Drawing a Picture of Immigration Detention

CHICAGO, Ill. — Time seemed endless for Luis León Ortega, who spent nearly seven months in various Illinois detention centers after being caught by immigration officials and scheduled for deportation hearings.

Leon The shadowy world of immigration detention has been in the spotlight lately with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials being forced to make public a series of reports about conditions at numerous detention centers throughout the country. The reports tell the stories.

Luis León Ortega has the pictures. “I used to draw to pass the time,” says León, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico. “There was a Hispanic guard who always had pencils, so I asked her to lend me one and she did.”

León’s drawings are simple, yet provocative. One traces the very symbols often used to highlight this country’s greatest attributes: an august bald eagle, the prominent Statue of Liberty, a bold Sears Tower, the nation’s stately capitol dome.

But these images are ominously juxtaposed against a symbolic wall — the U.S.-Mexican border wall — that twists into a serpent bearing its sharp jaws, mouth wide open and ready to strike. In the drawing the serpent is poised to devour a man trapped in its mouth, presumably the artist.

Images of Stability

Immigration Detention Sketch There are 35 sketches in all. Some of them depict innocent childhood subjects like Disney characters, a dog with a Chicago White Sox baseball cap. Others are more conceptual, like the one depicting a tree whose vine-like branches covered in spines twist around a heart – a common image in Mexican culture that could either reflect a loss of faith in God, or suffering of the heart. There is also the famous crime-fighter Batman – one of his son’s favorite drawings — and an eerily simple depiction of his own isolation in jail cell number 115.

To add a bit of color to his drawings, León purchased Kool-Aid packets and mixed in a little water.

Six Months, Five Transfers

León’s journey through the murky world of U.S. immigration detention centers began on a normal Chicago winter day, back in February 2008. He was pulled over by police and charged with driving without a valid driver’s license. Authorities quickly discovered his undocumented status, and he would spend the next 30 weeks rotating between five different Illinois correctional centers. He only remembers the names of two – the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility and the Pontiac Correctional Center.

Every day, officers would try to get him to sign a voluntary deportation order.

“The first thing they do when you go to breakfast is try to convince you to sign your deportation papers. They did this every single day,” León recalls.

“We weren’t allowed to have anything in our cells. Masked guards armed with large, rubber-bullet guns would search our cells. They swarmed in as if they were the SWAT team. If they found even a packet of sugar, we were confined to our cells for 15 consecutive days,” he says.

His cell was just large enough for two beds, a shared toilet and a sink.

During meals, detainees were forbidden from speaking, so León would look forward to the little time he could talk on the telephone with his wife and children. But even that was complicated, as phone calls were limited to 20 minutes each day and phone cards were costly. A $20 card yielded only three calls.

“Once they told me a lawyer was coming to meet with us. But there wasn’t enough time. There was only one lawyer for 300 people. He managed to speak with only 10 people, and I wasn’t one of them.”

If access to legal help was nearly impossible, so too was León’s ability to turn to religion for comfort. In order to visit the chapel, detainees had to add their names to a list two or three days in advance. They were forbidden from having religious items in their cells, except for a Bible. A prayer card sent by his wife was intercepted and confiscated. The chaplains who did visit detainees spoke only English.

“Once a week they would allow us to see our families for 30 minutes. But we didn’t get to see them in person. We had to look at each other projected on a screen and we had to speak to each other on a telephone. I would go to a room where the telephone was, and my family would be in another room below me,” León said.

After six months, he was released on bond. The six-foot-tall, 43-year-old had lost a significant amount of weight. Pictures of León before his arrest show a much heavier and healthier man. Today, his hands sweat when he recalls those months spent behind bars, where he was isolated from his wife and two children who lived at the family’s Southside Chicago home.

Authorities have begun the deportation process against León. His two U.S.-born children wonder if they’ll have to live in a country they know little about, or face living without a father at home. León’s next hearing isn’t until 2011, perhaps enough time, he hopes, for something to be done by President Barack Obama, who as a candidate promised swift immigration reform.

