The Silent Crisis at Home: The War of Terror on Immigrant Communities
―O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.‖
-Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again”2
Many United States residents have become deeply concerned about the war in Iraq, and
pressure is building to end what has been termed the ―War Abroad.‖ Poll numbers consistently
show that in the fall of 2005 sixty percent of Americans think that U.S. troops should pull out of
Iraq. This is a good step forward, but bringing the troops home will not end another war, which
has received less publicity—the war at home. The American government has been fighting a
two-front war–both abroad and at home. Inside the borders of the United States, the government
has launched a vicious war against immigrants that has only steadily intensified. The same
attention that has been paid to the War Abroad must now be turned to the War At Home. Before
9/11 many activists, such as myself, were working for immigrant workers‘ rights and seeking
amnesty for the undocumented. We formed coalitions with immigrant worker centers to
organize and demand higher wages, job safety, and better working conditions. Our goal was to
raise the standard of living at the very bottom of the American socio-economic populace, for
people who were outside the legal structure and forced to work under terrible conditions; by
raising standard for those people, we believed that the standards of all working people would
improve.
Since 9/11 very few of us have shifted to fighting for the basic civil rights of immigrants
in this country. Those of us who did hoped this diversion into criminal detention centers would
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be a brief distraction; instead it has to four long hard years struggling to demand civil rights for
all While immigrants have not been welcome in the United States for a long time, except as a
source of anonymous cheap labor, the government has developed chilling new ways of
terrorizing immigrant communities and scapegoating them for all of society‘s problems. There
has been a lot of public discussion about terrorism and how to protect ourselves, but in that
discussion we have not talked about the most destructive terrorism that the government is
engaged in which is destroying our basic Constitutional rights and challenging the basis to a
democratic society. The government has launched a War of Terror on Immigrants that has
greatly intensified since 9/11. This war is taking place silently on the margins of society, outside
the scrutiny of the mass media or social reform institutions. Immigrant communities have not
been able to fight back against these attacks because of the chilling repercussions of public
activism and the class divisions within the communities. The citizen-based anti-war movement
has also not taken up the challenge to defend civil rights at home. While there have been brief
moments when the larger anti-war movement expressed interest in civil rights, such as the focus
on Section 217 of the Patriot Act which allows government access to public library records, on
the whole domestic struggles have been subsumed to the international stage. Yet the greatest
challenge facing democracy in the United States is the creation of an apartheid system, where
punitive laws are applied only to non-citizens who are stripped of their basic Constitutional
rights.
The Constitution is very clear that distinctions are not made between citizens and non-
citizens in terms of basic rights applied in the fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments.3
Protection of the civil rights of every single person living in the United States was a fundamental
premise of democracy in the new nation, yet many people today believe that immigrants are not
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protected by the Constitution and therefore separate sets of laws can be applied. This is
absolutely wrong and could fundamentally alter the fabric of our society.
While today it is only immigrants who have been officially stripped of Constitutional
protections, the government is seeking to widen the net by claiming the right to detain American
citizens and to hold them without charge or trial. This is evidenced in the case of Jose Padilla, a
citizen from Chicago, who has been held as an enemy combatant in a naval brig in South
Carolina since June 9, 2002. John Roberts, who will be the next Justice of the Supreme Court,
concurred in the federal decision Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, decided one day before Bush nominated
Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, that the President should have the power to
imprison anyone, citizen or immigrant, to designate them an ―enemy combatant,‖ and to try them
by military commission. This would effectively strip every single person in the United States of
our basic Constitutional rights. The only way we can save our basic democratic society is by
organizing and fighting back. This is part of a long tradition in American history. While we
have lived with the rhetoric of democracy, in reality democracy has been something Americans
have had to organize, protest, struggle, and even die for.
There have been other moments in American history when the government has blatantly
violated the Constitution and when people have organized in response. In Article IV, Section II
of the Constitution slave owners were given the right to return ―fugitives from labor,‖ i.e., slaves
to the South if they were captured in the North. However, most Northern free states did not
enforce this section of the Constitution until the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850,
which made the federal government responsible for tracking down freed slaves in the North. In
response to the Fugitive Slave Law, thousands of freed slaves fled to Canada. At the same time
abolitionists mobilized a community based movement to stop the law from being carried out.
