Monday: Protest the Aurora Expansion of the GEO Immigrant Dente

"There is something morally wrong about the privatization of prisons and detention centers.”

Rev. Patrick Demmer,
Graham Memorial Community Church

"When the goals of the city are achieved…
- Aurora’s diversity continues to be celebrated as an essential
characteristic of the community.
- Public, private, and religious organizations meet the educational
and service delivery needs of immigrants.
- Aurora has no households that are isolated from the community
by a language barrier.
- Immigrants continue to take advantage of abundant opportunities
to assimilate or acculturate, and fully participate in civic affairs."

City of Aurora Comprehensive Plan

The two quotes above express our values and vision for Aurora. The expansion of the GEO Detention Center contradicts those values and calls into peril the ability of our community to be the one we envision it to be. Detention expansion sends a clear, negative and chilling message to the immigrant community potentially impacting their willingness and ability to be celebrated, to be served, to serve and to assimilate and acculturate.

When any part of our community is isolated and cut off from the rest, all of Aurora and the Metro area suffer. Come out this Monday to the City Council meeting and express support for a united, open Aurora that reflects our values and respects our whole community.

City Council Hearing to Decide on GEO Detention Center Site Approval
DATE: Monday, June 2
TIME: 6:30 pm Protest and Press conference
PLACE: Aurora Municipal Center, 15151 E. Alameda Parkway
WHAT: Come protest the GEO Group's proposal to triple the size of its immigrant detention center in Aurora. We need to let Aurora City Council see AND hear strong opposition to inhumane immigrant detention.

Update on the Detention Center

PROTEST
The protest on Wednesday was amazing. Diverse community members came out and showed that they don't want private prisons in their back yard. Miriam Pena from CPC was the master of ceremonies. Emily Parkey from RAP spoke and Reverend Demmer gave the main speech.

Reverend Demmer highlighted the fact that the private prison group, GEO, doesn't have a contract with Immigration Control and Enforcement nor the Department of Corrections for building this facility. He spoke of how the facility could be used as a private prison or as immigration detention. Most importantly, he urged us to think about the morality of profiting off of others pain and suffering. There is a role for government in areas of the common good. Prisons are one such area. He spoke of how a multi-national corporation can build something like this with no contract and no predictor for use or need, simply because they are a corporation. He compared the plan to build this prison to the Field of Dreams; "If you build it, they will come". The problem with private prisons is that their business is to profit from imprisoning people. Rehabilitation would cut into their profits.

HEARING
After the protest, we all went into the Planning Commission hearing. Testimony was heard both for and against the detention center/prison. The Planning Commission is an appointed judicial body and they are only allowed to consider testimony concerning 11 criteria, most of which were related to architecture and neighborhood impact.

One of the criteria is the relationship of any new building to Aurora's comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan cites Aurora's diversity and inclusion of the immigrant population as part of its values and goals. The Planning Commission did not accept the perspective of our testimony that this detention center works against those goals.

The Planning Commission did hear our complaints about the small waiting area. The size of the waiting area and the limit on the number of children allowed into visitation, have made for long waits outside the building for many families of those being detained. The new facility will not have any larger of a visitation area. The architect promised to work with the Commission to answer those complaints. The Planning Commission also followed up on questions about adequate natural light inside the detention center. The Commission unanimously approved the building plans for the center.

NEXT STEPS
This was just one step in the process to prevent the construction of this center. Stay tuned for further meetings and actions over the next months as we continue to work with our allies for social justice!

Check out Alternet's Headlines

Alternet, a alternative news site, has 3, count 'em, 3, articles today about immigration and worker's rights.

Check out their website at: www.alternet.org You may have to search for the third article, which is specifically about Burger King.

The Immigration Con Artists

By David Sirota,
Creators SyndicatePosted on November 24, 2007, Printed on November 27, 2007http://www.alternet.org/story/68729/

I once got suckered by con artists. As I was walking by, they baited me into betting that I could guess which shell a little ball was under. Moving the shells at lightning speed, they diverted my attention and tricked me into taking my eye off the ball. When I lost the bet, I felt bamboozled, just like we all should feel today watching the illegal immigration debate. After all, we're witnessing the same kind of con.
As our paychecks stagnate, our personal debt climbs and our health care premiums skyrocket, We the People are ticked off. Unfortunately for those in Congress, polls show that America is specifically angry at the big business interests that write big campaign checks.
So now comes the con -- the dishonest argument over illegal immigration trying to divert our ire away from the corporate profiteers, outsourcers, wage cutters and foreclosers that buy influence -- and protection -- in Washington.
Republicans like Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) are demanding the government cut off public services for undocumented workers, build a barrier at the Mexican border and force employers to verify employees' immigration status. Democrats like Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) are urging their allies to either embrace a punitive message aimed at illegal immigrants, or avoid the immigration issue altogether. And nobody asks the taboo question: What is illegal immigration actually about?
The answer is exploitation. Employers looking to maximize profits want an economically desperate, politically disenfranchised population that will accept ever worse pay and working conditions. Illegal immigrants perfectly fit the bill.
Politicians know exploitation fuels illegal immigration. But they refuse to confront it because doing so would mean challenging their financiers.
Instead we get lawmakers chest-thumping about immigration enforcement while avoiding a discussion about strengthening wage and workplace safety enforcement -- proposals that address the real problem.
Equally deplorable, these same lawmakers keep supporting trade policies that make things worse. Just last week, both Emanuel and Tancredo voted to expand NAFTA into the Southern Hemisphere. This is the same trade model that not only decimated American jobs and wages, but also increased illegal immigration by driving millions of Mexican farmers off their land, into poverty and ultimately over our southern border in search of subsistence work.
The con artists' behavior is stunning for its depravity.
First they gut domestic wage and workplace safety enforcement. Then they pass lobbyist-crafted trade pacts that push millions of foreigners into poverty. And presto! When these policies result in a flood of desperate undocumented workers employed at companies skirting domestic labor laws, the con artists follow a deceptive three-step program: 1) Propose building walls that would do nothing but create a market for Mexican ladders 2) Make factually questionable claims about immigrants unduly burdening taxpayers and 3) Scapegoat undocumented workers while sustaining an immoral situation that keeps these workers hiding in the shadows.
The formula allows opportunists in Congress to both deflect heat away from the corporations underwriting their campaigns and preserve an exploitable pool of cheap labor for those same corporations. Additionally, these opportunists get to divide working-class constituencies along racial lines and vilify destitute illegal immigrant populations that don't make campaign donations and therefore have no political voice whatsoever.
Of course, diversionary scapegoating is nothing new. As Ronald Reagan pushed his reverse Robin Hood agenda, he attributed America's economic stagnation to "welfare queens." Similarly, Bill Clinton championed NAFTA while telling displaced workers their enemy was "the era of Big Government." This bogeyman, Clinton said, would be vanquished by ending "welfare as we know it."
Undoubtedly, the media will keep claiming illegal immigration is complicated for both parties. But Republicans or Democrats could begin solving the issue, if they simply stopped letting corporate lawyers write trade pacts and started punishing employers who violate wage and workplace laws.
Sadly, even those modest steps probably won't be taken. In a political system that makes it difficult to tell the difference between a lobbyist and a lawmaker, both parties employ the art of distraction to perpetuate the crises that enrich their campaign contributors. Indeed, whether their target is undocumented workers or indigent recipients of public assistance, the political con artists attack the exploited to avoid cracking down on the exploiters -- and with immigration, they are hoping America once again gets duped.

David Sirota is the author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--and How We Take It Back (Crown, 2006).
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/68729/