.

Remarkably, she did not ask that he be represented by a lawyer, or for him to be set free, all she asked was that he be treated humanely.

Sadly, that is not a given in Essex County or anywhere else that immigrants are being held on behalf of ICE in the United States.

Please watch the video and share it with everyone you know.

And then sign the petition to revoke the ICE contract in Essex County

Then ask your friends to do the same.

…Because we need help from each and every one of you.

Special thanks to Gabriela Garcia from Change.org and Frank Lopez from The Peace Poets for putting this video together.

Ash Wednesday Pilgrimage -A Transformative Experience

About the middle of February, I found myself looking forward to Ash Wednesday. I had never experienced this before. My Catholic upbringing had conditioned me to dread the day that signaled the beginning of what I had come to regard as 40 days of repentance and self denial. But this Ash Wednesday would be the second time that I would be joining people of faith from all over New Jersey and New York City in front of the footbridge to Ellis Island to walk nearly 12 miles alongside recent immigrants and in solidarity with the suffering of our brothers and sisters who come to our country fleeing persecution, the aftermath of natural disasters, armed conflict or extreme poverty.

This year the pilgrimage marked the beginning of a statewide Lenten Campaign to “Recognize the Human Value of Immigrants” called “Lament, Compassion, Solidarity & Conversion”. The campaign was intended to Lament our country’s current immigration policy, show Compassion for the suffering of immigrants, act in Solidarity with immigrants and pray for a Conversion of hearts so that comprehensive, humane immigration reform can be enacted.

About 10:30 am, after a short prayer service about 50 of us from varied faith traditions began walking. We chanted “we believe in justice” in English and Spanish as we walked through the streets of Jersey City stopping at Assumption/All Saint’s RC Church for a bilingual prayer service and the Islamic Center and Al-Ghazaly School where we listened to a reading from the Koran that spoke of the equality of all people.

At our next stop, the Essex County Correctional Facility, that currently holds at least 500 immigrant detainees with plans to soon expand to as many as 2700 more, we were joined by two bus loads of high school students from Mother Seton Regional High School and Roselle Catholic who would finish the remaining 9 plus miles. We made more stops along the way at the Grace Community Lutheran Church, Federal Immigration Court Building and the new ICE office on Frelinghuysen Avenue.

Along the journey I visited with old friends and made some new ones. I met a high school student and a US citizen who had recently suffered the separation of her father as he was deported to Egypt and whose mother is awaiting the same fate. I also met a man from Cameroon who had spent time in immigration detention despite being a legal resident.

Toward the end of the day, as our joints and muscles all began to ache, one of my fellow pilgrims and I discussed how we were getting a very small glimpse into the many miles that refugees and immigrants have to walk whilst fleeing their homelands like the “lost boys” of Sudan or the Mexican, Central and South American immigrants who put their lives in the hands of the coyotes as they cross the desert.

We ended triumphantly shortly after 6:00 pm at the IRATE & First Friends 13th annual Ash Wednesday vigil at the Elizabeth Detention Center, where we were greeted by over 100 other vigil goers and the NYC Catholic Worker Band.

Though our walk is over the journey continues. I invite you to join us and other people of all faith traditions who will gather at their local house of worship or elsewhere in their home community throughout the coming weeks of Lent to pray that this Lenten season we will all recognize the humanity of our brothers and sisters who are immigrants and that our society’s collective will be moved to justice.

For me, Ash Wednesday has been forever changed from the beginning of 40 days of atoning for personal sin to the beginning of a process of renewal a time of rebuilding our society to reflect the love of Jesus and justice of the Gospel. I will now look forward to Lent as a time of compassion and mercy; an opportunity to build relationships and community through acts of solidarity and understanding with the promise of rebirth that awaits us as we celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Endnote: The Lenten Campaign to “Recognize the Human Value of Immigrants” will culminate in a Migrants Way of the Cross beginning at 12:00 noon in Newark in front of the Hall of Records on April 22nd (Good Friday). All are welcome to attend.