In the meantime, León holds down a job and provides for his family by working six days a week at a local supermarket.

Pulling Back the Veil

For years, ICE officials fought to keep the treatment of immigration detainees a secret. Last month, a three-year legal battle ended with an order for ICE officials to make public a series of reports that documented inspections at numerous detention centers throughout the country. On August 6, ICE Director John Morton announced that one center, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, which held up to 400 detainees, would no longer be used for detaining families.

The reports, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits brought by rights groups, confirm many of León’s allegations of ill treatment at the hands of authorities.

In Illinois, a report by delegates from the American Bar Association, who visited the DuPage County Jail in 2003 and the McHenry County Correctional Facility in 2006 (one of the centers where León was held), found that detainees could not speak to legal assistants without an attorney present; could not see a doctor without a judge’s order; were denied dental care; and in at least one incident suffered physical abuse. The report also confirmed León’s allegation that detainees were unable to freely practice their religion.

Mary Meg McCarthy, director of the National Immigration Justice Center – one of the groups that successfully sued ICE for public access to documents describing detainee conditions — says she is happy the documents were finally made public. But she recognizes that many conditions detainees face remain unchanged.

“When the telephones don’t work properly and visiting time is strictly limited, the individual rights of detainees continue to be violated,” McCarthy says.

According to Gail Montenegro, regional spokesperson for ICE in Chicago, in 2007 ICE contracted the private companies Creative Corrections and the Nakamoto Group to inspect the centers where detainees were held.

Creative Corrections issued reports annually through June 2009 before being replaced by another company, MGT of America. According to Montenegro, Nakamoto continues functioning as an “on-site” monitor of conditions to guarantee that detainees’ rights are not violated.

ICE stopped sending detainees to DuPage County Jail in August 2004, but ICE officials say the decision was unrelated to the 2003 inspection by the American Bar Association delegation.

In a statement, Montenegro wrote that ICE officials learned of the attorneys’ delegation report on McHenry County Jail in early 2007 and quickly began addressing the report’s criticisms of detainee treatment.

“(McHenry County Jail) currently complies with ICE detention standards and was recently rated ‘Good’ by Creative Corrections in its most recent 2008 annual inspection,” Montenegro wrote.

One key issue left unresolved, however, is whether Congress and the Obama administration are willing to pass laws that protect detainees’ rights. Advocacy groups representing former detainees are lobbying for these laws, and at least two bills are under discussion in Senate committees.

But Homeland Security authorities acknowledged that a complete overhaul of the U.S. immigration detention system could take years. In the meantime, tens of thousand of undocumented immigrants remain in detention, their fates as uncertain as León’s.

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This article originally appeared on La Raza and New America Media.

Immigration Reform to Help Economic Recovery?

The White House reaffirmed President Obama’s commitment to working on immigration reform during his first year as president. While Obama has made clear that fixing the economy is his number one priority, a summary of recent research released by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) shows that fixing the broken immigration system could bring us one step closer to economic recovery.

As right-wing pundits falsely claim that immigration reform would cost the American public “billions,” available research suggests that — had the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 passed — it would have generated a much needed $66 billion in new revenue during 2007 to 2016 from income and payroll taxes, as well as various administrative fees. According to Dan Siciliano, associate dean at Stanford University, “We know, from experience and analysis, that a legalization program helps grow the economy. Being undocumented causes immigrants not to invest in themselves, in their community, or their skills. Enfranchised consumers who are part of the above ground economy are more invested consumers. They are more likely to invest extra time, money, and effort into their children and themselves.”

In fact, according to Giovanni Peri, associate professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, immigrants don’t even compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to have different levels of education and to work in different occupations. In contrast to what Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs might be telling their audiences, immigrants usually “complement” the native-born workforce — which increases the productivity, and therefore the wages, of the native-born.

