As a teen, I first heard of corporate prisons in 1996 in an unlikely place, the Geto Boys’ Resurrection album. Larry Hoover, himself a prisoner, told everyone who heard the album that “big companies” had interests in prisons. He rattled through the names of a few, “Master Card, Smith Barney.” I did not process the significance of his claim for a few years, and I did not come face to face with the beast that is the corporate prison complex until last year. In April of 2009 I joined a long-established coalition of activists who were fighting to close Hutto, an immigration jail which “housed” immigrant children and their parents. The New York Times’ photograph of a crib behind bars at Hutto still haunts me today.

Even though the political pressure resulted in some success on the child detention issue, profit-driven prisons are still a great problem. Correction Corporation of America (CCA) still has the contract to operate the Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas, even though children are no longer being detained there. Recent reports and arrests of Hutto guards prove that a lack of oversight at corporate detention facilities has led to abuses which amount to torture.

The Austin American Statesman reported on August 20th that a resident supervisor, William Dunn, was arrested and charged with three counts of official oppression and two counts of unlawful restraint. In essence, he fondled several women while in the process of transporting them. A few days later, on August 26th, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing incidents of sexual torture at a for-profit prison in Texas. The report describes an incident in Willacy County at a facility operated by Management and Training Corporation. In this incident a guard locked a female detainee in a room with a male detainee to whom he “owed a favor” so that the female could be raped.

According to TexasPrisonBidness.org, the private prison model faced declining profits earlier this century, but after September 11, 2001, their fortunes changed. There became a new political demand for prisons to hold immigrants prior to deportation, and herein lies part of the problem. Prior to September 11, 2001 immigrants who were not considered a flight risk were often not detained prior to their hearing. However, because there were some immigrants who opted to abscond instead of appearing at their hearing, there was a great political will to detain a great deal of immigrants facing hearings, even at great cost to the taxpayers.
At the same time, there are great profit motives to hold detainees that need not be detained according to mandatory detention statutes. It’s not that hard to figure out: The longer these detainees are held in these facilities, the more money that these companies make. These company executives are savvy enough to figure out that if they can buy the right politicians, they create the right policies which allow them to hold people who otherwise would pose no threat. The connections between politicians and private prisons are well documented.

One of the most notorious cases was revealed last month, when it became clear that two of Arizona Governor Brewer’s top advisors had a financial interest in corporate prisons. With the passage of Arizona’s anti-Mexican law, the advisors had a potentially lucrative profit motive in passing the law. The more immigrants that the state would cause to be detained, the more money these two advisors stood to gain.
This is only one of many connections, however. Many conflicts of interest involve county jails, rather than immigration facilities. In late July, The San Antonio Express News reported a potentially illegal scheme involving over $100,000 between the Bexar County Sheriff and his ilk and a private prison, which involved the local county jails.

Early in the twentieth century, the State of Texas became conscious that the mix of profit and human detentions did not make for a good mix, and they abolished relationships with such contractors. The profit motive often led to abuses of power and to the preference of profits over justice. One El Pueblo reader called me last week and equated profits in the private prison industry to slavery. In the wake of a miserable economy, in which the ruling class has had a notably difficult time in raising profits, the private prison industry has been remarkably resilient. In a recent article, The Final Call Newspaper cites a report which states that since 2005, and estimated $1.2 billion has been funneled to Texas alone in order to house undocumented immigrants. One report cited that it was more expensive to detain a child at Hutto than it was to educate that child at Harvard University. Any society which allows a segment of its populace to enrich itself at the unnecessary imprisonment of another segment can no longer consider itself a society of and by the people.

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The 14^th Amendment to Constitution is now under attack.  Many Republicans, including party leaders, have made comments that the amendment should be reviewed and that children of undocumented people should no longer have automatic citizenship.  In their simplistic view, the children of undocumented workers should not benefit from the so-called crimes of their parents.

Their view is largely fueled by race.   Studies have shown that certain segments of the white population start become uncomfortable when a ten to fifteen percent color line has been crossed.  Latinos make up roughly fifteen percent of the population.

If the Republicans are so insistent on condemning unborn children for the acts of their parents, then perhaps a fair and evenhanded way to review family criminal history would be to repeal citizenship all the way to the time of the Mayflower.  Since children cannot control the acts of their parents before they are born, and since they have no control over the acts of their ancestor, it is only right that we review the acts of both parents and ancestors.

This way we can really see who have committed the greatest criminal acts.  If the forefathers of some of today’s citizens were land thieves, Indian exterminators, illegal slave traders or rebels this could make their ancestors criminal aliens.  Those individuals who have been the children of real criminal aliens can reapply for citizenship after a touchback to their native country. 

We can take family history and touchback status into consideration when we review their new application and we can determine if these people will be a good candidate for citizenship applications, or whether their citizenship should remain in the repealed class.  Granted, this may run afoul of ex post facto prohibitions, so if need be we can apply it to only babies who will be born after this amendment is ratified.

