Child care licenses for ICE detention centers?
Child care centers exist to take care of children. The State of Texas requires most child care centers to be licensed, and to be licensed, they must meet certain minimal…
conversations, presentations & such*
Social Justice Symposium, St. Edward’s University, Austin, Texas, April 4, 2016 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March 30, 2016 Derechos en Crisis: Refugees, Migrant Detention, and Authoritarian Neoliberalism February 24 –…
Necessary and impossible: effective interviewing practices.
Use open-ended questions. YES, even in a detention center. YES, even when you’re in a hurry. 1. Be aware of personal space. Respect your narrator’s personal space. Make yourself comfortable,…
Ask for credible or reasonable fear interview
Sample simple Credible OR Reasonable Fear Interview Request A woman or child can give this to her deportation officer, and the officer should forward it to the Asylum Office. REDACTED…
Why it is SO BAD to be a kid whose mom is in “re-instatement” or “withholding only” or “241” proceedings
Adults who are in reinstatement proceedings, and therefore their kids who are with them, are in a bad and dangerous situation because, a) only eligible for withholding of removal or…
Children and credible fear interviews? WHAT?
Why are we even talking about children and credible or reasonable fear interviews?? We don’t normally think about children and these interviews. When children come alone, they are not in…
“Passing” or “failing” a credible fear interview
By “passing,” we mean that an Asylum Officer had found that a person had demonstrated a significant possibility of establishing, at a full merits hearing, at least a well-founded fear…
“Passing” or “failing” a reasonable fear interview
We say that someone has “passed” her reasonable fear interview when she has convinced an asylum officer, usually by sharing a detailed and consistent narrative of what happened to her…
Expedited removal (in the context of family detention)
Expedited Removal is the process by which Customs & Border Protection (CBP) or Immigration Control & Enforcement (ICE) may summarily execute an order of removal of a person without that…
#EndFamilyDetention and “out”carceration
Detention of refugee women and children over the last thirteen or fourteen months at Artesia, Berks, Karnes, and Dilley was immoral, unconstitutional, a violation of international law, contrary to the…
el ayuno * la huelga * the fast * the strike
April 6, 2015 We mothers who are detained in Karnes County Residential Center began a hunger strike on March 30 asking for freedom, for justice. This strike began because all…
Request for Information Concerning Legal Visits
An open letter to: ICE Supervisory Detention & Deportation Officer Hilario Leal, ICE Assistant Field Office Director Juanita P. Hester, Nora Estimbo Lacy, and Deborah Achim Dear AFOD Hester, SDDO…
Retaliation? Or just blocking legal representation?
Victoria Rossi is a brilliant writer who moonlights, for a lot less money than she deserves, as a paralegal. In December, the Texas Observer published her essay about visiting Karnes.…
Texas Observer report on Karnes
Also check out this fine Texas Observer report on Karnes by Victoria Rossi, published on February 2, 2015.
New York Times: more essential reading about Artesia, Karnes, & Dilley
Do read "The Shame of America's Family Detention Camps", a fine article in the New York Times by Will S. Hylton, published online on February 4, 2015. Among this article's…
Women must speak out against the DHS no-release policy
In 2014, 60,000 women and children refugees fled persecution and violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras because of gang violence, domestic and child abuse. They seek asylum here. These…
“Ending Artesia” by Stephen Manning
Please read this stunning report Ending Artesia, by Stephen Manning. Explaining complicated, bizarre, technical legal proceedings with great clarity, this report is compelling. Stephen Manning's writing is beautiful and --…
Resolution calling for release of women & children; end ICE’s no-release policy
Please read and sign this resolution and --- far more importantly -- take it to the groups to which you belong. Ask your group to sign and date the resolution. …
GEO employee speaks AGAINST expansion of Karnes
UPDATE: The Karnes County Commissioners Court voted this week, 3-2, to approve the expansion of the for-profit detention center at 409 Farm-to-Market Road 1144, run by the for profit private…
Fuerza y Fianzas: a proposal for people to support families in a concrete way
The problem The Dilley ICE prison is about to open. There, families – up to 2400 people -- will be incarcerated based on the thinnest and most transparent of irrational…
Credible fear interview
pink “tennis” swing to and fro. she’s wearing zebra stripes and a red top, tiny in the cushy big chair that rolls. long black hair narrows her face, shielding the…
“Arriving aliens” on a bridge to limbo
Adela Catalina* had plenty of reasons to leave. Forgive me being somewhat vague in the following account, but she still has vulnerable family in her home country, and we may…
Request for Credible Fear Interview for Salvadoran teenager
November 22, 2014 Department of Homeland Security U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization Services Houston Asylum Office 16630 Imperial Valley Drive, Suite 200 Houston, Texas 77060 E-mail: [email protected] Dear Asylum Officers, I…
URGENT Stop deportation of Salvadoran refugee family
Dear friends, Maria Estela Marquez Marquez and her three daughters — Melissa (15 years old), Carmen (13 years old), and Jackeline (11 years old) — are refugees from El Salvador…
2400 dangerous mothers & children?
