Update: On Aug. 4, DreamActivist.org reported that Marco Saavedra and Viridiana Martinez had been released from Broward Transitional Center. However, this was not before they initiated a hunger strike among the detainees, with very few showing up for breakfast that day.
With great courage, at least seven undocumented activists have since mid-June deliberately allowed themselves to be detained by immigration officials in order to infiltrate a Florida detention center and organize with detained immigrant men and women and their families. The “Undocumented, Unafraid and Undercover” campaign to infiltrate Broward Transitional Center has been organized by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance.
Two months ago, immigrant youth began to militantly occupy Democratic campaign headquarters across the country forcing the Obama administration to grant some undocumented young people temporary relief from deportation known as “deferred action.”
The youth organizers then escalated their tactics when it became clear that the administration was still placing young immigrants and their families in detention and removal proceedings. Immigrant youth will be able to begin applying for benefits under the Obama deferred action program on Aug. 15.
The organizers have also demanded expanded immigration protections for all immigrants who meet the legal criteria as being a “low priority” for deportation. These include immigrants with no felony criminal convictions and those with strong ties or contributions to their communities.
Testing the ‘discretion’ policy
Refusing to simply believe that the president would protect immigrant families from deportation as the administration has promised for the past two years, undocumented activists have tested the administration’s policy of “discretion” to see whether it is bringing meaningful change. Young undocumented activists know just how hollow the president’s promises could be given that this very administration has overseen the most widespread and heavy-handed anti-immigrant deportation campaign of any recent U.S presidency, including recent workplace immigration enforcement.
In the case of undocumented youth, the administration has promised to protect certain qualifying immigrants from detention and deportation. Yet when the seven activists, who all qualify for protection, approached Customs and Border Protection and ICE, they were detained and placed in removal proceedings. Detained inside Broward Transitional Center, they are now fighting alongside hundreds of other detained immigrant men and women to get out and see their families again.
At least one activist, Marco Saavedra, has been detained since July 11, and is engaging in a hunger strike with other detainees and organizers. Another, Viridiana Martinez, is a youth movement leader in Raleigh who has helped to organize civil disobedience actions in Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta, Ga., against reactionary state policies towards immigrants and immigrant youth in particular.
In a statement published on the organizing website DreamActivist.org, the activists explained, “As it turns out, the best organizers [for immigration policy change] are those whose families ICE is trying to deport.”
The initial reports from the organizers inside the detention center indicate that the administration’s 2011 “discretion” announcements have done little if anything to protect immigrant families. ICE has exercised its ability to stop deportation cases under the 2011 policy in between 2 and 5 percent of cases. While Obama’s June 16 announcement on “deferred action” has boosted his number with Latino voters, it has not yet worked to reunite families and loved ones.
In just this one facility, organizers report they have documented over 100 cases of individuals inside the detention center who should be immediately released back to their families according to the PAST policies laid out by the Obama administration.
The detained immigrant workers are demanding not only the immediate release of these more than 100 men and women but also an immediate case-by-case review of the over 500 individuals who make up the rest of the population of the detention center. The youth have also called for an occupation of Sen. Bill Nelson’s campaign headquarters if his office does not take action to stop deportations in the cases that the organizers have identified.
Immigration and the prison-industrial complex
If the U.S. government or the Democratic Party had had the interests of working men and women at heart, it would not detain, deport and criminalize men and women who want nothing more than jobs and an education for their kids. Instead the government prioritizes the rights of private prison corporations.
Broward is owned and run by GEO Group, a private prison company. According to an August 2012 investigative report by the Associated Press, 400,000 immigrants are held annually in private facilities. These jails are largely owned by only three companies, including GEO Group, and the federal government pays them about $2 billion per year. These jails operate under little oversight, and house about half of all detained immigrants. On average, the federal government pays $166 per day per immigrant detained, a figure that rose from $80 per day in 2004.
In fact, the federal government has saved the private jail industry from bankruptcy. GEO Group’s income rose from $16.9 million to $78.6 million since 2000, with the Department of Homeland Security as its biggest client. Corrections Corporation of America went from near bankruptcy in 2000 to $162 million in net income in 2011, with the federal government accounting for 43 percent of its revenue.
Showing just how wed the prison industrial system is to U.S. politics, these private prison companies have spent $45 million in campaign contributions at the federal and state level since 2000. This does not include the private contributions of GEO Group and CCA’s wealthy leaders.
Viridiana Martinez explained, “This place is owned by a private company, by GEO Group, and there is money being made at the expense of—at the suffering of these people.” Most detainees in Broward have been detained for five to nine months, but some have been detained as long as 20 months.
Instead of working to reverse the human rights tragedy found inside every immigration detention center across the country, Obama has promised to extend the so-called “Secure Communities” program to every state in the union by 2013, even though the program has been shown to cause the detention of innocent working men and women rather than stop criminal activity. The program is also seen by many immigration experts as being the main factor behind Obama’s record number of deportations in his first term as president, deporting double the number of immigrants than his predecessor George W. Bush.
Fighting for full rights
Currently, undocumented immigrants are not afforded even full legal rights. Certain constitutional rights do not apply to deportation proceedings, such as the right to legal representation. A report by the Cardozo Law Review last year detailed how on average 67 percent of immigrants inside detention centers had no lawyer working on their cases and appeared alone before a judge. This is not to mention the thousands who are not detained and cannot afford an attorney. In fact, immigrants are unrepresented in the vast majority of cases.
The youth organizers have stepped in to try to fill this void by organizing the public to engage and organize on individual cases. The kind of legal and personal help that these organizers are providing to the inmates inside Broward and other the detention centers is truly invaluable.
By staying in the streets, undocumented immigrant youth have shown themselves to be a force to be reckoned with.
As the 2012 vice-presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, I and my running mate, presidential candidate Peta Lindsay, stand firmly with the undocumented and immigrant community. We demand to know why all immigration detention centers—prisons used to cage immigrants merely for not being born in this country—are not currently in the process of being shut down given Obama ‘s repeated assertions that his administration is not after “low-priority” immigrants.
Moreover, our campaign demands an end to the racist prison industrial complex. No wealthy owners or corporations should be raking in profits for incarcerating poor people, who are disproportionately people of color and immigrants. So long as the banks and private companies profit from mass incarceration, no worker is safe and the prison population will continue to rise. We must change this system that favors incarceration over quality education and well-paying jobs.
Shutdown the detention centers! Legalization and full rights for all immigrants now! Jobs not jails—Say no to mass incarceration!