Comprehensive immigration reform would also eliminate the “trap door” that artificially suppresses wages and would allow workers to compete fairly for the first time. Cristina Jiménez, an immigration policy consultant at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy has pointed out that “consigning undocumented workers to a precarious existence undermines all who aspire to a middle-class standard of living.” In a recent post on the Hill’s Congress Blog, Jeanne Butterfield, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, explained:

“Moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform will ensure that all workers are here legally, will punish unscrupulous employers who undercut their honest competitors, and will restore integrity to the labor market. Labor leader Esther Lopez (United Food and Commercial Workers Union) confirmed: ‘Comprehensive immigration reform is the only way we can level the playing field for all workers. By bringing people out of the shadows and by having legalization be part of a broader immigration reform, we can create an immigration system that works for the American worker. We can’t, in this economy, leave 12 million undocumented workers out in the shadows.’”

David Dyssegaard Kallick, senior fellow at the Fiscal Policy Institute, added, “People don’t just vanish and imagine what would be involved in driving out 12 million undocumented immigrants. Mass deportation isn’t realistic. What is realistic is making sure immigrants work in the above-ground economy. Immigration reform isn’t about being pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant — it’s about having an immigration system that functions and addresses what I think everyone recognizes as a broken system.”

While a policy designed to deport approximately 10 million undocumented immigrants would cost at least $206 billion over five years, or $41.2 billion annually; immigration reform would pay for itself in the form of increased wages, buying-power, and tax contributions that would benefit all working men and women.

(This post originally appeared on New America Media on April 23.)

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Credit: Andrea Nill is communications and research associate at the Immigration Policy Center, a division of American Immigration Law Foundation. This post appeared in IMMIGRATION MATTERS, which regularly features the views of immigration experts and advocates.

Generation You: Immigration

The Obama Administration just announced plans to tackle immigration reform by sometime this summer. We’re asking you, our readers, writers and commentators, what do you think?

Abrahim Appel of Minority Dreams said:

The debate over immigration is a debate over how human we allow people to be if they are born outside of the boarders and enter. How much should we belittle people is the question. This is balanced by the very real fact of cultural change and static based on such change that at the very least will bring in new traditions and standards for success and the very most, riots and lynchings.
This debate in this country is juvenile at best because Americans do not recognize that the only time we want immigrants is when an industry needs them. The only time America talks of immigration problems is when that culture of people begins to feel at home, demand some form equality or adjust the standards of living that takes away from some form of profit.
The immigration-debate really serves no other people other than the purpose of economic enrichment of the Americas business owning class.and the fears of class-ism.
In a country that refuses to speak new languages, learn about even Southern America and has a marine symbol that treats the whole hemisphere as if it were the United States, has 172 military bases across the world, two occupations, Puerto Rico has taxation without representation - it is the American empire that needs to have its migration revoked. [Don't blame] the hard working people who visit and make the wheels turn, who then infuriate us as if they were criminals, when they live where we do.

Jena Johnson of Chicago sent an excerpt of Theodore Roosevelt’s view of immigration in 1907 1919:

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American.. There can be no! divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American , but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but on language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” -Roosevelt.

What is Generation You?

‘Generation You’ is an open conversation that revolves around a monthly issue. These topics affect various minority communities and your participation is critical. We hope to hear fresh voices and build a community of progressive minds.

Join the Conversation!

Whether you’re an avid blogger, represent an organization or just want to post your reply, we want to hear from you! To participate in this month’s Generation You, contact me at Urmi@minoritydreams.com.

Crickets Louder Than Obama as Aunt Faces Deportation

(This post originally appeared on WireTap Magazine)

I don’t wanna jump on the Barack bashing bandwagon, the trend since progressive activists stopped worrying about McCain winning and began scrambling back to the über-Left, and especially since I voted for the man (the personal becomes political when it comes to electing My First Black President), but President Obama’s attitude as his Kenyan aunt, Zeituni Onyango, faces mounting pressure for her deportation threatens my hope for just immigration reform happening under his administration.