This morning -- Thursday, November 20 -- in Immigration Judge McPhaul's courtroom, as everyone waited in vain for a working audio connection between the "courtroom" in the Karnes detention center and…
Call for release of all speakers of Mayan languages
The Honorable Jeh Johnson, Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security Washington, D.C. 20528 The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr. Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington,…
Carta para tu familiar [email protected]
DECLARACIÓN JURADA EN APOYO A LA SOLICITUD DE LIBERTAD CONDICIONAL DE (NOMBRE DEL [email protected]) Yo, (nombre del patrocinador), por medio de la presente declaro bajo juramento lo siguiente: Soy (residente…
Coastal Bend Detention Center, November 2013, an ICE prison for women
About private prisons
In a way, private prisons seem a relatively new development, but the ugly foundation of private prisons is deeply ingrained in U.S. history. The government “detains” or imprisons or incarcerates…
Red McCombs should break the lease with the private prison corporation building for huge family prison in Dilley
A petition by Claudia Muñoz Dean Thomas W. Gilligan, ask UT alumnus Red McCombs to break lease with the Corrections Corporation of America and not contribute to detention and abuse…
Family Detention Film Screening
Friday, November 21, 2014 7:300 - 8:30 p.m. Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center 600 River Street Austin, Texas 78701 A film by Matt Gossage for more information see…
“Estamos detenidas en Karnes tenemos tres hijos…”
Until today, I was mostly getting phone calls from women in Karnes and from family members around the country; texts from family members in Honduras. Today at 12:30, I received this e-mail: Estamos detenidas en Karnes tenemos tres hijos cada una y tenemos tres meses de estar detenidas, teniamos abogados pero nos dejaron el caso […]
What you can do: Take a field trip to immigration court.
Want to understand what’s going on with refugees, immigrants, and immigration courts? Go. Take a morning or an afternoon and visit the immigration court closest to you. Look. Listen. Draw. Take notes. Then talk about it. (Talk about it. Talk about it….) Most immigration hearings are public, although judges typically close cases when 1) either […]
The credible fear of a mother and her little boy
Drawing by Rini Templeton, 1935-1986 I went to see three families yesterday in Karnes, and without planning to, ended up talking to seven mothers and their children. Obviously I will not represent all of them, but I hope that each woman finds representation through Karnes Pro Bono Project team. I cannot convey what it is […]
How to Pay an Immigration Bond, from Andrade Legal of Boise, Idaho
Follow the link below for extremely useful information from Andrade Legal — Immigration Law in Boise, Idaho. Kudos to María Andrade and her colleagues! And visit the Andrade Legal for even more extremely useful information. The attach PDF refers to a list of bond companies. I have not included the list of bond companies because […]
The iceboxes in McAllen: personal testimony
This is a translation of a testimony by a child inside describing the "freezers" that people are being put into at the McAllen detention center.
Each of us has a duty to report child abuse or neglect
According to Texas law, “if you suspect the abuse or neglect of a child, it is your duty to report it immediately.” Did you read any qualifiers or exceptions? Did you read that “it’s your duty to report child abuse or neglect immediately, EXCEPT if – the abuse or neglect is at the hands of […]
Cartas de Melissa, Carmen, y Jackeline, encarceladas en Karnes City
Melissa, Carmen, and Jackeline are three sisters who, with their mother, fled El Salvador seeking refuge. Right before they left, the three girls had watched as a gang member came into their tiny home and held a gun to their mother’s head, threatening to rape and kill all four of them. They’ve been locked up […]
Support refugees – contribute to the Karnes Bond Fund
Make a donation to the Karnes Bond Fund, at Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Services (RAICES) to help a woman and her children “bond out” of Karnes to go live with family or community members as they pursue their claims for asylum. If you want, you can make a donation specifically to assist […]
“Power yields nothing without a demand”: Organize
“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle there is no progress. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and […]
Carta para tu familiar [email protected]: un ejemplo
DECLARACIÓN JURADA EN APOYO A LA SOLICITUD DE LIBERTAD CONDICIONAL DE (NOMBRE DEL [email protected]) Yo, (nombre del patrocinador), por medio de la presente declaro bajo juramento lo siguiente: Soy (residente permanente legal/[email protected]) de los Estados Unidos (consulte el anexo). Soy (parentesco) de (nombre del [email protected]), quien solicita asilo político de (país de origen) y quien […]
National Security Threat
Read the the material that ICE lawyers present in immigration court to support its argument that the refugees — specifically the women and children — fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras since June pose a “national security threat” to the United States. Read it and weep. ICE Bond Packet
Help convince a court to set bond for a woman detained in Karnes
ICE and GEO, a private, for-profit corporation, are currently holding 500 refugee women and children are against their will in a jail (“residential center”) in Karnes County, about two hours southeast of Austin, or about an hour east of San Antonio. The facility held men until this summer, when it was converted to a “family” […]
“Due process” for immigrants who are “detained”
I have the sickening feeling that very few people understand what “due process” translates into when we are talking about immigrants who are “detained” (locked up, imprisoned, incarcerated) in ICE “detention facilities” (jails, prisons). I’ve added a page to this website with a little bit of information. Where I link to a different page — […]