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"Coming for some at ICE jails: bingo + continental breakfast" - article

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posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 12:41 PM
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The link is to the Houston Chronicle site, the article is dated June 8 2010, the author is Susan Carroll.

ICE to make detention centers more humane



((IMPROVING DETENTION
ICE and the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America have agreed to make more than 24 changes at nine facilities. The changes include:

• Relaxing security: Low-risk detainees will have “freedom of movement” in the facilities and will no longer be subject to lock downs or lights out.

• Access: Detainees will be able to have visitors stay as long as they like within a 12-hour window. The facilities will increase attorney visitation space, add un-monitored phone lines and give detainees email and free, Internet-based calling. A unit manager will be available to take complaints directly from detainees.

• Daily life: Detainees will be allowed to wear regular clothing, will have at least four hours of recreation daily, and will be offered cooking, art and dance classes.)

(Source: ICE e-mail dated May 27 ))

((WHERE
Nine locations, including Houston, will implement the changes.

• Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility, New Jersey

• Eloy Detention Center, Arizona

• Florence Service Processing Center, Arizona

• Houston Contract Detention Center, Texas

• Laredo Contract Detention Facility, Texas

• North Georgia Detention Center, Georgia

• Otay Detention Center, California

• Stewart Detention Center, Georgia

• T. Don Hutto Detention Center, Texas)

(Source: ICE))

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are preparing to roll out a series of changes at several privately owned immigration detention centers, including relaxing some security measures for low-risk detainees and offering art classes, bingo and continental breakfast on the weekends.

The changes, detailed in an internal ICE e-mail obtained by the Houston Chronicle, were welcomed by immigrant advocates who have been waiting for the Obama administration to deliver on a promise made in August to overhaul the nation's immigration detention system.

The 28 changes identified in the e-mail range from the superficial to the substantive. In addition to “softening the look of the facility” with hanging plants and offering fresh carrot sticks, ICE will allow for the “free movement” of low-risk detainees, expand visiting hours and provide unmonitored phone lines.

ICE officials said the changes are part of broader efforts to make the immigration detention system less penal and more humane.

But the plans are prompting protests by ICE's union leaders, who say they will jeopardize the safety of agents, guards and detainees and increase the bottom line for taxpayers. Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston, likened the changes to creating “an all-inclusive resort” for immigration detainees.

“Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt,” he said, taking particular issue with plans to relax restrictions on the movement of low-risk detainees and efforts to reduce and eliminate pat-down searches.

The changes outlined in the ICE e-mail are planned for nine detention centers owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America, including the 900-bed Houston Contract Detention Facility on the city's north side.

Some of the changes will be implemented within 30 days; others may take up to six months, said Beth Gibson, ICE's senior counselor to Assistant Secretary John Morton and a leader of the detention reform effort.

Other major changes include:

• Eliminating lockdowns and lights-out for low-risk detainees.

• Allowing visitors to stay as long as they like in a 12-hour period.

• Providing a unit manager so detainees have someone to report problems to other than the guard.

• Allowing low-risk detainees to wear their own clothing or other non-penal attire.

• Providing e-mail access and Internet-based free phone service.


Gibson said the improvements are part of ICE's efforts to detain immigrants in the least restrictive manner possible while ensuring they leave the country if ordered to do so.

“When people come to our custody, we're detaining them to effect their removal,” Gibson said. “It's about deportation. It's not about punishing people for a crime they committed.”

ICE officials have faced pressure from immigrant advocates and some members of Congress to improve the detention conditions for the roughly 400,000 immigrants it houses annually. The agency has relied on a hodgepodge of more than 250 government-run detention centers, private prisons and local jails to accommodate its growing population — with roughly one in four detainees held in Texas.

At the CCA facilities that have agreed to ICE's changes, detainees will see more variety in their dining hall menus and have self-serve beverage and fresh vegetable bars.

CCA also plans to offer movie nights, bingo, arts and crafts, dance and cooking classes, tutoring and computer training, the e-mail states.

Detainees also will be allowed four hours or more of recreation “in a natural setting, allowing for robust aerobic exercise.”

CCA also committed to improving the look of the facilities, such as requiring plants, fresh paint and new bedding in lower-risk units.

Advocates pleased

Some of the improvements offered at the CCA facilities counted as hard-fought victories for immigrant advocates, including plans to improve visitor and attorney access.

“A lot of these measures are what we've been advocating for,” said Lory Rosenberg, policy and advocacy director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights for Amnesty International.

“Many of these points are very important to changing the system from a penal system, which is inappropriate in an immigration context, to a civil detention system.”

Union members said they have concerns about the plans, primarily focusing on safety.

Rebstocksaid some detainees may be classified as low-risk because they have no serious criminal history but still may be gang members that “haven't been caught doing anything wrong yet.”

He also said eliminating lockdowns will make it more difficult to protect detainees from one another.

