EVENTS

SHUT DOWN STEWART DETENTION CENTER

hope to see you on Nov. 18th!
as we converge in Lumpkin to demand that the corporate-run Stewart be shut down.
because, immigrants are not for sale!

VIGIL IN MEMORY OF MIGUEL HERNANDEZ

who died while in ICE custody

Georgia Detention Watch will hold a vigil Monday in Gainesville in memory of Miguel Hernandez, a Salvadoran immigrant who died on April 28th, while in ICE custody at the North Georgia Detention Center. Mr. Hernandez was 54 years old. He had been treated for a blood clot and was returned to the for-profit detention center, where he later collapsed and died.

The vigil will be Monday May 9, 2011 and it will begin at 7:30 p.m. in front of the North Georgia Detention Center, located at 622 Main St., Gainesville, GA 30501.

We invite you to join us at the vigil to honor the memory and life of Miguel Hernandez and to call for accountability from ICE as well as Corrections Corporation of America, the for-profit company that runs the North Georgia Detention Center.

For more info., please contact Katie Beno-Valencia, Katie.beno@gmail.com; or Azadeh Shahshahani, ashahshahani@acluga.org

For more on detention of immigrants, please see the ACLU of Georgia/Georgia Detention Watch fact sheet at: http://www.acluga.org/FactSheetSecurelyInsecure.pdf

and in this website- Documents section

EXPRESS YOUR REJECTION TO RACIAL PROFILING!!

START A CONVERSATION

GET A T-SHIRT

We have a new lot of our popular

"We Are All Undocumented" T-shirts available at $12 each

($11 ea in lots of 10).

The "No Human Being is Illegal" phrases on the back of the shirt are larger and the translations of Arabic and Chinese have been improved.

If you would like a T-shirt, please send us an email to info@georgiadetentionwatch.com and Priscilla will send by USPO or UPS ground if you live outside the Atlanta area.

Going, going . . . .

Fourth Annual Vigil to Be Held at Corporate-Run Immigration Detention Center

SHUT DOWN STEWART! BRING PEDRO HOME!

Vigil to highlight case of Pedro Guzman and his family;

shedding light on the traumatic effects of detention on spouses and children of those detained.

Press conference and vigil set for Friday, November 19, 10:00 a.m., Lumpkin, GA town square

Lumpkin, GA – Georgia Detention Watch today announced the fourth annual vigil at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA will be held Friday, November 19 at 10 am. This vigil, co-sponsored by several state and national human rights organizations, draws attention to what organizers call the collusion between government officials and for-profit corporations to place profits and politics over people. The vigil is expected to draw participants from across the United States, including individuals directly impacted by the inhumane detention policies of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the unethical profit-making by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), owner and operator of the facility in this remote location in southwest Georgia.

This vigil will highlight the traumatic effects of detention on the spouses and children of those detained. One of the featured cases will be that of Pedro Guzman. Guzman has been detained at the Stewart facility for over a year, while his U.S. citizen wife, Emily, has spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting for justice. Their case is currently on appeal as Guzman was inexplicably denied bond in this civil matter.

“I never knew that the immigration system in the United States was so outrageously flawed until I began to experience it through my husband,” said Mrs. Guzman. “Pedro is one of the very few fighting his case in immigration detention. It is a daily emotional fight for him to continue without his freedom. He is incarcerated in a unit with more than 60 other detainees, no edible food, no privacy, no contact visits with us, being treated like an animal, and 9 hours away from our home. Most days he feels he can no longer fight. He qualifies to be here legally but the broken immigration system continues to detain him. Taxpayers are paying approximately $100 per day to keep Pedro away from me and his four-year old son.”

This action follows prior vigils, humanitarian visitations, and the release of a report by Georgia Detention Watch focused on the Stewart Detention Center. “The spotlight on this remote immigration detention center is justified as it is the largest in the United States and has a growing list of alleged human rights abuses, including lack of adequate medical care and the imposition of solidarity confinement without a disciplinary hearing,“ says Anton Flores-Maisonet of Georgia Detention Watch. The March 2009 death of Roberto Martinez Medina, an immigrant detained at Stewart, of a treatable heart infection further accentuated ICE and CCA’s deadly track record and the problematic fact that the facility is located one hour from the nearest hospital. Additionally, Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen with mental disabilities who has a pending lawsuit against the U.S. government and CCA for his wrongful detention and deportation was detained unlawfully for six weeks at Stewart.

