Privatized Immigrant Detention Facilities for Families Revealed to be Modern-Day Concentration Camps

[Ian David]

One of the more disturbing stories that surfaced after the Swift meat plant raids was how too many children were left without a parent and/or farmed out to friends and families with no immediate word on how they will be reconnected with their mami and papi.

But if news filtering out of one of the newly designated immigrant detention centers for families is any indication, no undocumented parent is going to open their mouth and claim their children if the whole family is going to be subjected to what is becoming known as the first known concentration camp on American soil in the 21st Century.

The T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas (on the outskirts of Austin, Texas) is a private detention facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America. It and a smaller center in Pennsylvania are the only two facilities in the country that are authorized to hold non-Mexican immigrant families and children on noncriminal charges.


Hutto family detention facility in Taylor, Texas

(Photo: Jay Johnson-Castro)

What does this mean?

It means that at the Taylor facility of the 400 people "held" there, 200 are children. And all are families that can be held there for whatever length of time without due process conducted in a timely manner.

To top it off, as long as the men, women and children are held there, the facility's operator draws a daily profit - per person.

More:
http://latinalista.blogspot.com/2006/12/privatized-immigrant-detention.html

[trixie]

1. So this is the angle

I always wondered why Bush and Co. would go after illegals that actually help their corporate buddies. So bet the corporations will make profit of their "work" while tax payers pay for their detention.

[AlphaCentauri]

41. include illegals as taxpayers n/t

[rodeodance]

2. funded and approved by Congress. What more to say.

[Hoping4Change]

3. Thanks for posting this.

K & R

[ceile]

4. KUT (our local NPR affiliate)

Did a story on it yesterday or day before. I didn't even know that place was there-and I drive through Taylor pretty regularly.
The PR person for the center was saying the barbed wire and the sweats/uniform they where is for the good of the immigrants-"for their protection". And the children only get one hour of play time each day.

[nashville_brook]

5. the comments section needs some DU attention - it's being Freeped

#

At 7:52 PM, Rob said…

Why do we pretend that these people are not criminals? They commited a crime, they illegaly snuck accross our border and broke our countries laws. They are getting at least some education, food and medical careat U.S. taxpayers expense. Which is probably a lot more that they would have got in their own country. If you don't want to end up incarcarated then stop breaking our laws. To compare it to a concentration came is redicules, the Jews didn't break the laws and these illegal aliens did......can't you see the difference?

#



At 12:41 PM, Anonymous said…

Where's the pictures of the gas chambers, the piles of hair and jewelery, the incinerators to burn the dead bodies...?

Thanks for trivializing the horrible attrocities that the Jewish race went through.

Concentration camp? Are you kidding me?!

[Ian David]

12. Slaves who escaped from The South were also committing a crime.

We helped create the environment from which the illegal aliens are fleeing.

"How dare you sneak into our country to work for our corporations after those same corporations fucked-up your home country!"

[originalpckelly]

14. Are you sure it's exactly the same?

African Americans were kidnapped against their will, brought to America on repugnant slave ships, forced into slavery to work for nothing, while being whipped and abused in other ways, for hundreds of years.

I don't know if that's anywhere near comparable to someone coming to America of their own free will.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. The escaped slaves were "detained" and returned to their owners.

As required by law in the "Fugitive Slave Act" of 1850.

[originalpckelly]

18. Yes, but is being enslaved and living in Mexico equivalent?

:shrug:

[G_Leo_Criley]

20. not Mexican

The detainees are non-Mexican immigrant families and children.

glc

[originalpckelly]

27. I should have read more...

I thought all the illegals rounded up were from the Swift meat packing plant.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. The slaves were poor and helpless as are the really poor anywhere.

As the son of an immigrant, my mother, who worked as a maid at age 9, my sympathies are with the immigrants rather than those who would imprison and deport them.

But, she came here in 1919 with her mother, when it was still "legal" to flee poverty.