Financial Gain from Federal Immigration Detention Contract Will Not Outweigh the Human Cost

At one of their upcoming meetings, the Essex County Freeholders will be voting on a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) regarding a proposed a new 2,700 bed facility in Essex County. This facility would constitute a significant expansion to the immigration detention system, more than doubling the current number of immigration detention beds currently in NJ.

What everyone needs to understand about immigration enforcement and detention is that it is a system that is flawed, that is extremely costly, that it separates families and that it negatively impacts our local economies and communities.

In 1996, when the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act (IIRRA) was passed, detention became mandatory for those suspected of immigration violations (a civil offense under federal law). This quickly expanded a system of administrative detention comprised of about 3,000 beds to over 30,000 and growing. By the end of this year nearly 400,000 people will have passed through the immigration detention system and almost as many will have been deported.

Prior to this increase in detention and deportation the immigration court system was already overburdened and lacked oversight. In 2008, 214 immigration court judges decided 350,000 cases increasing the possibility for many more mistakes. In addition many of the rights meant to safeguard the innocent that apply in criminal cases such as the right to counsel, appeals, phone calls, etc. are not extended to people suspected of immigration violations.

Since 2003 over 100 people have died in immigration detention, some due to obvious medical neglect, though the count is uncertain because there is no process for reporting deaths in immigration detention and no investigation process.

Though it may be considered a money maker for Essex County, the new detention center will be paid for by our federal tax dollars. This year the immigration detention system will cost the US taxpayer $1.7 billon. The proposed Essex County complex alone will cost the US taxpayer in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million dollars per day and in excess of $85 million per year. Just like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the war on immigrants is stealing money that could be used on much needed social programs.

Essex County will not see all of this money either as a private, for-profit company, namely Community Education Centers, or CEC, is said to be involved in the planned expansion. CEC has direct ties to both Joe DiVincenzo, the Essex County Executive and to Chris Christie. Bill Palatucci, Christie's former law firm partner and board member of Reform Jersey Now is an officer in CEC. Though Essex County had to participate in an open public bidding process with ICE there is no evidence that CEC did the same with Essex County.

Another nagging question is what will Essex County be getting for this money? Yes some jobs will be created, but it is unavoidable that the county will also be detaining and deporting long-time current residents, legal permanent residents and possible even US citizens for suspected immigration violations. Just over 23% of Essex County's population is foreign born, according to the most recent data from the US Census Bureau. Of this population, 71% have been in this country since before 2000 and 54% are not yet US Citizens. Under the current immigration system people with a legal claim to residency and even citizenship are often mistakenly detained and deported.

Once in the immigration system the burden falls on the individual to prove they have a legal right to be in the United States. Since they are not entitled to legal council, individuals, particularly those who are indigent or have limited ties to family or friends, can find that this is extremely difficult. As a result, the Boston College Law Post Deportation Human Rights Project (PDHRP) estimates that as many as 80,000- 100,000 people have been mistakenly deported. US citizens have been among them.

This was the case with Mark Lyttle who was born in Salisbury North Carolina. He was deported to Mexico in 2008 after serving 85 out of a 100 day sentence at the Pasquotank County Jail in North Carolina for a misdemeanor. Instead of being released Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made a determination that his real name was Jose Thomas, and that he was Mexican. Though he provided a social security number and the names of relatives, no one checked out his story. Since he had no money he could not afford the phone calls from detention to prove his case. Only after he managed to make his way from Mexico to a US embassy in Guatemala was his story checked out and he was repatriated to the United States.

Those in detention may be the primary breadwinners and caregivers to young children including children who are US citizens. Some 4 million children live in mixed immigration status families, where at least one parent is undocumented. Arguably, millions more live in families where one parent is a legal permanent resident who, because of the IIRRA, are at much greater risk of mandatory detention and deportation for minor non-violent offenses.

This increase in detention will negatively impact the local economy. Immigration detention removes workers and consumers from our local economies, reducing both economic output and consumer spending. Some of the residents of Essex County who will be incarcerated at the new detention center will be from mixed immigration status families, in which at least one parent is undocumented or is a legal permanent resident, and may include a spouse or children who are US citizens. Many will be the primary breadwinners or caregivers for their families. Their detention will only further burden our already stretched social services.