"Recently we’ve been hearing reports detailing CCA’s role in lobbying for, and even helping state legislators draft, anti-immigrant legislation. CCA is interested in the passage of these bills because these measures line the corporation’s pockets with millions in profits. In the meantime, alternatives to detention are available which would protect due process and basic human rights while at the same time saving taxpayer dollars,” said Emily Tucker, Policy and Advocacy Director for D.C.-based Detention Watch Network.

Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project Director and Chair of Georgia Detention Watch, and an attorney on the ACLU case filed on behalf of Mark Lyttle said: "Mark's case is a tragedy that serves to underscore the deep systemic injustices that continue to plague our government's system of detention, one that involves notorious corporations such as CCA and remote facilities such as Stewart."

"Mark is just one of thousands of people in this country who have been victimized by a single-minded focus on detention and deportation without the kind of individualized determinations that are the essence of due process," said Shahshahani.

Emily Guzman, Tucker, and Shahshahani will speak at the vigil. Catalina Nieto, National Grassroots Organizer for Witness for Peace, will also address those in attendance while Jason Chin, John Fromer, and Francisco Herrera will be guest musicians.
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§ About the Stewart Detention Center
Located in rural Southwest Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center detains approximately 2,000 men, primarily from Latin America. Stewart is run by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest private prison corporation.

§ The growing list of organizations participating in the November 19 vigil includes:
American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia
Atlanta Mennonite Fellowship
Coalicion de Lideres Latinos-CLILA (Dalton, GA)
Detention Watch Network (Washington, D.C.)
Georgia Detention Watch
Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights
International Action Center (Atlanta, GA)
Nipponzan Myohoji (Atlanta, GA)
School of the Americas Watch (Washington, D.C.)
School of the Americas Watch Los Angeles (California)
Voces de la Frontera (Milwaukee, WI)
Witness for Peace (Washington, D.C.)

###

Georgia Detention Watch is a coalition of organizations and individuals that advocates alongside immigrants to end the inhumane and unjust detention and law enforcement policies and practices directed against immigrant communities in our state. Our coalition includes activists, community organizers, persons of faith, lawyers, and many more.

Member organizations of Georgia Detention Watch include: the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, American Immigration Lawyers Association Atlanta Chapter, Amnesty International-Southern Region, Amnesty International -Atlanta local group 75, Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE), Coalición De Líderes Latinos (CLILA), Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Immigrant Justice Project- Southern Poverty Law Center, International Action Center, Open Door Community, Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta (RRISA), and others.

For more on Georgia Detention Watch, visit our website: www.georgiadetentionwatch.com
For more on Pedro Guzman’s struggle, visit: www.logansdad.org
For an exceptional article on Pedro Guzman, the Stewart Detention Center, and immigration court, visit: bit.ly/cHTcXH

EXPRESS YOUR REJECTION TO 287g and RACIAL PROFILING

GET A GDW T-SHIRT and start a meaningful conversation

FOR A DONATION OF ONLY $12

ORDER NOW!!

Send us an email and we’ll send them to you

EXPRESS YOUR REJECTION TO 287g and RACIAL PROFILING

GET A GDW T-SHIRT

FOR A DONATION OF ONLY $12

ORDER NOW!!

Send us an email and we’ll send them to you

STOP: 287(g), racial profiling,

STOP: separation of families,

STOP: inhumane and profit-driven immigration detention system

Press Conference and Vigil

July 29-2pm

On the occasion of July 29^th, the date on which Arizona’s racial profiling law is due to go into effect (unless blocked by a federal court per lawsuits brought by the ACLU and other groups as well as the DOJ), Georgia Detention Watch is coordinating a press conference and a vigil in front of the ICE office in downtown Atlanta next Thursday at 2 pm to call for:

· an end to 287(g) and other ICE-local police collaborations which lead to racial profiling and separation of families, and
· a halt to the expansion of the inhumane and profit-driven immigration detention system

To that end, we are calling on representatives of Georgia social justice and faith-based organizations to sign on to the below letter addressed to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The letter will be hand delivered to local ICE officials and will also be mailed to the DHS Secretary next Thursday.