[originalpckelly]

28. Would you support 40+ million fleeing poverty to come to America?

This in only Mexican nationals, not the number from around the world, which is undoubtedly higher.

http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=52

"Meanwhile, separate PHC surveys conducted in Mexico show that about four of every ten adults in the Mexican population say they would migrate to the United States if they had the means and opportunity and that two of every ten are inclined to live and work here without legal authorization. The willingness to migrate, even illegally, is evident in all sectors of Mexican society including the middle class and the well-educated as well as those who are poor and who only completed low-levels of schooling."

The population of Mexico is about 106 million. That's more than 40 million people whom want to move to the USA.

[G_Leo_Criley]

30. This is about what I don't support. n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

39. Poverty and immigration are casualties of a global free market

Many would support to end poverty around the world without giving away something, would you support to pay more for goods made in Mexico and other countries to end poverty?, if so let's start by paying more for their oil.

[G_Leo_Criley]

42. In line with the subject of this thread

I support getting medical (and that includes psychological) help in to those kids and their parents. After that, I support getting them out of those Detention Centers!

A thread about the immigration issues you and others refer to belongs elsewhere, in my humble opinion.

(Edit to clarify -- I think that anything that doesn't directly address the abhorrent jailing of families with children on US soil, in detention camps, is running from the singular issue at hand. I am "lumping" these together as issues about immigration. Yours is clearly more of an economic issue related to the reasons that people come to this country illegally.)

Reminder: If you read the material that's been linked to, not all are from Hispanic countries, and some are fleeing political repression with their families.


Either we think that jailing children in the USA is wrong, or we think it's ok.

glc

[Ms. Clio]

48. you act as if Mexico is on another continent

most Mexicans are primarily or entirely descended from the native peoples of North America.

[truedelphi]

51. I appreciate your posting this. Takes some courage

Those of us who are opposed to rampant illegal immigration are seen as being racist.

Look, if there were only two million people living south of the border, I'd say let them come.
Every single person.

BUT THERE ARE ONE BILLION PEOPLE. ONE BILLION!

I used to be very "fair-minded" about illegal immigration.
Then, working as a nursing assistant - I saw it for what it is - a means for vast numbers of people to come here, and with absolutely no screening of any kind in place, allowed to have jobs that
before they came were held by people born in this country.

By the mid nineteen nineties, workers at McDOnalds and Burger King were paid $ 5.15 an hour (the restaurant industry minuimum wage) in California, but workers at the same places in CHicago were paid over $ 9 with insurance.

The American tax payer has to come up with the monies that allows people to send their children to school, takes care of their housing, their medical needs, etc. as $ 5.15 an hour is not going to do it.

I have had my Mexican co-workers steal out of my purse, complain constantly to the nursing agency about my being two minutes late, (while they are allwoed to be two hours late because "they have children.")

What galled me the most is that I could never complain - the answer from supervisors was, "But those poor little brown skinned people!"

Please tell me why this attitude never extended to any of my black-skinned co-workers? If they had stolen from me, made up bogus charges, or been ten minutes late despite having nine children they would have been investigated and if found wrong, Fired!

Oh I get it - tall black people - scary, very scary. "Little" brown people are non-threatening.

[Bridget Burke]

54. Gosh, why are you folks called "racist"?

However, I understand that things can get tough on the mean streets of Sausalito.

[truedelphi]

58. I Property-managed in sausalito

Did not own. No longer live there.

I am tired of the hypocrisy.

If you want to have rampant illegal immigration, then start campaigning for massive numbers of housing units built immediately, converting open space to housing as that is necessary.

Promise that your children will go to public schools, even after the only language spoken there fluently is Spanish.

Look at the fact that this country will have a huge shortage of water in the next ten years, especially in the West. Adding millions of more people to the population will not make the coming water wars any less likely

Yes I lived in Marin, and I got tired of the bleeding-heartedness that stated that "Immigrants Yes!" "Housing No - Open Space Foever!" deludedness of my fellow Dems.

