Our New Anahuac

T Don Hutto is a retrofitted prison used, as of 2006, to house immigrant and asylum-seeking children with their families.

I have written a little about our protests regarding Hutto, but not much about the details of this baby jail.

A cell in the baby jail

The children at Hutto have done nothing wrong, and their parents have not been charged with any crime, and they will not be charged with any crime. The children and parents housed here are Raza, mostly Central Americans, and other people of color from around the world, at least including Pakistan and Sudan.

They started using the prison as an alternative to the catch and release programs. Before, people of non-Mexican decent were released when they were suspected of illegal presence, and were set to appear before federal immigration judges. Now they are imprisoned here.

There does seem to be at least one Mexican family there, but we have no confirmation just yet.

I write this, because in my experience, people are very curious about the nationality of the families imprisoned there and of “what they have done.” They are usually more surprised to find what they have not done.

Many are there ostensibly due to “illegal presence,” meaning that they are in jail for being undocumented.

If Raza children being imprisoned doesn’t make you want to explode, what about the rule of law? In my own personal research, I believe that imprisoning anyone for a civil infraction is against an international agreement (treaty) known as the American Declaration on The Rights and Duties of Man which states that a person must not be detained for infraction of purely a “civil character.” Immigration infractions are purely a civil matter, which is one of the reasons that we fought like hell to stop HR4437, which would have criminalized “illegal presence,” and even potentially giving a ride to someone who had no papers.

What about Article 7 of the Declaration:

All women, during pregnancy and the nursing period, and all children have the right to special protection, care and aid.

People had to fight in order to get more food for pregnant women.

Article 12 says

Every person has the right to an education, which should be based on the principles of liberty, morality and human solidarity.

As I understand, the same agreement which provided more food for pregnant women also forced the administrators at Hutto to provide education. However this agreement, forced by an ACLU lawsuit, seems to be up this year in August of 2009.

Article after article of all kinds of human rights treaties are being violated, but those of us in the struggle understand that this is a political fight and a battle of wills between haves and have nots. Those who have, have a large will to continue profiting from the damage that they cause our little ones. Those who have not have an increasing will to save the niños imprisoned there and to stop this cycle of prison mentality perpetrated in our barrios, which Hutto is happily continuing to maintain.

Hutto is administered by CCA (nicknamed Concentration Camps of America by its opponents). CCA is a private contractor who nets something like 300 million a quarter. You can check out a documentary online which provides the exact figure. They are unlicensed, which I take to mean requires little or no oversight. Even day care centers in Texas require licenses to operate, but CCA requires none. Remember all of the trouble private contractors got into in Iraq?  Private contractors are notoriously under-supervised.

Most of the people that are working to shut down Hutto are doing so for the children locked up there, but some are beginning to recognize that this is part of a psychological and general war against our communities.

One compa asked, “how come criminals can be monitored by ankle monitors and these children have to be locked up.”

The answer becomes obvious as they join the struggle and beginseeing the multitude of other attacks against our community.  We are in an outright war against our gente.

I have gotten a whole host of arguments as to why Hutto is a good thing or why I shouldn’t worry about it. I have heard the same remarks from different people, so I will post the most frequent talking points.

The people from the government just want to change it to a publicly administered facility to create more government control.
No. I have not heard of anyone who wants to simply change the administration from CCA to the government. In our case, we don’t believe that there should be any confinement for immigration infractions.  So we want the whole thing shut down.

They are being kept safe and treated for medical and psychological issues.
They are being treated for the psychological issues that Hutto has created for them. This would be the same as if someone broke your leg, and then people thought it was good thing because they paid your doctor bills. In this case it is worse, because the psychological damage is perpetual and will likely last a lifetime.  The victims will bring that psychological damage to whatever community they take refuge in and perpetuate it even more.

What about the condition of prisons in other countries. They have terrible conditions.
I don’t know of any other countries in this hemisphere which imprisons non-criminal children, and I don’t have the resources to fight those countries. This is happening in my backyard…Taylor, TX.

Many people with different ideas and analyses, are forming a coalition to fight this injustice.  Join today.  Shut down this baby jail!