In the midst of the 21st century, America remains stagnate in a milieu of worsening and repression, due to being MORALLY BANKRUPT. This immigration debate is not just about those people without proper documentation whose rights, dignity and criminality is at stake, it is about America’s morality. The human mind possesses the capability to rationalize anything, even when the foundations for these rationalizations are built upon specious arguments. During the past few years this power of specious rationalization has transformed America into a haven for bigotry, injustice, greed, discrimination, jingoism, violence, hypocrisy, intolerance and fanatical Puritanism deceptively cloaked in the garments of conservatism, religion or “community values” with the motto - “Life isn’t fair.”

Immigration officials have already detained over 200,000 individuals annually. Men, women, children, and sometimes even entire families are held in prison-like conditions, often awaiting decisions that will play a critical role in determining their futures. Unfortunately, some of those who are held in detention are sexually victimized. The events taking place in America’s privately run “immigration prisons” are getting worse. Corporate media refuses to discuss the seriousness of the concentration camps we have here in the US. For the past month, Greg Moses, editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review, has been reporting on the article of 20-year-old Suzi Hazahza and the Hazahza family who are detained in another privately run “immigration prison” Rolling Plains Detention Facility in Haskell, TX, which is managed by the Emerald Companies of LA.

On Nov. 2, during a late-night armed raid conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, men armed with machine guns came to the Hazahza home in Richardson and seized the entire family at gunpoint. The mother and her 11-year old son were taken to a prison in Taylor, near Austin. The other five were sent to Haskell.

According to Moses, both Suzi and her 23-year-old sister Mirvat have been subjected to repeated humiliating full body-cavity searches at the hands of prison guards.

Suzi and Mirvat spent the first 48 hours at Haskell sleeping on the concrete floor of a drunk tank, because no beds were available. They both ran high fevers for two weeks after that, and were also denied requests to see a doctor.

The sisters were “strip searched” each time they met with an outside visitor, including humiliating inspections that took place in full view of male guards “on multiple occasions.” When taken to the recreation area, they were made to “walk the gauntlet” in front of male prisoners who sexually harassed them with techniques that included exhibition and public masturbation while guards laughed.

This is not an isolated case, where a couple of women being sexually assaulted, under the guise of conducting “full body-cavity search,” each time they have received a visitor. In June 2003, Amnesty International’s (AI) report, Why Am I Here? Children in Immigration Detention, stated that 61 percent of the secure detention facilities that were surveyed for the report used strip-searches on the children in their care. AI also documented allegations of excessive use of force, administered in a way that may form cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, to an extent that reflects major regulatory deficiencies as well as personal misconduct.

Children and advocates told AI that at Berks County Youth Center’s Secure Unit in Pennsylvania, physical abuse might be used as a punitive and disciplinary method. Staff reportedly kick children, throw them to the floor and knock their heads into walls for infractions such as looking the wrong way, saying “can I use the bathroom” instead of “may I,” or not being able to count properly.

Immigration officials have raped detainees and have abused their authority by exchanging goods and privileges for sex. Threats of violence and deportation have been used by immigration staff to coerce detainees into performing sex acts. Staff members have watched female detainees when they are dressing, showering, or using the bathroom, and some regularly engage in verbal degradation and harassment of detainees. Detainees have further reported groping and other sexual abuse by staff during pat frisks and searches.

Despite the increasing push to detain and deport non-citizens, individuals who are detained by the ICE are not without legal protections - particularly when it comes to sexual abuse. Despite the increasing push to detain and deport non-citizens, individuals who are detained by the ICE are not without legal protections - particularly when it comes to sexual abuse. The right to protection from rape and sexual violence is guaranteed by other international human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the US has ratified. Rape in detention violates the ICCPR’s protection of the right to security of person, the right to be free from cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment, the right of those deprived of liberty to be valued with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and, in extreme cases, the right to life. The federal government cannot legitimately claim that its national interest is advanced by the cruel treatment of detainees.

This not something made up, listen to the stories from those who were victimized by the American prison juggernaut:
Christina Madrazo - a Mexican national and a preoperative transsexual, was raped twice by a guard at Krome Detention Center in Miami, Florida. The officer who attacked her, Lemar Smith, was the same man responsible for bringing her meals and watching over her cellblock.