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Abolitionists were arrested for engaging in physical confrontations with slave catchers and
federal officials in the streets as they refused to let them capture freed slaves. Sympathetic local
courts overwhelmingly dropped the charges against the abolitionists. This type of radical action
by ordinary citizens in their own communities was necessary to preserve and extend the basis of
an egalitarian, democratic society.4
Here in New Jersey, community activists are committed to the idea of engaging in
concrete action to preserve our democratic society. The New Jersey Civil Rights Defense
Committee (NJCRDC) organized to support a hunger strike among immigrant detainees in
Middlesex County Jail in early 2002. From that point forward we have been active in exposing
the abuses of immigrant detainees inside the New Jersey county jails and demanding their
release. We engage in this work not as professional activists funded through grant dollars, but as
regular community people who are committed to defending a democratic system. By developing
close ties inside the jails with the detainees, we have built a joint movement. Instead of
advocating on their behalf or representing them, we work with the detainees to build a movement
that will tear down the jail walls. Over the past four years our group has worked very hard to
bring more public attention to the detainees and to connect the War Abroad to the War at Home
through community marches, speaking engagements in local schools and churches, and a
concerted press campaign to bring journalistic attention to the detainees. Most importantly, this
work is not just about immigrants, but about all people in America. When the rights of whole
groups of people are stripped away, then the rights of all of us are in jeopardy.5
The only reason that such widespread detention of immigrants is possible is because the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has contracted out space with county jails
throughout the country and private jails. NJCRDC has consistently demanded a termination of
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county contracts is a way to demand accountability from local government and publicize the
unconstitutional detentions. NJCRDC launched a campaign against the Passaic County
Freeholders in 2003, where we attended several freeholder meetings and read dozens of letters
from the detainees themselves detailing the abusive conditions inside the jail. The only people
present at Freeholder meetings appeared to be contractors cutting sweetheart deals so we did not
have a large audience. On both of our visits the Freeholders refused to respond to us directly;
instead, they told us to meet with their legal counsel, William Pascrell III. Mr. Pascrell, the
Congressmen‘s son, responded to us in a follow-up private meeting by saying Passaic County
was one of the poorest counties in the country and heavily depended on the revenue from the
contracts. When we pointed out profiting off innocent people‘s suffering was a human rights
abuse and that the detentions were unconstitutional, he brushed that off by stating that he did not
care about the unconstitutionality of the detentions because he was not an elected official.
The Passaic County Freeholders focus on profits is not insignificant; counties are making
millions from the extreme suffering of innocent people through the ICE contracts. In Passaic
County, the revenues accrued are $77 per day for each detainee as compared to state payments of
$62 per day for state prisoners. In just a few short months during 2001, Passaic County made $3
million from holding ICE detainees, and the annual contract adds up to $6.9 million.6 Counties
throughout New Jersey are profiting from the detentions. Detainees are held in Bergen,
Monmouth, Middlesex, Passaic, Hudson and Sussex county jails, and the Elizabeth detention
center in Essex County holds asylum seekers. Although the government has refused to release
any numbers of how many immigrants are being held or names of the detainees, through our own
organizing efforts we have deduced, there are at least 1,000 at any given time. The process of
funding local coffers with blood money from ICE is a pattern the federal government is
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committed to expanding as the number of immigrants held in detention increases. In 2003 the
government deported 76,000 immigrants, and in 2004 the number was well over 150,000. The
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act that passed Congress in December 2004
authorized 40,000 new immigrant detention beds by 2010.7 Most people do not realize that
detainees are being held in small county jails all around the country. This means there is an
opportunity for local-based activism. We could build a powerful network of local based projects,
with each community collecting documentation of abuses within county jails and demanding
termination of the contracts.
Before we can build this network, however, we must have a joint vision and
understanding of why the detentions are taking place. How can we understand what is driving
the government to detain and deport increasing numbers of immigrants? When we scrape away
the rhetoric about terrorism and security, what is the larger strategy? What combination of
economic, political and social forces is compelling the government to criminalize mass numbers
of United States residents? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to examine how
the government‘s strategy has shifted even since 9/11. There have been three separate attacks on
immigrant communities:–first the initial mass round up in the period immediately following
9/11; second, the shift to focusing on immigrants with visa violations and attempting to
implement a mass registration system in 2003; and third, the present focus on detaining and
deporting immigrants with previous criminal convictions. A closer examination of these three
periods will help illuminate the goals and strategies of the government‘s War of Terror on
Immigrants.