He said reducing or eliminating pat-down searches could allow contraband into the facilities, including weapons.

Gibson, with ICE, said the agency is developing a sophisticated classification system and will make sure “that our detainees are still safe and sound.”
“As a general matter, it will be the non-criminals who don't present a danger to anyone else who are benefitting from the lowest level of custody,” Gibson said.

‘On the taxpayers' dime'

Rebstock also questioned the cost to taxpayers for the changes.

“My grandparents would have loved to have bingo night and a dance class at the retirement home they were in when they passed away, but that was something we would have had to pay for,” he said. “And yet these guys are getting it on the taxpayers' dime.”

Gibson said CCA is making the improvements at no additional cost to ICE. The agency's contract with CCA for the Houston detention center requires that ICE pay $99 per bed daily for each detainee, slightly lower than the $102 average daily rate ICE pays nationally .

Rosenberg said some of the changes, like new flower baskets, may seem small, but they will combine with the bigger changes to make a difference in the daily lives of detainees.

“Taken together they will go some way to making this system less penal,” she said.


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.


Country's going broke + illegal aliens have flower baskets...hee-hee-hee






[edit on 11-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]

[edit on 11-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]

[edit on 11-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 01:22 PM
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wow.

this is a joke right?

i suddenly feel the need to slam my face into the nearest object


so let me get this straight, if somebody with warrent or prior record gets caught, all they have to do is not have an ID and answer everything "Por Que?"

and they will get sent to MigrantLand instead of county?

yah that wont encourage criminals to rob/steal/kill/rape/whatever...


i can think of about 3 homeless people within a 3 block radius from where i am currently sitting who dont even have it that good.

[edit on 11-6-2010 by LurkerMan]



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 01:32 PM
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reply to post by LurkerMan
 


Yes, I must confess that I got turned on to this by watching Megyn Kelly's show on Fox News, and I wanted to look up the actual article she referenced because I felt she must be misrepresenting the facts at least slightly (I think it was the dance classes that boggled my goggles over, I was like oh-hell-no)...

But, lo and behold, she only told what the article said plainly...

And the article comes with the actual quoted emails...

[edit on 11-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 01:41 PM
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so what exactly would be the difference between:

John sitting in a cold jail cell in county for trespassing, or

Juan sitting in his luxurious hotel room, for....trespassing


oh yah one of them has "rights".



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 01:48 PM
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reply to post by LurkerMan
 


For sure you could make an anti-affirmative-action line of reasoning against it, saying it amounts to preferential treatment based on skin-color/ethnicity...

But I'd rather just say we don't got the money for this... I mean, if this was a ballot proposition "Do you want to spend the money we don't have in this manner on these illegals?"...I do believe few persons outside of Berkeley would vote for it...


[edit on 11-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 02:25 PM
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Originally posted by LurkerMan
so let me get this straight, if somebody with warrent or prior record gets caught, all they have to do is not have an ID and answer everything "Por Que?"

and they will get sent to MigrantLand instead of county?

yah that wont encourage criminals to rob/steal/kill/rape/whatever...



If anyone is caught committing a crime they are arrested and taken to county even if they are illegal. Once they are to be released ICE is called and if they pick them up then they go to MigrantLand and are processed for the "administrative infraction" of unautherized landing which is not crime.

They are detained until they voluntarily depart or are deported. If they leave voluntarily then they are not barred from applying for legal admission in the future. If they are deported then they are barred for 10 years from applying for legal entry.

[edit on 11-6-2010 by daskakik]



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 03:06 PM
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reply to post by daskakik
 

The time before last that I was in jail, there was a guy in quarantine with me that I knew (sweet fella), he was a Honduran from San Pedro Sul, he was one of the boys who walked around downtown selling the balloons of coc aine and heroin, and when busted (ideally) they swallow them all...Anyway, he was telling me that he had been caught with about ten such, but that all that would happen to him was he would be held for ninety days and then deported...I don't know if he was correct, but he was quite confident...and I remember thinking that if true, that ninety days + deportation was less punishment for him, than I as an American would have been likely to receive, had I been caught selling coc aine + heroin.

(I realize this little anecdote proves nothing, but it is one hundred percent true ...)


[edit on 11-6-2010 by nine-eyed-eel]



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 03:28 PM
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reply to post by nine-eyed-eel
 

I believe you. That would be on the county (DA) to persue the case or drop it. If they decide to drop it then he gets handed over to ICE which then holds him/her in MigrantLand until they place them on a plane.

Now if the DA doesn't drop the case then it gets handled like any other case. If found guilty they do their time and then they are deported.

My point was that the act of being in the US illegally is not a crime. MigrantLand is not jail or prison it is a holding facility. I know that it's just different names for similar things but there are differences in those things.

Some on here will say that to them it's a crime and those helping are criminals and traitors but the truth is that the laws on the books don't reflect their way of thinking.