If you are interested in signing onto the letter, please email your name, title, and organizational affiliation to Azadeh Shahshahani at ashahshahani@acluga.org by this coming Tuesday, July 27^th, at 6 p.m.

Please also plan on joining us at the press conference and vigil where Georgia Detention Watch t-shirts reading “We Are All Undocumented” on the front and “No Human Being is Illegal” in different languages on the back will be available; everyone is encouraged to wear the t-shirts in solidarity with immigrants in Arizona and everywhere.

In solidarity,

Azadeh, on behalf of the Georgia Detention Watch Steering Committee

Humanitarian Visit to Women at Etowah

Some members of the Coalición de Líderes Latinos, and Georgia Detention Watch,

co-sponsored by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights-GLAHR:

CLILA and GDW

are going to

Etowah Detention Center

In Gadsden, Alabama

for a

HUMANITARIAN VISIT

to immigrant women

Friday, November 27

Would you please help by sending us names of women to visit?
also would you help us to ask those women or their relatives to let them know they need to request our visit?;
otherwise we can not get in
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NOTE: please don't send the names to the listserve but directly to this e-mail to protect their identity

please contact us so we can plan the visit accordingly:

América Gruner at cliladalton@yahoo.com

NOTE: CLILA's Operation Panty will deliver underwear and toiletries for distribution to women in Etowah.

If you want to donate any of those items, please reply to this e-mail or contact America Gruner at cliladalton@yahoo.com

"Panties for dignity and hope"

“Unjust and Unwarranted:

The Reality of Immigration Detention in Georgia.”

Also, on Saturday November 21 at 5pm, Georgia Detention Watch, the ACLU of Georgia, and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights will sponsor a workshop as part of the SOA Watch happenings titled: “Unjust and Unwarranted: The Reality of Immigration Detention in Georgia.” Our featured speaker will be Bryan Holcomb, a former high-level manager at the Corrections Corporation of America

Columbus Convention Center

Columbus, GA

Human Rights Groups Muster Forces in a Vigil, Rally, and Funeral Procession Aimed at Drawing Attention to Violations at the Stewart Detention Center

Press conference and vigil will be Friday, November 20^th, at 10:00 a.m., in Lumpkin town square

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

CONTACT:

Anton Flores-Maisonet, Alterna, 706-302-9661, Anton@alternacommunity.com

Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia, 404-574-0851, ashahshahani@acluga.org

Atlanta – Georgia Detention Watch today announces a vigil, co-sponsored by several local and national human rights organizations, aimed at focusing attention on the treatment afforded to immigrants detained at the CCA-run Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin. The vigil is expected to draw hundreds from across the United States, including individuals directly impacted by inhumane immigration detention policies and practices. The action follows two previous vigils, several humanitarian visitations, and release of a report by Georgia Detention Watch which documented violations of immigration detention standards at the Stewart Detention Center.

"Roberto Martinez Medina and I would be the same age if he were still alive today," reflected Anton Flores-Maisonet of Alterna and Georgia Detention Watch on the passing of a 39-year-old immigrant from Mexico detained at Stewart, who died of a heart infection on March 11, 2009. To date, many questions about the circumstances surrounding his death remain unanswered. "This death at CCA's Stewart Detention Center and the allegations that the center fails to provide basic medical care to detainees should be of great concern to the County whose name it bears," Flores-Maisonet observed.

A silent funeral march from Lumpkin Town Square to the Stewart Detention Center will memorialize the death of Roberto Martinez Medina and pay tribute to the more than 100 other immigrants nationwide who have died in immigration detention since October 2003

Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project Director and Chair of Georgia Detention Watch, sees the vigil and funeral procession as the local reflection of a time in which “significant concerns are being raised nationally about the inhumane treatment of immigrants at detention centers and the unnecessary detention of many immigrants in the first place, often for prolonged periods and without being afforded basic due process.”

§ Rally on the Square

Bryan Holcomb, a former high-level manager at Corrections Corporation of America which owns and operates Stewart Detention Center, is the key speaker for the rally on the Square in Lumpkin. He will provide an exposé on the depth of irregularities at CCA-run detention centers and prisons, including high sexual-assault rates. Such abuses led in part to the federal government’s ending the incarceration of children at CCA's T. Don Hutto prison in Texas.