The Essex County Freeholders may be signing up to get big checks from the federal government, but how much will it cost the county and the state in the long run? These numbers that we talk about represent people, not commodities. Hundreds of thousands of lives continue to be ruined, and families continue to be separated. Does this short term financial gain really outweigh the lasting human cost of separated families and the removal of workers, business owners and active participants in our communities?

Archbishop Chaput Ties Pro-Life Cause to Immigration Reform

This past Saturday Archbishop Chaput joined by joined Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO), Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) and other religious and civil leaders addressed a forum on immigration reform. During his opening address he called for Catholics and members of both political parties to work together for immigration reform. He also tied the need for immigration reform to the pro-life cause

“Any Catholic who truly understands his or her faith knows that the right to life precedes and creates the foundation for every other human right. There’s no getting around the priority of that fundamental right to life. But, being “prolife” also means that we need to make laws and social policies that will care for those people already born that no one else will defend… We need to remember that how we treat the weak, the infirm, the elderly, the unborn child and the foreigner reflects on our own humanity.”

Archbishop Chaput’s entire statement follows.

Thank you all for coming today. Let’s settle our hearts for a moment and begin with a prayer:

Lord, you created men and women in your image and endowed them with your dignity. You call each of us to be agents of your justice and mercy in the world. Help us to build a culture of life – a culture that holds all human life in reverence, from the unborn child and the immigrant, to the poor, the homeless, the infirm and the elderly. Give us the character to live the Gospel not just with our words, but with our hearts and our actions. Make us quick to forgive each other, quick to listen to each other, and eager to serve those who are suffering and in need. And finally Lord, in all things, fill us with the courage to follow St. Paul when he urges us to “speak the truth in love.” We ask this trusting in your goodness and in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

We have a lot to cover in a short time on an important issue, so I’ll be brief. But I do want to start by thanking Father Greg Ames for his generosity in making his parish available to us today. Father Greg has the heart of a real pastor, and I’m very grateful for his support. I’m also very grateful to Congressmen Polis and Gutierrez for having the courage to put this issue back in front of the public.
Immigration reform in this country has been gridlocked for more than three years, and both Democrats and Republicans have created that paralysis. We made our immigration crisis in a bipartisan way. Now we need to solve it in a bipartisan way that involves good people from both parties, or no party; and people who may have very different convictions. I’m pretty confident that Congressman Polis and I would agree that we disagree – vigorously – on some very serious social issues. But those issues aren’t on the agenda today. What’s on the agenda today is finding a way to make our immigration laws better. We have a mutual interest in that important work -- and I respect the congressman’s sincerity and energy in trying to do something about it.

This morning I celebrated Mass at a Hispanic prolife congress here in the archdiocese. It was a very good prologue to our gathering today. The Catholic commitment to the dignity of the immigrant comes from exactly the same roots as our commitment to the dignity of the unborn child. Any Catholic who truly understands his or her faith knows that the right to life precedes and creates the foundation for every other human right. There’s no getting around the priority of that fundamental right to life. But, being “prolife” also means that we need to make laws and social policies that will care for those people already born that no one else will defend.

In the United States today, we employ a permanent underclass of human beings who build our roads, pick our fruit, clean our hotel rooms, and landscape our lawns. Most of these men and women, like millions of immigrants before them, abide by our laws and simply want a better life for their families. Many have children who are American citizens, or who have been in America so long that they don’t know any other homeland. But they live in a legal limbo. They’re vital to our economy, but they have few legal protections, and thousands of families have been separated by arrests and deportations.