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 03:39 PM
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reply to post by daskakik
 

I bet most people would agree that there is no reason to spend extra money and effort to be mean and punitive toward the illegals... there are others it would be better to spend such torment-money on, if I was in charge (evil laugh)...But I don't think we should spend extra money and effort to make their detention experience spacious and airy and whole-grain and minty-fresh either...plain and blank and spare, please, we're broke and we don't owe them...Computer classes, I don't think so...



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 04:04 PM
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reply to post by nine-eyed-eel
 


Again I see your point. You say "we're broke" but who exactly is "we"?

There seems to be enough money to have troops deployed all over the world. Enough to pay for the 60-90 billion dollars in drugs smuggled yearly into the US.

The conspiracy theory here is that the PTB are squeezing the slaves to remind them how things can get if they don't tow the line. Maybe even have them settle for less pay thereby eliminating the middle class or at least bringing it down a notch.

Doesn't mean the money ain't there just that it ain't in the peoples hands.



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 04:14 PM
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reply to post by daskakik
 


I'm right with you on those bits, I would tend to pull home troops unless they are actually killing people and legalize all dope, making the whole subject inexpensive.

As to who we-the-broke-Americans are, I know I am one of them...does that help answer the question? (I still owe a thousand on my last income tax...and I'm getting twenty credit card calls a day.)



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 04:34 PM
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reply to post by nine-eyed-eel
 


You are in the same boat as many americans from what I hear. As to the troops, dope and MigrantLand, well the companies supplying them are no doubt better off than you. And to keep things this way they have to keep selling their wares and to do this they have to keep policy in their favor. Can't really expect anything else.



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 05:19 PM
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I worked in a jail for nine years in North West Arkansas and we held detainees for ICE. NWA has a large hispanic population compared to the rest of the state. Our jail was the only totally no frills jail in the nation...ICE detainees were treated the same as everyone else. We didn't even serve hot meals to the inmates



posted on Jun, 11 2010 @ 05:25 PM
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Obviously, having read the article, folks are likely to have noted that the jails and programs discussed in the email/article are those run by CCA.

Here is their website.

I haven't bothered to send them an email slagging them for taking the government's money for this kinda stuff. If I was a stockholder I might make a stink...I wonder if they'll get a bunch of bad PR out of all this...



posted on Jun, 12 2010 @ 12:40 AM
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Originally posted by daskakik
reply to post by nine-eyed-eel
 

I believe you. That would be on the county (DA) to persue the case or drop it. If they decide to drop it then he gets handed over to ICE which then holds him/her in MigrantLand until they place them on a plane.

Now if the DA doesn't drop the case then it gets handled like any other case. If found guilty they do their time and then they are deported.

My point was that the act of being in the US illegally is not a crime. MigrantLand is not jail or prison it is a holding facility. I know that it's just different names for similar things but there are differences in those things.

Some on here will say that to them it's a crime and those helping are criminals and traitors but the truth is that the laws on the books don't reflect their way of thinking.


then why do they call it "illegal immigration"?



posted on Jun, 12 2010 @ 12:46 AM
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reply to post by LurkerMan
 


Well of course they don't, they call it "undocumented workers"...
Of course by now, they've probably had some new sabbath, and the new correct term is "economic migrants" or "intra-continental climate-change refugees"...I should spend a month and compile a list of euphemisms...



posted on Jun, 12 2010 @ 12:54 AM
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continental breakfest, and classes, and free internet.

i have to pay for all of the above, why should i have to pay for theirs too?

on top of that, everybody knows how much it sucks in mexico, so naturally these kinds of amenities encourage people to come where it doesnt suck as much. and come on class's? what are they trying to get a headstart on their resume?

i dont understand why this particular issue is so special when it comes to being illegal. whats the point of having a legal means if everybody ignores it?

everytime i try to do something other than the legal way, i end up in jail.

what they are doing, is vacation. knowing damn well they will just get sent back so they can do it over and over and over again. they make some cash from smuggling drugs on the way in, spend a few months kicking back getting fed better food than back home, leave....rinse...repeat...



posted on Jun, 12 2010 @ 01:02 AM
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Are you sure you aren't talking about the ICE hotels in Quebec City that tourists PAY to visit?

"cause charging the illegals to stay in the chateaus you describe would probably work better for you then funding that with tax dollars no?



posted on Jun, 12 2010 @ 01:02 AM
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reply to post by LurkerMan
 



My buddy the illegal from Honduras, that I was talking about above in this thread, did say that if he got caught twice selling dope, he would probably have to do some US time...so he said, having been caught once, he was just going to stay down south and his new cousin would be the one to come back up and take his place selling balloons here in town...He seemed to have it all figured out.



posted on Jun, 12 2010 @ 01:05 AM
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reply to post by Danbones
 


They say one in four of the illegals detained are waiting in Texas...
I don't know how long an ice hotel would last down there...



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