I even had one friend who adopted a child from Venezuela and for about five years she was pro-hispania in everything. Then when the child was old enough to attend school, she was appallled - simply appalled to find out that due to immigration her school district was not requiring that children speak English - her kid got private schooled so fast your head would spin.

So if you wanna walk the talk and walk it NOW go ahead. But I have found that most bleeding hearts don't really have any contact with a large variety amount of people now coming here. Nor do they understand that adding another one hundred million people willbring about catastrophe.

I moved to California twenty years ago. The schools were still good. My son attended public schools and there was a huge amount of ethnic diversity. His closest friends throughout junior high to high school were from various lands. We lived for a while in The Canal in San Rafael and had as neighbors a Guatamalean family, a Cambodian family, and an older lady from Chile. the Chilean was an American citizen, the Guatamalean family was trying to obtain citizenship and so was the cambodian family.

They all professed a sincere love for this country. They all wanted to learn English and despite their love for their own culture, they wanted to meld into our society.

The two newer families probably will end up surviving the screening process.

But I will object with my dying breath the notion that we can just let people slip in and have no screening. And that we can remain a strong nation even though our population will be going through the roof.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. A historical note ... the first concentration camps, called 'reconcentrados', ...

were created by US forces occupying Cuba during the Spanish-American War. During the Boer War, the British used the same policy against the Afrikaaners, and apparently used the term 'concentration camp' in imitation of the American term. In both cases, diseases spread unchecked in the crowded, squalid camps, causing thousands of deaths. The Nazi concentration camps were the last and worst of a series, but certainly not the only, or even first, to carry that name. They were unique in that their original purpose was genocide, which is probably why the earlier cases have been largely forgotten.

[Bridget Burke]

55. The Boers often fought in "commandos"

Small, mobile groups that didn't need long supply trains because they visited farms for provisions. So the Brits decided to put the women, children & old men in the newfangled "concentration camps." And, as you said, many died there.

The Nazis didn't just have concentration camps. Some camps were set up specifically for extermination. Or for slave labor. But people died in all of them.

[intheflow]

7. I knew the rumors of camps would prove true.

This is so incredibly ugly. Obviously immigrants are overwhelimingly peacful and hard-working--hundreds of thousands of them marched peacefully all over the country last spring, just demanding some damn human dignity. Look what they got instead under Republican rule.

[jazzjunkysue]

8. The concentration camp reference doesn't make sense here.

The jews were rounded up out of their legal homes. These illegals should not be entering the country. Nothing about this is the same. This is where we get the label, "knee-jerk liberal."

I hate to agree with this administration on anything, but, honestly, if the threat of ending up in one of these camps keeps people from entering illegally, it's the only thing I've heard of yet that will work.

Personally, it would keep me in Mexico, but not china. And alot of our illegals fly in legally and then just remain after their visas expire. So, what do we do when we find them?

This is ugly, but the outside world is ugly, too.

If we had an administration that was trustworthy, this might not be such a bad response, compared to catch and release. That doesn't do any good at all.

[Ian David]

10. So, it was okay for the Nazis to round-up and kill the gypsies then? n/t

[originalpckelly]

11. So there have been illegals killed at these facilities?

:shrug:

[Ian David]

15. Should we wait until we see the mass graves and the crematoria? n/t

[originalpckelly]

16. Why not march on the WH tonight? Should we wait until Democrats...

are rounded up and sent to concentration camps?

I can make wild exaggerations too. It's actually pretty easy.

Do you have any sort of evidence that these people are being killed?

[AlphaCentauri]

40. 1936 anybody expected Nazis to kill jews?

jews were perceive as foreign to the German population, isn't it what's happening to latinos?

[jazzjunkysue]

21. Keep your logic straight, and don't miss the point. We look foolish

on here if we don't keep our references balanced.

At this point, I don't know of any operating gas chambers in the US, and the gypsies were employed in labor camps and factories or killed. None of this is happening at this point.