We need to remember that how we treat the weak, the infirm, the elderly, the unborn child and the foreigner reflects on our own humanity. We become what we do, for good or for evil. The Catholic Church respects the law, including immigration law. We respect those men and women who have the difficult job of enforcing it. We do not encourage or help anyone to break the law. We believe Americans have a right to solvent public institutions, secure borders and orderly regulation of immigration.
But we can’t ignore people in need, and we won’t be quiet about laws that don’t work — or that, in their “working,” create impossible contradictions and suffering. Despite all of the heated public argument over the past few years, Americans still find themselves stuck with an immigration system that adequately serves no one. We urgently need the kind of immigration reform that will address our economic and security needs, but will also regularize the status of the many decent undocumented immigrants who help our society to grow. A new Congress and a new president now serve in Washington. They have an extraordinary opportunity to act quickly and justly to solve this problem.

We become what we do, for good or for evil. If we act and speak like bigots, that’s what we become. If we act with justice, intelligence, common sense and mercy, then we become something quite different. We become the people and the nation God intended us to be. Our country’s immigration crisis is a test of our humanity. Whether we pass it is entirely up to us. That’s why this gathering is important. That’s why we’re here today. And that’s why I hope all of you will take part in this national work for immigration reform as vigorously and unselfishly as possible. The future of our country depends on it.

Thanks, and God bless you.

Where Does My Food Come From?

What am I going to have for lunch? It is a simple question. One I ask myself every day. Rarely do I ask myself how blessed am I? There is little doubt that I will have lunch and even less thought is devoted to how this wonderful bounty reaches the supermarkets where most of us purchase the food we eat. The recent food safety scares have forced many Americans to consider some of the conditions under which food is produced throughout the world because it has had a negative impact on us. There is still little consideration of the negative impact our consumption and demand for cheap abundant foods at all times of the year on the environment and the laborers in other countries.

The Fair Food Across Borders Campaign is trying to raise awareness about the human rights abuses suffered by migrant agricultural workers in Mexican agribusiness camps." They want us all to be asking "Where does my food come from?"

For a look at where our food comes from you can watch Paying the Price: Migrant Workers in the Toxic Fields of Sinaloa. Here is a link to the video

Facts about farmworkers in agribusiness camps in Northern Mexico:

* There are estimated to be over one million migrant farmworkers in Mexico. The majority come from Southern Mexican states like Oaxaca and Guerrero. They are forced to leave their communities because they have no other way to support their families.

* Workers are recruited by contractors in their communities of origin and often transported under very dangerous conditions.

* Many of these workers are indigenous and speak languages such as Mixteco, Nàhuatl, Zapoteco, and Tlapaneco.

* There are hundreds of trans-national agribusiness camps in Northern Mexico, in states like Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California. They grow a large variety of produce from tomatoes to watermelon. The vast majority of the crops harvested are for export to the U.S. and Canada.

* During the 2007-2008 harvest season, more than 790,000 tons of fruits and vegetables were exported from Sinaloa - the vast majority of these crops came to the U.S. The main crop is tomatoes, followed by bell peppers and cucumbers.

* For six to eight months, migrant families live in small, crowded shacks made of sheet metal and wood, often with no access to clean water or other basic services.

* Most migrant farmworkers are surviving under precarious working conditions, receiving very low wages and no labor protections.

* Child labor is widespread in the camps. About 20% of the labor force are children under14 years of age. About 374,000 children between the ages of 6 and 14 work in fields harvested for export.

* Pay by piece-rate dominates, which forces workers to work as much as 12 hours per day.

* Health problems that these workers face include malnutrition and chronic-degenerative illnesses because of their constant exposure to dangerous pesticides.

* There are many documented cases of children and adults losing limbs and lives to work-related accidents and illnesses in the fields.

* This internal migration has not improved the marginalization and extreme poverty in which these families live. They often return home with barely enough money saved to get them through till they return again to the camps six months later.

RIGHTS GROUPS hold Vigil to support immigrants’ right to travel

The press release issued by AFSC Immigrants Rights Program:

RIGHTS GROUPS hold Vigil to support immigrants’ right to travel

Immigrant rights groups recognize that arrests and detentions of immigrants resulting from Amtrak and Greyhound’s cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security leads to devastation of families and communities.