“My fear was incredible,” Madrazo recalls. “I didn’t know if anybody would help me or protect me. Nobody had given me simple human treatment since they took me there.”

“I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t,” Madrazo recalled. “He told me if I say anything, I’m gonna pay. I felt so angry, so impotent. He called me a bitch and said I deserved it, like he was glad.”

Aminata - was Senegalese national who was detained at Washington Dulles Airport in November 2003 on the way to visit her husband. Though she had a valid visa, immigration officials decided that she looked like a male terrorist dressed as a woman.

Aminata was forced to submit to a strip search. Her breasts and genitals were groped by female detention officers in what was characterized as an attempt to determine her gender.

Fadjar - a gay Indonesian male, was sexually harassed and singled out because of his sexuality while being detained at the El Paso Service Processing Center in El Paso, TX, where he was awaiting a decision on his application for asylum.

Fadjar was told by officers at the processing center to “walk straight” because “this is not a beauty salon, but a jail.” Officers on multiple occasions called Fadjar “puto,” a pejorative Spanish slang term.

He was also sexually badgered by an officer. The officer, Pedro Rodriguez, spoke to Fadjar as Fadjar was walking from the cafeteria to his barracks, saying “Hey Puto, how much for a blow job?

Bernadette - a Haitian immigrant who lived in the US since she was a child. After a criminal conviction, she was scheduled to be deported to Haiti and was being held at Krome Detention Center in Miami, FL.

At the detention center, an officer pressured Bernadette for sex. At first, Bernadette said she would cooperate with the officer, but she later changed her mind and resisted his advances. The officer, angered by her resistance, grabbed Bernadette by the throat and shoved her against a wall.

After this, the officer began to call Bernadette derogatory names, including “whore.” Another officer, who had also unsuccessfully pressured Bernadette for sex, repeatedly called her “lollipop,” a term intended to suggest that Bernadette was a lesbian.

The abuse culminated with an incident in a bathroom at the center, where a male officer ordered Bernadette to take off her shirt and bra, fondled her, and masturbated in front of her and another detainee. The officer also forced the second detainee to perform a lap dance, giving money to both women. “The whole thing made me feel dirty,” Bernadette recalled. “I had to see this guy every day.”

Yudaya Nanyonga - a Ugandan national, was sent to Pennsylvania’s York County Prison when she came to the US seeking asylum to escape the rape and violence she had been subjected to by individuals affiliated with the Ugandan government.

At the York County Prison, Nanyonga was transferred to the maximum security wing, where violent prisoners were kept. The 20-year old woman, still coping with the trauma she experienced in Uganda, broke down after the transfer, according to Amnesty International, and “grieved inconsolably.”

Officers responded to Nanyonga’s sorrow with a “Quick Response Team,” which included four men, three of whom wore riot gear. The officers stripped Nanyonga, tied her naked and spread-eagled to a cot and injected her with sedatives. She remained shackled to the cot for two days.

Fauziya Kassindja - at the age of 17, hoping to escape Togo’s female genital mutilation practices, she sought political asylum in the US, but only be sent to the Esmor detention facility.

At Esmor, Kassindja was subjected to a laundry list of abuses, including being beaten and shackled; being denied sanitary napkins; being forced to stand naked for long periods of time; and being arbitrarily strip and cavity searched.

After a riot at Esmor, Kassindja was transferred to York County Prison in York, PA. There, the strip searches and degradation continued. Kassindja also endured sexual pressure from York prison inmates. She recalls that a York inmate walked into her cell as she was eating an apple. “You either give me the apple or you sleep with me,” the inmate said. “Which is it?”

“Sleep with her?” Kassindja remembers wondering. “What was she talking about? Sleep in her cell? Sleep in her - and then it clicked. Sleep with her. She meant to have sex. I’d heard that expression on TV at Esmor. I’d heard it applied to women at Esmor too. Once some of the Ghanaian women in N dorm were gossiping about one of the female guards ’sleeping with’ one of the female refugees. I hadn’t heard of such a thing. I’d heard of men being with men, but I’d never heard of women being with women.”

