CIVIL RIGHTS ARE FOR EVERYONE!

Thursday, July 24, 2008 6:30 PM

At: Middlesex County Freeholder Meeting
Administration Bldg, 75 Bayard St, New Brunswick

Immigrants, in no more than administrative detention--many here in the US since childhood--are suffering in jails all across America! In 2007, 311,213 were unconstitutionally detained with NO access to basic civil and human rights—like due process, a jury trial or adequate medical care. No mandatory standards exist.

Middlesex County is now holding over 150 immigrant detainees and making over $6 million a year on their suffering. On March 2nd a Middlesex County detainee died from what was seen as medical neglect by over 90 detainee witnesses. Their petitions to protest his death, as well as conditions in Middlesex County detention generally, resulted in no more than retaliatory transfer to other jails. One of these is Hudson County Correctional, one of 5 ICE-contracted detention facilities singled out nationwide for abuses 2 years ago.

Now from Hudson County 196 detainees have signed a NEW petition!

We cannot stand by and ignore the brave actions of these unconstitutionally-held prisoners, whose courage and hunger for justice derive from the very promises of the American Constitution that are failing them now!

We MUST take a stand with them for civil rights: not just for us, not just for the few, but for ALL!

WE MUST SAY NO TO ABU GHRAIB AND GUANTANAMO IN OUR BACKYARDS!

Join NJCRDC! Tell the Freeholders of Middlesex County:

Stop profiting from the suffering of innocent people! Terminate your ICE contract NOW!

Please read detainee Luis Queseda's statement in the next item.

Can a tree take back his seed after it has fallen in the other side of a fence when it has become a grown tree, as the land says "it was your seed", or can the ground say to the tree "I am going to cut you down for your fruit is bitter" when the ground where is planted is bitter itself, or can a fully grown tree be cut off and planted back in the other side without his roots and survive, and what about the roots, can they survive too.

We are unappreciated, under-evaluated. and prejudiced as the country we live in shuns us without concern and the one I was born in I don't remember, but I know where I lived since a child, I know where all my friends and family live, who taught me to read and write, my science, math and history; I know where I met my wife and how we fell in love. I know this is my society and to it I am patriotic, but I may soon be a man without a country.

Not just aliens are victims of unreasonable treatment, Citizens families have no say or consideration in the Matter, but also injured war veterans are ignored and forgotten as this country applies its undeveloped concern to them, wishing they will disappear. Our difference is that they can make us disappear.

Full statement by detainee Luis Queseda.

Also read the Petition from the Hudson County Detention Center detainees.

In response to widespread immigration raids, a coalition of immigrant rights activists has announced the launching of a Rapid Response Network Hotline that will give help to those confronted with the raids. The RRN Hotline, sponsored by the NJ May 1 Coalition and the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee is a 24-hour toll free number covering New York and New Jersey that will provide immediate, contact with Spanish-speaking volunteers. In the event of a raid, the volunteers will calmly inform callers of their basic rights, especially the right not to admit the ICE agents to their homes without a warrant signed by a judge and the right to remain silent. Go to the website www.njmay1.org to learn more.

It concerns the treatment of detainees. A key sentence reads in part "we are concerned that undocumented aliens are not only suffering from inadequate medical attention while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they are also dying in our Nation's detention facilities."
The letter goes on to ask a number of questions regarding medical facilities and deaths.

Read this letter.

Eric Lerner of NJCRDC said: "This isn't a serious report. ... This is in no way a reflection of the information we gave to the OIG. It's basically a whitewash that specifically does not address the many reports of abuse of the detainees."

Read the full report Also read the three news articles in the column at the right dated January 17th and 19th, 2007.

Read the Linda Greenhouse story in the New York Times.
Or the AP article in the International Herald Tribune.

• End to Passaic County Detentions.
• NYC Commission of Inquiry Tries Real Criminals for Detention, Torture.
• NJCRDC in the Community.
• Massive Immigrant Rights Rallies Defeat Criminalization Bill.

AP estimate of the biggest rallies:
400,000 in Chicago
400,000 in LA
100,000 in San Jose
55,000 in San Francisco
15,000 in Houston
30,000 across Florida

In New York City, estimates of size were all over the place, but the 3-mile long March could not have been smaller than 150,000

In certain areas and industries, the strike was almost complete. Agricultural production across both Florida and California came to a halt. Contstuction workers in Florida struck in large numbers. In the Midwest, all three of the largest meatpackers were forced to close, knowing that if they did not, their workforces would have walked out anyway. In Los Angeles, the garment workers closed the huge garment center and the wholesale food workers struck as well. The independent truckers shut down the ports of Los Angles and Long Beach. Except for some of the meatpackers, none of these groups of workers were in unions.

By comparison, in all of last year, labor-union strikes involved 100,000 people.

Workers have found the US in 2006, as they have found in other places and at other times that there is another way to fight than traditional union strikes: the political mass strike. What demands for wages or working conditions alone could not do, an ambitious political demand--for the legalization of ALL immigrants--has accomplished.

At the same time, the immigrant rights movement, now clearly a movement of the immigrant section of the working class, has discovered that bold, uncompromising demands--for Equal Rights, no deportations--and bold tactics--a general strike-- can achieve unity , while timid "realistic" demands and tactics cannot.

In New York the crowd was overwhelmingly Latino, so the sort of unity achieved among various immigrant groups in Chicago has not yet come to New York. Nor were many native-born in evidence, so the unity of the peace movement and immigrant movement is also yet to be achieved. But it was a joyous and militant crowd. The sure-fire applause lines were all those calling for legalization for all immigrants and equal rights for all. Those were the demands that unified everyone and that had brought them there.

At the rally, Saleh Ajaj spoke for NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee on the demand, adopted by the May 1 coalition, to "free all detainees". He movingly spoke of being himself detained for 14 months. We then paraded in the midst of the huge crowd with our "FREE ALL DETAINEES" banner, which got into many photos.

Of course, the local English-speaking press declined to publish any of the demands.

Importantly, the coalition passed out tens of thousand of flyers calling people to a New York metro regional conference on June 17 and to the next meeting of the coalition, tomorrow night,. Hopefully through these flyers were will bring into a new democratic organizing process some of the key grass-roots activists who mobilized this strike in workplaces and communities. That will be the key to building an ever-growing movement for immigrant and worker rights.

Videos from last October’s First Session of the Commission of Inquiry are now available for viewing. The following are on the Testimony on Detention and Torture

Eric Lerner of NJCRDC and Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights

Sarah Sohn, Immigration Equality

Saleh Ajaj, former detainee

Session II of the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration was held in New York on January 20-22, 2006.

Read the announcement in Business Wire or the more interesting story in The New York Times.

Read the news stories at the right starting with December 29th, 2005.

Read the NJCRDC statement and press release.

• NJCRDC meets with Monmouth Officials, visits Detainees.
• Hunger Strike at Passaic County Jail.
• Office of Inspector General Audits Detention Facilities.
• Massive hunger strike by immigrant detainees at Guantanamo.

Read this Passaic County Jail report