Herbert Abdul, a former immigrant detainee, will also speak at the rally. Mr. Abdul was detained for months at the Atlanta City Detention Center and the Etowah County Detention Center.

Other speakers at the rally will include: Silky Shah, Organizing and Outreach Coordinator with the Detention Watch Network; Samuel Brooke, Attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project; as well as Flores and Shahshahani.

§ About the Stewart Detention Center

Located in rural Southwest Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center detains over 1,750 men, primarily from Latin America. Stewart is run by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest private prison corporation.

§ Conditions at Stewart: Substandard and Inhumane

An April 2009 report by Georgia Detention Watch on conditions at Stewart documented violations of ICE’s own detention standards at the facility. The report charged that food and medicine are withheld as punishment and that solitary confinement is routinely imposed without a disciplinary hearing.

The organizations sponsoring Friday's vigil include:

American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia

American Friends Service Committee

Amnesty Atlanta

Center for Constitutional Rights

Coalicion de Lideres Latinos-CLILA

Detention Watch Network

Georgia Detention Watch

Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights

International Action Center

Nipponzan Myohoji Atlanta Dojo

Rights Working Group

School of the Americas Watch

Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project

Texans United for Families

NOV 20- Vigil at Stewart Detention Center

Stewart Detention Center Vigil III: Due Process for Immigrants

Date :	Friday November 20, 2009
Time :	10:00 - 12:00
Location :	Lumpkin, GA (near Fort Benning and the same weekend as the SOA Watch vigil!)

Description

Timed to happen the same weekend as the SOA Watch vigil (and only 45 minutes from Columbus), we would like to invite you to join us in solidarity as we gather outside the Stewart Detention Center, a for-profit immigrant detention center housing of over 1,750 men primarily from Latin America. The Stewart Detention Center and its parent corporation, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), have been the subject of scrutiny for many years as a growing number of voices allege violations of human rights and detention standards at their for-profit prisons across the nation.

Located in rural Lumpkin, Georgia, this detention center has become a focal point for human rights organizations, including Georgia Detention Watch, the ACLU of Georgia, Amnesty International, and now, School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch). The upcoming vigil will be held Friday, November 20th at 10 AM outside the detention center in Lumpkin, Georgia. This event coincides with the annual vigil to close the School of the Americas, November 21st and 22nd, 40 miles away in Columbus, Georgia. We request that you make plans to join us for this important event.

For more information, please contact Anton Flores-Maisonet at anton@alternacommunity.com or (706) 302-9661

CLILA, GLAHR and GDW

(Coalición de Líderes Latinos, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, and Georgia Detention Watch)

Invite you to join us in a

HUMANITARIAN VISIT

to immigrant women

at Etowah Detention Center

In Gadsden, Alabama

Tuesday, November 3

1pm

at the Detention Center

(or at 10am in Atlanta for carpool)

NOTE: If you have names of women detained in that Center,

please contact us so we can plan the visit accordingly:

Adelina Nichols from GLAHR at 770-457-5232 or anichols@glahr.org

or América Gruner from CLILA at 404-803-4546 or cliladalton@yahoo.com

“Advocating for stopping detention of women based on immigration status”

---

NOTE: CLILA's Operation Panty will gather underwear and toiletries for distribution to women in Etowah.

If you want to donate any of those items, please contact America Gruner at 404-803-4546 or cliladalton@yahoo.com

--

· Have you ever been a victim of racial, ethnic or religious profiling?

· Interested in learning what your rights are when encountering law enforcement?

· Do you want to hear about what others have faced because of their background?

If so, join us for an:

ABLE
Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment

& ACLU of Georgia

Tell Your Story ** Know Your Rights
287g and Racial Profiling Forum

Sunday, September 27

4:30pm

at Welcome All Baptist Church

(Fuente de Amor Iglesia Bautista)

460 Bourne Dr., Smyrna GA 30082

Free

All Faiths And Races Are Encouraged To Attend And Tell Their Stories

For more information or if you have an account to share, but would prefer NOT to recount it yourself, please contact:

Jorge Sosa: 678-754-0742 Willa Rose Johnson: 404-218-7548

Detention Watch Network

8^th National Conference

September 24-26, 2009

Washington, D.C.

