I'm sorry, readers, I don't mean to be a killjoy, and I did want the Patriots to win in my heart if not pocketbook; however, there are just far more important things than the big game. I guess I am just bothered by the inordinate amount of attention sports gets in our society.
So in picking up where I left off and clear up a few matters.
"Officials obscured truth about deaths in immigrant jails; Few details made public on causes, number of cases" by Nina Bernstein, New York Times | January 10, 2010
NEW YORK - Silence has long shrouded men and women who die in the nation’s immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. In 2008, when The New York Times published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how they died.
But behind the scenes, the deaths had already generated thousands of pages of government documents, including scathing investigative reports that were kept under wraps, and a trail of confidential memos and BlackBerry messages that show officials working to stymie outside inquiry.
What this shows you is the U.S. GOVERNMENT DOESN'T CARE who you are when they throw you in a hellhole.
You know, they sell the foreigners on land of opportunity, etc, and never tell them these things. Look, if they are criminals they should be deported, but what is with self-righteous AmeriKa's ROTTEN EXAMPLE of detention? Always LECTURING OTHER PEOPLE while we TORTURE AWAY!
And ask yourself, how did we get to this point? Well, the CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION that has driven indigenous farmers into poverty and debt, then into the cities for jobs, and eventually to American borders and shores.
Now I now colonialists have been ripping off resources and exploiting populations for centuries; however, that's the point. Are we not supposed to have evolved?
You know, I look south of me realize that U.S corporations (along with their covert arm, the CIA) have fiddles and f***ed with all the nations down there in one way or another. I mean, the '50s and '60s were in no way a bowl of cherries down there. In fact, the WHOLE COLD WAR SUCKED for THOSE PROXY BATTLEFIELDS where wars were waged.
Anyhow, my point is that my opposition lies only in the constitution, rule of law, and universal social justice. The immorality and criminal nature of many illegals bothers me; however, HOW do we REMEDY this?
The answer is not an amnesty, and it's not a North American Union and further global economic integration that has failed. Venezuela is a good example of a government trying to serve its people, but the real answer lies in ALLOWING INDIGENOUS PEOPLE CONTROL at LOCAL LEVELS!!
They must be allowed to LIVE THEIR OWN WAY of LIFE FIRST -- before the demands of GOVERNMENT or CORPORATIONS! Rather than MORE CENTRALIZED POWER and decision-making we need MORE LOCAL CONTROL and GROWTH OUTWARD!!!
Of course, many of those ways have been destroyed over the last 50 or so years.
So WHAT AWAITS those brave enough to believe the dream?
The documents, obtained over recent months by the Times and the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, concern most of the 107 deaths in detention counted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since October 2003, after the agency was created within the Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration has vowed to overhaul the immigration detention system, a haphazard network of privately run jails, federal centers, and county cells where the government holds noncitizens while it tries to deport them.
Related: The Illegal Immigrant Imprisonment Industry
But as the administration moves to increase oversight within the agency, the documents show how officials - some still in key positions - used their role as overseers to cover up evidence of mistreatment, deflect scrutiny by the news media, or prepare exculpatory public statements after gathering facts that pointed to substandard care or abuse.... Findings were never disclosed to the public....
The GOVERNMENT COVER THINGS UP? Surely you jest, NYT!!!
Yeah, I remember hearing a lot about the overhaul:
"Federal workers will again monitor detention centers for immigrants" by Suzanne Gamboa and Eileen Sullivan, Associated Press | August 6, 2009
That was over 5 months ago!!!
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration plans to place federal employees in the largest immigration detention facilities in the country to monitor detainee treatment.
Under the new plan, 23 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would be placed at the largest jails to supervise how the detention centers are managed, according to people briefed on the government’s plan. Private contractors have been doing the monitoring since 2007. Before that, it was federal employees.
While ICE is calling these and other changes to the detention system “major reforms,’’ this, like the Obama administration’s plan to enforce immigration law at the workplace, is not an overhaul. The new detention center plan includes a tweaking of past policies and some new positions.
Why is this sounding like less and less a good deal, illegals?
The government has been criticized for its treatment of immigration detainees, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made detention policies a top priority.
After the "terrorists," right?
ICE, which is part of Homeland Security, intends to hire a medical expert to review the healthcare protocols for the detention centers and give an independent review of medical complaints, according to the people briefed on the plan. They spoke only on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement expected today.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave details of its plan to immigration advocates in a conference call last evening. One person on the call, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because ICE had not made a formal announcement, said the plan includes turning a detention center in Texas for parents and their children into a women’s facility and no longer placing families there. However, a separate facility in Pennsylvania would continue housing families.
