ICE's Model for Immigration Detention Sits in "Chemical Corridor"

by: koleary

Thu Sep 29, 2011 at 01:30:39 PM EDT

promoted by Rosi

Earlier this week at a press conference in front of the Hall of Records in Newark, Cynthia Mellon, the Environmental Justice & Community Organizer for the Ironbound Community Corp., talked about the high levels of pollution, the poor air quality and the concerns about the county's inability to evacuate the occupants of the Essex County Jail and Delaney Hall in the event of a chemical spill at a press conference denouncing Essex County's new contract with ICE.

koleary :: ICE's Model for Immigration Detention Sits in "Chemical Corridor"

The environmental issues at the jail and the ICE contract itself tie into the oppression of immigrants in the surrounding neighborhood. On October 9th we will be marching past a school in the majority Portuguese and Brazilian community in the Ironbound section of Newark. This school needed to be closed twice in the last two years for environmental concerns, first for Benzene and the second time for mold. The children are being bussed to schools out of the city.

Essex County is expanding the prison but it is not building a new school anywhere in the Ironbound. The freeholders and county executive keep talking about how much money the county will make off of this deal with ICE and they say they plan to use it to lower property taxes (most likely taxes in the western suburbs.) So not only will the immigrant community continue to suffer the injustice of having its residents incarcerated in the local prison they will continue living in a polluted neighborhood without a safe school for their children. It is unlikely that they will see a dime of this revenue that the new ICE contract is supposed to bring to Essex.

The story of ICE's contract with the county of Essex is a story with national implications because the problems at Essex completely undercut ICE's national messaging. ICE is saying that it is in the process of making immigration detention humane. ICE is holding up Essex as a model for the country, but their model consists of a jail that blocks access to clergy, and a hastily partitioned correctional facility located next to a water treatment plant and toxic waste. Not only is ICE is incapable of treating people humanely, there is just no such thing as humane immigration detention. It is sad that Essex County is so eager to partner with them on such ill conceived project.

Tags: immigration detention, immigrant rights, prison reform, human rights, environmental racism, environment. environmental justice, immigration, (All Tags)

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ICE's Model for Immigration Detention Sits in "Chemical Corridor" | 2 comments

Profits in immigration detention (0.00 / 0)

For an international perspective on this problem, see today's NYT: the pitfalls of outsourcing immigration enforcement have become evident in the past 15 years. When something goes wrong - a death, an escape - the government can blame it on a kind of market failure instead of an accountability failure. In the United States private companies now control nearly half of all detention beds.

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Sen. Ted Kennedy

by: Bill Orr @ Thu Sep 29, 2011 at 18:19:41 PM UTC

And Essex County is giving CEC a bigger (0.00 / 0)

piece of the pie. In fact it appears that the plans are to expand outside of Delaney Hall into the other facilities that CEC runs throughout the state. The Bo Robinson facility in Trenton was mentioned specifically as a possible site. By the way there is a petition to oppose the expansion of immigration detention in Essex here is the link http://www.change.org/petition...

by: koleary @ Thu Sep 29, 2011 at 18:34:23 PM UTC