We're not going into mexico to exterminate mexicans.

The real debate is if we should have open or closed borders. That's a tough one. Can we really afford open borders? I don't think so. Our schools and hospitals are breaking under the weight already. That's a fact you can't ignore with irate references.

Anyone living near the border knows the problems are real.

There are no simple solutions, but if these camps slow the pace, they're the first thing that has worked. You can't ignore that, unless you've got a better idea.

[G_Leo_Criley]

23. non-Mexican immigrants

non-Mexican immigrants and families.

glc

[Morgana LaFey]

32. Stop and THINK about what you're saying, fer chrissake

THINK:

but, honestly, if the threat of ending up in one of these camps keeps people from entering illegally,

If you thought for one minute, seriously, that this was even the merest part of the greater plan, why wouldn't there be MASSIVE information campaigns both here in the U.S. and especially in Mexico and all points south????????

Here's another thing to THINK about (can you?): Illegals are working for LESS than minimum wage, at back-breaking, UNSAFE jobs that are an embarrassment to our nation. They're not taking jobs away from Americans, they're letting corporations save money on labor. They're letting you eat fresh produce and other food (canned, frozen) at a fraction of the cost. They're not hurting you; YOU have nothing to fear from them. Quit worrying hystgerically about them and you'll no doubt live a few years longer as a result.

Molly Ivins wrote an amazing column some months ago, when George Bush first started pumping up fears of the "Other" via his "illegal immigration" hysteria because he needed some nice wedge issues for the upcoming election. She pointed out, and rightly so, that there's ONE thing that would stop the inflow of illegal immigrants COLD: enforce the laws agasint employers who hire illegals. Dry up the jobs, you'll dry up the flow. She's right, 100%

I'm not in FAVOR of illegal immigration, but I definitely understand the dynamics that keep it happening (including no REAL threats to illegal EMPLOYERS and the benefits to our economy), and I'm just not worried about those who make it over. They've got to be very brave, extremely ambitious people. What DOES concern me is that when the populace gets whipped into a frenzy about ILLEGAL immigrants, the legal ones suffer too in the resulting fog of unfocused, unspecific xenophobia. And we've got enough problems with racism in this country.

[jazzjunkysue]

63. So, you favor open borders. Feed, teach, hospitalize, house, defend

anyone who drops in? How will you pay for it all?

If not, what's your plan? More catch and release? That's not working, and the wall won't, either.


So, since you can think, and I can't, tell me the solution. I'm listening.

[G_Leo_Criley]

66. All that I'm saying is...

please get those children out of that jail.

glc

[jazzjunkysue]

67. and send them where?

[G_Leo_Criley]

69. send them where?

Send them to a more appropriate setting for a child. Provide them with legal representation.

This country's government should not be tossing children into private jails.

(nor should they be tossing adults whose immigration status is in question into private jails for that matter....)


glc

[Porcupine]

43. The concentration camp reference is entirely right.

The British invented the modern concentration camp during the Boer war. The idea was to place the Afrikaans population under detention so they could not help the men. The specific purpose of the camp was to detain noncombatants as a punishment to those resisting the British. In this instance we are detaining families in order to punish a population for economic crimes; working without a green card. The reference is apt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp

[jazzjunkysue]

62. Except that I've never heard of anything you're saying, before.

So, unless this is a British military history class, concentration camp means germany in the 40's.

[Ms. Clio]

64. so just because YOU'VE never heard of it, the historical fact is irrelevant?

I wager there are any number of highly significant historical facts in which you are uneducated.

[jazzjunkysue]

68. No one's ever heard of it. Period.

[Ms. Clio]

72. At least 3 people in this thread have mentioned the historical fact of concentration camps

long before the 1940s. So "nobody" is just you, and it's still a singularly stupid argument.

[G_Leo_Criley]

65. framing issue?

Are you saying that it's a framing issue? Do you feel that calling them concentration camps isn't proper framing?