Just two weeks ago, the Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) filed a request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the cold agency known as ICE) calling for Ms. Onyango’s arrest for violating deportation orders and demanding the President’s support on the matter. President Obama did not respond to their call but his silence in light of comments made at the end of last year about the case shows that he neither feels passionately about immigration reform nor does he feel its urgency. In an interview with Katie Couric, the Presidential hopeful stated about his dear “Auntie Zeituni,” as he referred to her in his memoir:

“If she is violating laws those laws have to be obeyed. We’re a nation of laws. Obviously that doesn’t lessen my concern for her, I haven’t been able to be in touch with her. But I’m a strong believer you have to obey the law.”

Laws need to be obeyed, huh? What about the fact that his Auntie Zeituni came here seeking asylum because Kenya’s politicians couldn’t obey their own laws, and as a result civil war broke out, forcing her to immigrate to the US?

And as President, and inheritor of Big Brother, he should be able to find her now, even if perhaps, he somehow couldn’t get a hold of her then. If the distance allows him to turn a blind eye, what does that mean for the thousands of immigrants who are being rounded up by ICE, waiting in detention centers or at home with ankle bracelets? And who, just like Ms. Onyango, need his help in the form of immediate immigration reform?

I don’t want to turn my back on My First Black President, but having solidarity with him means he needs to have solidarity with me and my community of immigrant people of color, and he could start by taking an Air Force One flight to Auntie Zetuni’s house in the projects of South Boston and find out what the hell is going on.

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Credit: Beatriz Herrera, a native of New York City and a lead organizer with the Women Workers Project at People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), a multiracial grassroots organization based in San Francisco.

Fasting for Change

More than one hundred people have been fasting to draw attention to immigration reform and to encourage democratic participation among Latino and new American voters at the heart of downtown Los Angeles from October 15 through Election Day.

A cluster of tents sit on Placita Olvera Street, the center of once Mexican-ruled Los Angeles and the birthplace of the city. Activists have sworn off food for three weeks.

They have been aided by volunteers who seek to register voters, speak against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on work sites and deportations, which they condemned as unjust treatment.

The activists are a diverse set of committed people, unified by their experience and by their goal of non-violent social change. Some are committed to the entire 21-day fast, others for shorter spans.

From Mahatma Gandhi to Cesar Chavez, many people have fasted to bring change in the past.

“It represents a sacrifice,” said Alex Hernandez, a hirsute faster on his eighth day without food. “[It is] a sense of people putting themselves, their health in danger. A sacrifice so that people can pay attention to what is being done.”

He chose to participate because there is injustice being done to immigrants, he said.

“To fight against the separation of families, the terrorizing of the communities and the violation of civil rights via deportations and mass raids, that is the reason why I am here,” he said.

The participants are active in the encampment; playing cards and engaging the constant stream of visitors from Union Station across the street between meetings. During these meetings, the agenda is discussed and the obvious question of each faster’s health is addressed.

Many have bloodshot eyes as insomnia also came as part of the ordeal. Some slump in their chairs while they speak with noticeable fatigue. But the smiles have not yet faded from their faces.

To boost morale, Ana Rosa Rizo, a councilwoman with the city of Maywood, brought marigolds to the campers. She laid them at the entrance of the tents and around the site to bring cheer to the hungry activists.

The gold flowers are used in traditional Mexican Day of the Dead decorations, a holiday held two days before this year’s Presidential Elections.

Rizo participated in the fast for the first four days then took on a supportive role with the protest organizers.

“Though people are physically weakened, spiritually they are strong,” she said of the fasters.

Rizo realized that the battle is emotional.

“All the divisions that institutions try to instill within the people [are] false,” Rizo said. “We’re all sisters and brothers. This is not just a fight of the brain, it’s a fight for people’s hearts and spirits.”

Immigrants are the backbone of the U.S. economy but they are often used as scapegoats, she said.

It remains difficult to achieve legal immigrant status in the U.S. since the immigration reform bill of 2007 failed.

Activist Margaret Johnson believed the system needs fixing.

Slumping from fatigue in her chair with 15 days of fasting under her belt, Johnson said she saw the flawed system up close as a paralegal helping undocumented immigrants get asylum.