What: Vigil to Support Immigrants’ Right to Travel

Who: Interfaith Coalition for the Rights of Immigration Detainees and their Families and others*

When: Good Friday, April 10th 2009, 1pm to 3pm

Where: Newark Penn Station (Corner of Raymond Plaza West & Market Street), NJ

April 9, 2009 – Immigrant rights groups will lead a Good Friday vigil at Newark’s Pennsylvania Station to raise awareness of the impact of immigration raids on Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses. They will call upon the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to end the raids.

Immigration raids are conducted on Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses within 100 miles of the U.S. border. People traveling through upstate New York to visit family or friends have been taken off of public transportation, arrested, and detained at county jails far from their loved ones or any access to attorneys. Amtrak and Greyhound have failed to inform passengers that if they do not carry immigration documents they run the risk of arrest and detention, while DHS uses racial profiling to target immigrants. These arrests have led to separation and hardship for the family members and communities of the individuals arrested and have frightened other passengers on the trains and buses who witness the arrests.

This event, organized by The Interfaith Coalition for the Rights of Immigration Detainees and their Families, will include participation from sponsoring organizations* (listed below) and concerned citizens. The program will include interfaith prayers, testimonies of affected individuals and comments from lawyers of the American Civil Liberty Union of New Jersey and American Friends Service Committee.

This event is part of the National Week of Action April 8-15, 2009, an initiative of the Rights Working Group and Detention Watch Network to demand fundamental reform of current immigration policy to ensure that due process and human rights of all people are protected. Dozens of other public and private events such as this one will take place during the week of April 8-15 across the country. In New Jersey, several visits to federal legislators have been scheduled. Advocates will also receive a tour of Middlesex County Jail where immigrant detainees are being held and a recent immigrant death occurred.

*Action 21, American Friends Service Committee Immigrant Rights Program, Amnesty International, Casa de Esperanza, Casa Freehold, Detention Watch Network, Families For Freedom, First Friends Middlesex County, Haiti Solidarity Network of the Northeast, Interfaith Coalition for The Rights of Immigration Detainees and their Families, IRATE & First Friends, The Lutheran Office of Governmental Affairs, NJ Association on Corrections, NJ Forum For Human Rights, NJ Immigration Policy Network, NY Immigration Coalition, Pax Christi NJ, Rights Working Group, St. Joseph’s Social Center, Sisters of St. Joseph ESL, Wind of the Spirit

"For Profit" Immigration Detention Center - A Legitimate Business?

[Ownership] becomes illegitimate... when it is not utilized or when it serves to impede the work of others, in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society, but rather is the result of curbing them or of illicit exploitation, speculation or the breaking of solidarity among working people. Ownership of this kind has no justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man. Pope John Paul II from Centesimus Annus

A group of investors who have no background in law enforcement or running residential facilities of any kind has just been awarded a contract by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to build and run a 1000 bed facility in the city of Farmville, Virginia.

According to this article in Facing South the contract was hastily awarded to keep pace with increased demand for space and overcrowding in current facilities as a result of the stepped up pace raids and incarceration.

Gerald Spates, Farmville town manager reasons that the new detention center will keep those who are housed there "safe" from the abuses in overcrowded facilities and from the dangers of being housed with criminal offenders in county jails and other facilities currently doing double duty. He was honest enough to admit that profit was a motivation.

"We've been hearing horror stories about detainees being put into prison with other criminals when all they have done is be here without documentation. Our goal is to keep them safe," Spates said. "But I want to be honest with you. We do stand to gain financially from this."

Holding immigrants in prison-like facilities is much more expensive. It costs between $95 and $170 per day to house immigrants in these detention facilities. Alternatives to detention such as supervised release, electronic monitoring, etc. are much cheaper, costing only about $12 per day.

In the past large numbers of immigrants who were seeking asylum or who were facing deportation as a result of non-criminal offenses had been allowed to remain in the community. Even though they were not in custody the immigration court system still realized well over a ninety percent appearance rate.

In the context of Catholic Social Teaching is for profit detention a "legitimate" business? I can't find a justification, can you?