How about "Jails for Children of Immigrants," or "Detention Camps for Children?"

Is that better?

glc

[Bridget Burke]

56. See posts #6 & #55 for historical background on "concentration camps"

I'd rather be a "knee jerk liberal" than a plain old jerk.

(Post #43 also provides some background for the historically ignorant.)

[tnlefty]

9. K & R

Too disgusted to comment. Thanks for posting this, btw.

[Megahurtz]

13. "Corrections Corporation of America"???

Oh - my - God. :banghead:

Privatized. There's the fucking problem right there!

Holy shit! What can be done about this?:(

[Laughing Mirror]

59. The facility's operator draws a daily profit

as long as the people are held there. The Corrections Corporation of America is in this for the money. Look at all the millions of adult prisoners, both men and women, the corrections corporation is already profiting tremendously from. Now they've got a virtually inexhaustible supply of poor working people crossing borders, and their children too.

Expect more building, more camps, more prisoners. Because it means more money to be made.

[G_Leo_Criley]

19. Disgusting

Read about this early today and have been wrestling with the whole concept. Detention Centers in our country.

Isn't that what they called them when the Japanese Americans were whisked away?

How could this happen here? How are children being held in a "detention center" and fitted with jumpsuits when they're "big enough?" One hour of education and one hour of recreation a day will suffice because what ... because it's probably more than they've ever had? Sez who?

Will we ever get our country back, and will we ever be able to prove to the rest of humanity that the vast majority of us never wanted this?

These are children for crying out loud. Incidentally, some of them may actually be natural born Americans citizens. All of them are humans in need of due process.

None of them are "illegals" -- a bogus term if I ever heard one. Some of these people came here legitimately - with visas.

Write to your senators and representatives, and tell them that this is not the will of the American people. Not by a long shot.


glc

[formercia]

24. Welcome to the future.

I told you these muthafuckers are Nazis.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

25. Don't you know Homeland "Security" ... aka FEMA

has many ex-military bases ready for occupation. And the intentionally obscured government agencies charged with over-seeing these camps prevents any small party from deriving a "fair" hearing because no-one knows whom to petition!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Criminilizing poverty and desperation is always popular.

Especially if the capitalists can make a buck doing so.

[G_Leo_Criley]

29. and turning those who're a rung above ...

them, against those poor and desperate, is always a good way to take it up to art-form status.

Does anyone know the particular bill name/number, or was it shepherded in under some ultra secret homeland security bill?

Also, I'm going to go look but ... this corporation that's running this private camp, is it by any chance some offshoot/tentacle of {shudder} halliburton?

glc

[Ms. Clio]

46. yes, indeed -- divide and conquer

In the late 19th century, employers would bring in black workers from the South to break strikes in the Midwest. Oddly enough, it was the black workers (who were not regarded as citizens or fully human, either), who bore the brunt of the white workers' resentment and violence.

[originalpckelly]

31. Mexico ranks 32 out of 111 countries surveyed for quality of life...

It is four places behind the United Kingdom. It is seven places ahead of Israel.

http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

45. I doubt that the people coming here are fleeing prosperity.

Or ridding themselves of material comforts for the "simple life" of picking lettuce and emptying bedpans.

[rucky]

33. The upside is...

if they're getting paid for keeping them there, they're not going to kill them.

nice thought, eh?

[Morgana LaFey]

34. OMG -- read this

from the blog. If this doesn't drive it home what a CONCENTRATION camp this really is (minus the exterminations, one presumes):

Originally, the detention facilities were touted by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a way to keep families together while waiting for their cases to come up for court review.

Well, they are accomplishing that goal - to the exclusion of being allowed any outside contact with the rest of the world, aside from those who have lawyers.

snip

For children to be held longer than three days, receive but one hour of instruction and only a half hour of recreational play, to be made to feel like criminals by wearing jail jumpsuits and name tags and not have any contact with anyone outside of the facility is a serious violation of the public trust we have in our government, and how we value children in this country.