Detention Watch Network cordially invites all of its members to attend the 8^th National DWN Conference. The 2009 DWN Conference is an opportunity for members to re-connect, re-energize and strengthen their collaboration. The need for community action, public education, coordinated advocacy and resource sharing has never been greater. We hope you will join us!

About the Conference
The conference will be held at the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. September 24-26, 2009. The conference aims to engage new and current members in the key priorities of the network, share and enhance members’ expertise, cultivate member leadership, and enlist member commitment to move forward on achieving the goals of the network. Activities will be based on DWN’s campaign for No More Detention Beds, federal policy work on Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the network’s four key priorities: Standards, Alternatives, Mandatory Detention, Local Enforcement. At the conference, we will work together to bring the plight of those caught in the detention and deportation system to the forefront of the immigration debate and focus on action and advocacy for policy change.

The conference will provide participants the opportunity to:
·   Participate in campaign and advocacy efforts to promote reform of the immigration detention and deportation system
·   Attend substantive skills-building sessions to further achieve the network’s goals
·   Build community involvement and activism around detention and deportation issues
·   Explore new ways to work together to increase media coverage and community activism.

Conference Registration
Registration is available online via Regonline at https://www.regonline.com/dwnconference2009 The deadline for discounted Early Bird Registration is Friday, August 28, 2009. The deadline for Final Registration is Friday, September 11, 2009.

Please note that this conference is intended for current members of the Detention Watch Network. If you or your organization are not a member but are interested in joining DWN and attending the conference, please contact Silky Shah at sshah@detentionwatchnetwork.org Membership applications must be received prior to the conference in order to attend.

Please plan to attend the entire conference and book your flights to allow sufficient time to be there for the start of the conference at 9:00 a.m. Thursday 09/24/09 and for the 2:00 p.m. finish time on Saturday 09/26/09. This is an invaluable opportunity for DWN members to finalize our activities for the upcoming year.

Registration fees
Early Bird (deadline 8/28/09):
Member………………………………………………………………………..$50

Final Registration (deadline 9/09/09):
Member………………………………………………………………………. $75

Vigil in front of ICE
-a one-day event -

Thursday, June 11th to mark the three-month of Roberto Martinez Medina's death in detention.
The event will also include a 10:00am press conference.

Date/Time: Thursday, June 11th,
8:30am-5:30pm
Location: ICE Offices; 180 Spring St. S.W.

Volunteers Needed: Three volunteers per shift: 8:30am-11:30am; 11:30am-2:30pm; 2:30pm-5:30pm

More details: Jared Feuer
(404) 876-5661 (x14)

Mother's Day Solidarity Visit
at Etowah's Detention Center

May 9, 2009

From 3 to 6:30pm- Gasden, Alabama
We'll visit immigrant women at Etowah's Detention Center, we chose Mothers Day as the occasion for our next visit, hoping to draw attention to the plight of mothers ripped apart from their families as a result of the current immigration enforcement policies.

Also we want to empower women by showing them solidarity and giving them hope.

Besides underwear, we're also collecting items for use such as socks, shampoo etc.

Some people will carpool and they'll meet at Inman Park Marta station at 1:30pm.

If you want to go and have not previously contacted Dianne, please do so asap. we have to submit names to the facility/ICE by Wednesday, May 6

Panties for Hope and Dignity for

Women in Detention Centers

Mar 09-May 09

Collection of underwear for women in Immigration Detention Centers, to be delivered on May 9, 2009 as part of the Georgia Detention Watch activities for Mother's Day.

Jan 09-Feb 09

Collection of underwear for women in Immigration Detention Centers, it was delivered in March during a humanitarian visit to some women.

PRESS CONFERENCE

to

Call for greater accountability

on the part of our government

JOIN:

Georgia Detention Watch

Friday, April 10th

10:00am

Good Friday

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office

180 Spring Street SW Atlanta, GA 30303

WHY:
* During several visits to Stewart Detention Center, Georgians have seen inhumane conditions at that facility that violate ICE's own detention standards. A group of those visitors have compiled a report of the violations and will release it Friday.
______________

ABLE, ALTERNA, GLAHR
and hundreds of Holy Week pilgrims