“Just seeing the real broken, dehumanizing system that we have and how it’s practically impossible to get immigrant status was painfully eye-opening,” Johnson said with a determined smile.

Her faith as a Catholic has helped her with the cause.

“I need to stand with people who are suffering,” she said.

Secular groups have also come to sympathize with the fasters and the plight of the immigrant community.

The city of Maywood passed a resolution in support of the “Fast For our Future” campaign and council members are urging other cities to pass the same symbolic gesture of support, Councilwoman Rizo said.

To learn more about the movement, the activists suggested fastforourfuture.com. The participants will break fast on Wednesday, Nov. 5.

Credit: Rob Weaver

Election ‘08: The Undocumented Vote

Among concerned citizens whose voices will be heard Tuesday in one of the most anticipated Presidential Elections, there are an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. watching from the sidelines. Some are just as anxious.

Living in the U.S. since the age of seven, college graduate Karin, who did not want to reveal her full name, is awaiting changes in her legal case.

As an immigrant, she has realized the next president can have a dramatic affect in her future plans in the country.

“I would like to see [Illinois Sen. Barack] Obama as our next president,” said the 24-year-old Fullerton resident. “I believe that his presidency will equalize races and genders in ways that no other president can.”

As were many undocumented immigrants, she watched in 2007 as the immigration reform bill worked its way into the Senate.

The previous year, Arizona Sen. John McCain co-sponsored the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, which, had it passed, would have radically reshaped the nation’s immigration policies.

Sen. Obama also supported the bill.

It would have prioritized border security and workplace enforcement of policies. The bill would have also included a guest worker program and provided a path to legalization if immigrants paid back taxes, learned English and paid fines.

“McCain [however] abandoned his previous support for a path to citizenship for immigrants [because of] pressure from the right wing of his party,” said Cal State Fullerton Political Science Professor Raphael Sonenshein. “Had he stuck with his original position, I think he would have had a very good chance of winning their [immigration advocates’] support.”

Although the two senators agreed on immigration policies, some unauthorized immigrants still preferred Sen. Obama’s triumph in the elections.

“Just because both senators agreed on one issue [it] does not mean that they are equal on most issues that I feel are important,” Karin said.

The War in Iraq and the idea of fundamental change has played an integral role in the desire to see Sen. Obama as the next president.

“He has a better plan for [the] Iraq situation and for the economy and it is about time we change the dynamics of presidency by having an African American as a president,” said Cal State Fullerton student Puja, who did not want to reveal her full name as she deals with immigration policies.

Another immigrant, whose legal case is pending, agrees on the notions of Iraq and the economy.

“I’m hoping that if he [Obama] is going to be the next president, that he [will] stop the war in Iraq and other countries and bring peace,” said 31-year-old Sherman Oaks resident, Grace.

The idea of gay marriage and abortion has also shaped perspectives.

“As a female, Christian, Arab-American, I believe that it is a woman’s right to choose for herself what she deems right for her life and body,” Karin said. “As far as marriage, did people forget that there is a separation of religion and state?”

Westwood resident, Nina, who did not want to reveal her full name for the same reasons, would also like Sen. Obama to win the elections.

She favored his apparent support of the middle class and vice presidential pick.

Media coverage of the two candidates may have also played a significant role in molding their political views.

Sen. Obama’s coverage in the media following the six weeks since the conventions was more positive at 36 percent than negative at 29 percent, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Sen. McCain’s coverage however, was significantly negative at 57 percent with only 14 percent positive.

“I don’t agree,” Sonenshein said. “He has had adoring coverage from the media for years. No other American politician has had anything like it. He is quite simply running a terrible campaign.”

McCain has managed to alienate reporters who have helped build his image for so many years past, he said.

“I don’t feel that any one party has been scrutinized more than the other,” Karin said. “Both parties are sponsoring coverage”

The PEJ study, funded by the Pew Research Center, examined a total of 48 media outlets in print, cable news, network television and online.

Credit: Urmi Rahman