Unforms, name tags, no contact with outside world, prison-like controls on activities and movement even for children...

O.M.G.

[originalpckelly]

35. Well, that got me. Holy fucking crap!

This sounds like a family sized GITMO.

Why don't we just send these people back to where they came from, if we are so pissed about them being here?

Am I not understanding something?

[TahitiNut]

36. The Vietnamese boat people were treated WORSE for many years.

And very few in this country lifted a finger to stop it, even though they had almost no place to go. :shrug:

The conditions in those camps were appalling. Despite attempts of humanitarians all over the world, very littel of the aid sent ever got to those camps. In comparison to the size of our population, the US was appallingly resistent to accepting these refugess especially compared to Australia, Canada and France.

Ten years ago, it was estimate that over 25,000 Vietnamese refugess were still being detained in such camps.

Always the paragon of the virtue of money, we've been far more accepting of the "yacht people" from Hong Kong. ("Bring us your bank accounts, your gold, your money yearing to be invested ...")

[Ms. Clio]

47. and this is exactly what is happening to the Iraqis, now n/t

[treestar]

37. These were not just built for aliens

You can bet on that.

It makes no sense why it takes them so long to deport the illegals. If they are illegal, why do they need to be held for so long? There is no penalty for being here illegally but deportation.

[Morgana LaFey]

60. Good point nt

[buddysmellgood]

38. Profit per person. That says it all. Mix hate with greed and an endless revenue

stream and you have a recipe for human suffering.

[Morgana LaFey]

61. and we didn't even invent it! The Nazis had it all down pat. n/t

[Cobalt-60]

44. Unacceptable- but predictable

The Spanish speaking community vote migrated to the Democrats.
And a month later they start filling concentration camps with them.
The first step must be to plot the locations of these corporate concentration camps.
Then write them across the sky.
No one should be allowed the we didn't know excuse.
It is unmistakably clear that the republican party must be exterminated.

[tbyg52]

49. Private detention facilities

Should be illegal. There are some things that are the responsibility of the government *only*. There are some things that should *never* be done for profit, and *never* without *real* oversight.

[G_Leo_Criley]

50. This is their idea of

a "soft" program -- putting families together in Detention Centers. (Because they're so family oriented?)

Then they have a private company run the operation and nobody ever has to answer for it.

It's called Endgame.

Amazing what you can find out there on the internets.

http://www.ice.gov/doclib/pi/dro/endgame.pdf

glc

[Jcrowley]

52. ICE's Swift Plant Raids Netted Only Poor Folks Caught Up in the `War on Illegal Immigration'

ICE's Swift Plant Raids Netted Only Poor Folks Caught Up in the `War on Illegal Immigration'
By Bill Conroy,
Posted on Sat Dec 16th, 2006 at 11:49:24 AM EST
Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. — George Orwell

Earlier this week, the mainstream media headlines were blaring with news of a raid carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on six meat-processing plants owned by Greeley, Colo.-based Swift & Co.

The raids, orchestrated on Dec. 12, resulted in more than 1,200 allegedly undocumented immigrant workers being detained at the plants, many of whom were hauled off by busses across state lines to be processed and later released — a fact that has not yet made its way into the mainstream media. The raid was trumpeted by ICE as a major victory in the “war on illegal immigration” and as the culmination of a successful investigation into an organized crime ring that was supplying fraudulent ID documents to these workers.

The implied threat there, of course, is that this same organized crime ring could supply phony IDs to would-be terrorists as well. That has led the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to renew its political push for the quick adoption of a new centralized ID card system for U.S. citizens.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/12/16/114924/26

K&R

[earth mom]

53. I'm not a fan of illegal immigration...but...WTF this is horrible!

Why in the hell are they detaining these people other than for profit and utter cruelty?! And why in the hell aren't they going after employers and fining the living daylights out of them or shutting them down for breaking laws in the first place?! Oh yeah, I forgot in the United States businesses and money rule while the people get screwed over whether they are citizens or not. :grr:

[Cleita]

71. I told you so. Not you specifically, but generically all you

on the I hate immigration band wagon that this would be the end result. Why? Because I compared it to how Germany got the Jews into concentration camps. OMG! I couldn't compare this to the Holocaust! How dare I!

