Hunger strike enters second week for 22 immigrant mothers stuck in family detention

http://fusion.net/story/336691/immigrant-mothers-hunger-strike-berks/

SNIP
LOCKING UP MOMS AND KIDS FOR PROFIT

Every day when Aseem Mehta walks into the trailer where attorneys meet with mothers and children, he is greeted by a white board that lists CCA’s closing stock price from the day before.

“You’re reminded every morning when you walk in that this is for profit, and that this whole system is being traded on an international market and this is a global commodity,” said Mehta, the Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow with the CARA Pro Bono Project, a collaboration between numerous legal aid groups. “It’s pretty jarring.”
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Hunger strike enters second week for 22 immigrant mothers stuck in family dentention.

MADRES DE BERKS 8/15/16 5:11 PM



A group of mothers incarcerated with their children at an immigration detention center in Pennsylvania is entering their second week of a hunger strike in an effort to get asylum for their families and draw attention to the fact that some of them have been stuck at the facility for a year.

The mothers, many of whom are reportedly from Central America, started their hunger strike on Aug. 8 after Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said immigration authorities have been “ensuring the average length of stay at [family detention] facilities is 20 days or less.”

That’s simply not true, the women argue.

Snip

The facilities have been plagued with controversies. ICE stopped admitting minors to its facility in Taylor, Texas following public outcry, while other facilities have faced complaints of medical neglect.

Below is a list of how the 22 mothers on hunger strike signed their names on the letter addressed to Secretary Jeh Johnson:

Signed,
Mother with 12-year-old son with 365 days in detention.
Mother with 12 and 16-year-old daughters with 365 days in detention.
Mother with 6-year-old daughter with 365 days in detention.
Mother with 6-year-old son with 365 days in detention.
Mother with 7-year-old son with 340 days in detention.
Mother with 6-year-old son with 335 days in detention.
Mother with 15-year-old son with 305 days in detention.
Mother with 4-year-old daughter with 304 days in detention.
Mother with 9-year-old son with 300 days in detention.
Mother with 2-year-old son with 300 days in detention.
Mother with 4-year-old daughter with 277 days in detention.
Mother with 14-year-old daughter with 276 days in detention.
Mother with 7-year-old son with 276 days in detention.
Mother with 7-year-old daughter with 271 days in detention.
Mother with 2, 8 and 9-year-old children with 270 days in detention.
Mother with 3-year-old son with 270 days in detention.
Mother with 6-year-old son with 269 days in detention.
Mother with 4-year-old son with 240 days in detention.
Mother with 9-year-old daughter with 180 days in detention.
Mother with 7-year-old daughter with 120 days in detention.
Mother with 14-year-old daughter with 80 days in detention.
Mother with 7-year-old son with 60 days in detention.
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FOR PROFIT PRISON SYSTEM MUST END
AND scroll down page for THIS FROM JULY 2015

WATER FOR MEDICINE 7/14/15 7 AM
‘Drink more water’: Horror stories from the medical ward of a Texas immigration detention center

A mother with two broken fingers walked into the doctors office at the South Texas Family Residential Center and walked out only with instructions to “tomar más agua” (drink more water). A nine-year-old boy who shrieked during the night from the pain of a dislocated shoulder was told by doctors to do the same thing. Two hundred and fifty children were accidentally given the wrong vaccine.

These claims, along with dozens of other complaints of medical neglect, are outlined in 28 medical affidavits obtained by Fusion from a brand new family detention center that holds about 2,000 migrant mothers and children fleeing violence and seeking asylum in the United States.

SNIP
A ‘GOLD-PLATED’ PRISON

Although the detention facility falls under the watch of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is operated by a for-profit prison company Corrections Corp of America (CCA), they’d prefer if you call it a “residential center.”

SNIP
“People who say this is not a prison are lying,” Guerra, who has been at Dilley for nearly two months, told Fusion from a detention center phone. “It’s a prison for us and a prison for our children, but none of us are criminals.”

SNIP
LOCKING UP MOMS AND KIDS FOR PROFIT

Every day when Aseem Mehta walks into the trailer where attorneys meet with mothers and children, he is greeted by a white board that lists CCA’s closing stock price from the day before.

“You’re reminded every morning when you walk in that this is for profit, and that this whole system is being traded on an international market and this is a global commodity,” said Mehta, the Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow with the CARA Pro Bono Project, a collaboration between numerous legal aid groups. “It’s pretty jarring.”
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Is this what GWBush meant when he said he would make America an "OWNERSHIP SOCIETY"?
Privatize America for profit & funded by us. The taxpayers.

Please work to elect a DEM Senate & House. Remove the power of the Party who created this nightmare.
2016..is probably the one final opportunity we will ever have.
The Supreme Court. The Senate. The House, where all the taxpayer money flows from.
President Clinton, should the Repubs fail to stop her election, will need complete power & support if equality is ever going to become more than a fight song.

Thank You