The current situation that is occurring at the so-called “detention centers” reflects the current situation that is occurring the US prison system, which is a horrific national monument to racism revealing the US the foremost Land of the Un-Free, Home of the Locked-Down.

Yes, Cointelpro is back, but this time with a vengeance. This time around, it’s to firmly establish the groundworks for a centralized police-state regime that can respond swiftly and massively to the domestic turmoil that must inevitably accompany a New World Order that George Bush the elder had hoped would have been achieved by now.

If America is to survive as a nation built upon bedrock principles, if it is to avoid the hurricanes of fear, prejudice and hysteria, then it is time to be less forgiving of those, like Bush and his minions who exploit such fears for their own ambitions, their own aggrandizement. It is time to be more forgiving to the victims who are unjustly scapegoated, persecuted and abused in this milieu of hatred and hypocrisy. But most of all, it is time to be more pressing that fundamental morality be part of the political process at the inception of any proposed idea, policy or legislation, not simply a “I’m sorry” afterthought.

It is time to be the voice for the voiceless. It is time to help Suzi Hazahza and her family. Please help free her and the rest of her family from one of America’s concentration camps. Joshua Bardavid, Hazahza’s attorney, encourages to be part of a letter writing campaign to free Suzi. Here is a sample letter that Bardavid provides as a template to help write your own:

John P. TORRES
US-ICE Headquarters
Post-Order Detention Unit
801 I Street NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20536

RE: Radi HAZAHZA, A95-219-510
Mirvat HAZAHZA, A95-219-508
Hisham HAZAHZA, A95-219-507
Suzan HAZAHZA, A95-219-506
Ahmad HAZAHZA, A95-219-505

Dear Mr. Torres,

I am writing on behalf of Mr. Radi Hazahza and his four children held in prison at the Rolling Plains Detention Facility.

I strongly believe that the Hazahza family should be released immediately from the detention center, so they can be reunited with Nazmieh Juma (wife to Radi and mother of the children) as well as Mohammad Hazahza, the eleven year old child that ICE already released from prison.

The Hazahza family has been awaiting deportation since being ordered removed in 2002, yet there is no possibility of removal since both Jordan and the Palestinian Authorities have confirmed that travel documents will not be issued for them.

The Hazahzas are asylum seekers who sought freedom and safety in the United States. They have provided the government proof of employment offers, as well as extensive ties to the United States including Mirvat Hazahza’s U.S. citizen husband and Suzan Hazahza’s U.S. citizen fiancé.

In addition, several sponsors have stepped forward to ensure the Hazahza’s appearance upon demand by the government and to ensure that they obey any terms of supervised release.

The Hazahza’s continued detention costs taxpayers over $600.00 per day, as estimated by the government. That means that, to date, at least $60,000 in government funds have been turned over to the Emerald Corporation, the private company that owns the jail in Haskell. This amount does not include the money spent on litigation and other expenses related to the continued detention.

This detention is a waste of taxpayer money, particularly since the Hazahzas present no danger to society, have provided suitable alternatives to detention, and there is no purpose in continued detention as there is no likelihood of obtaining travel documents.

Please release Mr. Hazahza and his family from the Rolling Plains prison.

Sincerely,

cc: U.S. Customs & Immigration Enforcement
Attn: Officer Kelvin Meridith
8101 North Stemmons Freeway
Dallas, Texas 75247

Oftentimes we hear the phrase “think globally, act locally,” however, acting locally well only fall on deaf ears, therefore, we need to think outside the box. I suggest not only cc your letter to every media agency, and but cc that letter to every foreign news media and every alternative media you know. Let the world know of the atrocities and the immoralities we must endure while living under the tyranny of the Bush dictatorship. The immoralities that allow those in power to place ethical standards on other people and nations that they callously ignore themselves. The immorality of hiding behind religion to conceal greed, selfishness, hatred, and hypocrisy.

Technorati Tags: immigration, Suzi Hazahza, Hazahza, immigration prison, Rolling Plains Detention Facility, Haskell, TX, Emerald Companies, sexually harassed

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