No one learns the lessons of history do they, if it isn't their own in the gun sites?

[earth mom]

73. Yes it is the wrong thing to do...

but it doesn't mean that the flip side is that illegal immigration is the right thing to do either.

Let's be honest here, since it's obvious that your "I told you so" is aimed straight at me, since you have consistently and relentlessly attacked me because I'm brave enough to speak out against illegal immigration.

That you replied to my post with a rant that I and everyone should have known this was going to happen to the illegal immigrants is a pile of b.s. since how in the hell would I or anyone have known the purpose of the camps?! As a matter of fact, most of us around here have speculated that the "camps" were for those who might be considered "dissenters" by the TPTB. That you want to point a finger at me and others and say we should have seen it coming is not only unfair but just flat out biased on your part when you get right down to it.

Obviously, this is a personal issue for you, which IMO, also keeps you from being objective about this issue or the fact that the influx of millions of people coming to the U.S. unchecked has hurt the working and middle class that are already legally here. I have never seen you even attempt to understand the other side of this issue or how the illegal immigration situation has turned far too many of the middle class in this country into the working poor. Instead, you expect everyone to understand and side with the plight of the illegal immigrants and to give their plight precedence over the people who are already legally here. Sorry, but even though I feel that placing the illegal immigrants in the camps is horrific and ethically wrong, my loyalty still lies with the people who are legally here in this country.

[Cleita]

74. Oh, snark!

I did not direct it to you and I qualified that. I attached it to your post because it was a continuation of the conversation you started. But since you mentioned it, being an undocumented alien is no more illegal than being a runaway slave was illegal in the ante-bellum south. These are unjust laws passed to victimize an underclass who have no say in it. Both the slave and the immigrant were trying to survive. These laws are very unjust. The legality issue is a red herring.

[cyberpj]

57. HALLIBURTON $385 million contract to build "detention facilities" (prisons) for immigrants arrested

Who else?
This was all pre-planned, of course.

Halliburton gets 'immigration emergency' contract as prosecutions skyrocket in its hometown
24 Jan. 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded Halliburton's KBR subsidiary a $385 million contract to build "detention facilities" (prisons) for immigrants arrested on charges of entering the country illegally and to provide construction and logistics support services in the event of an "immigration emergency,"Halliburton announced in a press release today.

The announcement comes at an opportune time for Halliburton since the Bush administration has accelerated the number of immigration arrests and prosecutions nationally, but most remarkably in the Houston area, where Halliburton is headquartered.

According to a study by Syracuse University, the number of immigration arrests and prosecutions in the Southern District of Texas, which includes Houston, is "literally off the chart" compared to areas with greater illegal migration problems. Immigration prosecutions spiked by 14,030 cases in the district between 2003 and 2004, a 345 percent increase.

The number of immigration prosecutions is dramatically skewed in favor of Halliburton's hometown in Texas even though over half of the 1.1 million people entering the United States illegally in 2004 crossed the border through Arizona.

The Bush administration has been criticized for doling out DHS contracts based on politics and cronyism rather than need. For example, sea ports in New York and New Jersey handle 12 percent of the nation's cargo but receive barely one percent of DHS funds for protection against terrorism and other emergencies.

more:
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/ice_contract.html

[Cleita]

70. Thom Hartmann called them the disappeared last week.

Chilling! But I said this a few times on the many immigration threads here at DU. Of course I was told I was wrong, thinking conspiracies. The USA doesn't do things like that!! I said wait and see.

Kiss my jalapenos!

[City67]

75. From what Ive seen

Those clowns in the WH are an illegal aliens best friends. I live ground zero in So Cal and all I see is a red carpet being rolled out for them.