Labor Day Protest of CCA’s Houston Processing Center, Detention of Immigrants For Profit : Houston Indymedia

About twenty protestors gathered Labor Day morning to protest in front of the Houston Processing Center. We called attention to the detention of workers and other folks at this Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility which is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America.

We chanted and held signs and banners for passing traffic on Greens Road, which was slow on labor day, but quite supportive. We called for a press conference at 10am and it was well attended with reporters from El Dia, XicanoPwr, KTRH 740am, KHOU, KPRC, Telemundo and Univision (as well as us representing for Indymedia).

The press conference was kickef of by RoB of the Sin Fronteras Defense Committee, followed by Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership in Austin, followed by Luissana Santibanez also of Grassroots leadership, who spoke about her expierience of having her mother detained for 15 months in the Houston Processing Center and ultimately being deported. Ben Browning finished up by talking about the need for direct action, why they did it and how they dont regret it.

We ended with a little more chanting, and departed for some snacks and strategizeing our future campaign against detention of immigrants for profit.

coverage we've seen online so far:

http://www.khou.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=171677

PRESS RELEASE:
Houston Sin Fronteras and supporters will be rallying outside of the Houston Processing Center, an immigrant detention facility owned and managed by the private prison corporation Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), on Monday, September 3 from 9:00am – 11:00am. A press conference will be held at 10:00am.

The protest will be held on Labor Day to demand an end to the deportation of workers in the U.S. and for an end to the repressive detention policies of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Corrections Corporation of America. The demonstration will also be held in solidarity with Elvira Arellano, the Chicago immigrant rights activist and mother deported after a protracted fight to stay with her U.S. citizen son, and other mothers held in detention centers as “criminals” often after committing the most minor of violations.

Legal charges against the two Houston Sin Fronteras defendants, arrested in June for committing civil disobedience at the prison, have been resolved. Out of initial charges that could have resulted in 3 and 1/2 years in prison, the defendants ended up having to pay a hundred dollar fine.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that operates the Houston Processing Center, this week settled a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union regarding the human rights of immigrant children detained at the T Don Hutto Facility, another CCA prison in Taylor, Texas. Conditions at the prison will improve dramatically.

There were lots of cop cars and police horses, but had no verbal interaction with cops, ICE or CCA people.