Sure, this might be a costly undertaking, but the application costs for new babies’ citizenship should make up the cost.  Since we will not want to run a deficit on this program, we will have to make sure that we charge enough money to cover the application, genealogy reports and processing.

In the meantime, if only the children of undocumented workers are targeted, this will produce a permanent underclass in this society.  The repeal of the 14^th Amendment will not create an exodus of our twelve million undocumented people.  Instead, it will create a class of people who work all day, but who do not possess certain basic rights which are recognized by the US Constitution.  It will create a system in which a certain class of our people are barred generation to generation from empowering themselves through commerce, community organizing, political speech and electoral participation.  This generational oppression will be encoded into the very document which is supposed to be a beacon of hope for the entire world: the US Constitution.

Imagine a world in which ICE agents are waiting patiently in the maternity ward of hospitals.  How else would one enforce Representative Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) proposal in which both babies and parents would be deported.

Let me be clear, I am squarely against repealing the Fourteenth Amendment, but if we are going to repeal it, let us look at the ancestors of other crimes besides illegal entry.  Let us reconsider the citizenship of the ancestors of those who have created some of the worst crimes in human history.  After all, such a policy would not be race-based.  It would be behavior-based, just like they tell us about immigration policy..  That illegal slave traders, land thieves and Indian exterminators happen to be white is incidental.  The idea would be to evenhandedly cleanse our society of the ancestors of law breakers.

In the end, it is unlikely that repeal to the Fourteenth Amendment will gain much momentum.  It is an election sideshow.  We should continue to focus on just comprehensive immigration reform until we are victorious.

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An Open Letter to Sheriff Adrian Garcia

La Raza Justice Movment

July 27, 2010

Honorable Adrian Garcia

Sheriff of Harris County

1200 Baker St

Houston, TX 77002

Dear Sheriff Garcia:

On Tuesday, July 20, 2010I was contacted by someone from the area of 45 and Airtex.  One night prior, at around 9:30 PM, she had been the victim of a home invasion in which her husband was beaten, and many items had been stolen from her.  She contacted me to help her navigate the bureaucracy regarding some follow up information that she had regarding the investigation, and she was aware of my work in human rights and my work with La Raza Justice Movement. 

As this is an open letter, I will not disclose many of the details related to the case.  However, I intend to send a supplement letter with the details.

By Friday, July 23 it became clear that the victim had some new actionable, time-sensitive information.  This information, after several more days, would not be useful.  I was advised by a deputy that the correct procedure would be to have the victim call and request a “supplement,” if an investigator had not yet been assigned.

She did call.  A deputy arrived, and he refused to take a supplement, saying only that it was the investigator’s job.  Mind you, five days later most deputies could not verify whether an investigator had been assigned or not.

That same day, I spoke to Sergeant Haynes.  Understandably, he was unable to release information to a third-party.  He also added that civil rights legislation prevented knee-jerk reaction to new information.  I told him that I, too, was particularly interested in civil rights, but that civil rights should not be used as a way to excuse lax police work.  The new evidence that was being introduced required only routine police work, and hiding behind civil rights legislation is a slap in the face to those of us who have labored for years in the civil and human rights area.

It was not until Monday, July 26^th that an investigator was assigned, and today, Tuesday, this investigator is to meet with the victim.  The backdrop for all of this is a neighborhood which has seen an alarming increase in property crimes over the past several months, and now this, a home invasion.

Sheriff Garcia, there are several problems with either your policy or procedures and their application to this case.  Under no circumstances should it take a week to assign an investigator to a home invasion case.  It would seem that this should be a priority just under homicide.  Further, new, time-sensitive information should not go into a black hole until an investigator is assigned.  Time-sensitive information on a case involving a home invasion should be responded to immediately, regardless of whether an investigator is assigned or not.  When I asked a deputy why it took so long to assign an investigator, the response was that the case load was too heavy.

Sheriff, this is surprising to me, considering that you have chosen to support the implementation of 287(g), the controversial program in which people are deported after having been detained for violations as small as traffic violations.  In a report by 11 News, Lieutenant Michael Lindsay, was quoted as saying: “A lot are saying, ‘Well, you know, you’re deporting somebody for a minor crime.’  They’re not being deported for any crime at all.  They’re being deported because of their status here.”

Sheriff, where are your priorities?  Here I am giving you the case of a lady who has had her loved one abused by criminals in her own home, and you are concerning your self with deporting an average of 1000 people per month, oftentimes for petty offenses, sometimes even college students who failed to stop at a signal.  You should not concern yourself more with making your deportation numbers than with ensuring the peace.  You should not spend so much capital, including your capital with our community, in running such a large deportation operation at the expense of real police work.  Where is your conscience?  Where is the security?  Where is the peace?

Hector A. Chavana Jr

La Raza Justice Movement

CC:      Houston Unidos, La Raza Justice Movement, Media

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