Shortly after Napolitano became secretary, she created an advisory position to focus on detention issues and arrest priorities at ICE. Napolitano, formerly the Arizona governor, named a former head of Arizona’s Corrections Department, Dora Schriro, to the post. As part of its plan, the department will create yet another position to be filled by Schriro: director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning.
So WHEN does this get TURNED AGAINST American citizens?
Some immigrant advocates have said the government has failed to meet its own standards for detaining immigrants, making it unduly difficult for immigrants to defend themselves in court and fight to remain in the country.
That's nothing new for hypocritical AmeriKa.
A report released last month by the National Immigration Law Center found that detainees have faced limited access to phones, mail, and law libraries in violation of federal standards. The agency also has been criticized for failing to provide proper medical care to detainees.
Look, when you TAKE THEM IN you AGREE to TREAT THEM WELL!!
Otherwise, we are talking HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES, AmeriKa!!!
DEPORTING THEM does NOT MEAN TORTURING THEM and DENIAL of MEDICAL CARE IS just that!!!!
--more--"
Then I heard something about overhaul again:
"Overhaul coming to immigrant detention process" by Los Angeles Times | October 7, 2009
LOS ANGELES - Nonviolent immigrant detainees could be housed in converted hotels or nursing homes or given electronic ankle bracelets for monitoring as part of a series of changes planned for the nation’s detention system, Department of Homeland Security officials announced yesterday.
They TRULY DO want to TRACK all of us! Putting CHIPS in inanimate objects, animals, and now the TRACKER attached to the ankle! HOW LONG before YOU GET CHIPPED, illegal?
The changes are part of a detailed plan to overhaul a system that houses an average of 32,000 detainees - including women and children - every day across the country and has been criticized for its unsafe and inhumane conditions....
The department plans to build two new detention centers....
THAT does NOT SOUND like PROGRESS to ME!
MORE POLICE STATE?
Officials also are doubling the number of personnel to monitor the facilities that house more than 80 percent of detainees and are developing an online system to help families find relatives in the system.
And THAT takes TAXPAYER money!!!
And you are not blameless, "liberal" Massachusetts.
And I don't say that to be divisive; I say that to BEG FOR YOU GUYS to WAKE UP!!!! Stop being so smug and self-righteous and SMELL the TYRANNY!!!
"Detainee’s death is blamed on cardiac arrest; Family skeptical of autopsy report" by Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | December 1, 2009
Pedro Tavarez, a 49-year-old federal immigration detainee, died of cardiac arrest Oct. 19 after being held in Suffolk County House of Correction, according to autopsy findings released yesterday by the state Medical Examiner’s office.
Tavarez died of natural causes, said Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the office.
Despite the official finding, relatives remained skeptical and wondered whether his death could have been prevented. They said the former Providence shuttle driver did not have a heart problem, and they urged federal officials to dig deeper into his case.
“To us, that’s not natural,’’ said his sister Milady, a housecleaner from Bronx, N.Y. “He was not sick. He didn’t suffer from heart problems.’’ The federal Office of Professional Responsibility, part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which detains and deports immigrants, is investigating the death.... Tavarez is the 106th inmate across the country to die in immigration custody since 2003, according to ICE....
Suffolk County House of Correction houses about 270 detainees a day. The federal government pays the facility $90 a day per detainee. Jail officials have declined to comment on the case.
Federal immigration officials have confirmed that Tavarez was taken to three different hospitals on Oct. 16 with “possible pneumonia,’’ and was treated for heart and respiratory conditions before he died at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.... Tavarez arrived at Suffolk Sept. 21, after bouncing from jail to jail fighting deportation.
More of your tax dollars at work in the hamster wheel, America.
He had come to the United States in the 1970s legally, but was ordered deported in 1988 after a drug conviction in New York. He defied that order, and had another drug conviction in 2007 in Rhode Island for a small amount of cocaine.
You sure he wasn't snorting his own stash?
But he avoided immigration authorities until 2008, when State Police stopped him in Warwick for motor vehicle violations and discovered the deportation order. Tavarez had succeeded in reopening his case in immigration court and was hoping to stay. His family estimates they spent $20,000 fighting his case.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for the drug-dealing law-evader?
I mean, HE DID NOT DESERVE to DIE, but it's not like the guy was a saint, either.
Unless, of course, he was RAILROADED and FRAMED for the drug charges!
The immigrant-detention system has faced criticism over its inadequate access to medical care here and nationwide....
Again, regardless of what you think of illegals, THIS is a DISGRACE to America!!
Related: Vigil at Suffolk County House of Corrections protests conditions for immigrant detainees