Phase One - The Immigrant Round-Ups
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In the days following the 9/11 attacks it was clear that the government sought to use the
attacks as a way to criminalize Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Muslim immigrants. This
becomes clear when one compares the government response after the Oklahoma City bombing
on April 19, 1995, to the attacks on the Trade Towers. Can you imagine what would have
happened if the government had rounded up and detained thousands of racist, White men
throughout the Midwest? Outside of the jails Paterson quickly became a national focus as
rumors spread that within the Arab community people were dancing in the streets to celebrate the
towers falling. Overnight, Muslims were viewed by the mass media as the core of the problem
and immigrants became criminals.8
Seven people were murdered in the days following the attacks due to anti-Muslim
―backlash.‖ Balbar Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, was shot while planting flowers at his gas station.
Upon being arrested for the murder of Sodhi, Frank Roque said, ―I stand for America all the
way! I‘m an American. Go ahead. Arrest me and let those terrorists run wild.‖9 Vasudev Patel,
an Indian, and Waquar Hassan, a Pakistani, were shot in Texas by Mark Stroman who said on a
television interview, ―We‘re at war. I did what I had to do. I did it to retaliate against those who
retaliated against us.‖10 Ali Almansoop, a Yemini Arab living in Michigan, was shot at
pointblank range by a man who said he was angry about the September 11th attacks. Abdo Ali
Ahmed, a Yemini Arab was shot in his convenience store in California two days after receiving a
hate note stating, ―We‘re going to kill all of you (expletive) Arabs.‖ 11 Adel Karas, a Coptic
Christian living in California, was mistaken for a Muslim and shot in his convenience store. Ali
W. Ali, a Somali Muslim in Minneapolis, died after being punched in the head at a bus stop.
These individual stories provide a glimpse into the terror launched against working-class men in
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gas stations and convenience stores. In total, hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs increased
by 1,700% in the days following 9/11. 12
The official response was chilling. Even as the government appealed for calm in the
streets, they contributed to the furor by packing hundreds of Arab and South Asians into
detention centers. Passaic County Jail and Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City
quickly filled up with thousands of immigrants who were held under a directive from Attorney
General John D. Ashcroft. None of these detainees were ever charged with a terrorism-related
crime. Months after all the men in the initial roundup had been deported the Office of Inspector
General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security issued a terrifying report exposing the
terror that had been inflicted upon the innocent immigrants. Based on videotapes throughout the
jail, documentation was collected that detainees were beaten and had their arms and legs
painfully twisted, restrained for long periods of time, and run down halls and then slammed into
walls at high speed. The government report concluded this was ―unprofessional and
inappropriate‖ behavior and suggested disciplinary action for the guards involved but did not call
for any criminal charges to be brought. CITATION? The OIG report concluded that these
problems were temporary, and now the detention conditions for immigrants were satisfactory.
The videotapes that were covered up at Metropolitan Detention Center uncovered that
legally privileged interviews between detainees and their attorneys were taped. In June 2004, the
New York Legal Aid Society filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against the retired warden
of the detention center and other prison officers over the secret videotaping of their conversations
with clients. Bryan Lonegan, an attorney for NY Legal Aid who represents many detainees at
Passaic County Jail, pointed out how guilty the government was in covering up the abuse. He
noted: ―Here is an officer of the Department of Justice, who has declined to prosecute another
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officer of the Department of Justice, who has committed crimes documented by another
Department of Justice, because yet another officer of the Department of Justice has deported all
the witnesses. And you have to ask, where is the justice in that?‖13
There was little to no public outcry surrounding the mass roundups in the immediate post
9/11 period, and it appeared that the government could get away with escalating their reign of
terror against immigrant communities. Not surprisingly, they did just that.
Phase Two - The Mass Registrations
The second phase of the government attack on immigrant communities was marked by
the mass registration program, which was implemented in the fall of 2002. First ICE tried to
implement a policy whereby non-permanent United States residents from twenty-five
predominantly Muslim nations had to register with ICE. There were waves of deadlines for
different countries, for example by December 22, 2002, men from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and
Syria had to register; by March 21, 2003, men from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had to register;
and by April 25, 2003, men from Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and Kuwait had to
register. If people failed to register they could face detention and deportation. However, when
many people went to register, they discovered they were not in compliance with ICE and were
held in detention for deportation. The stated purpose of this program was to search out terrorists.
But despite the 82,000 people who registered and the additional tens of thousands more who
were screened at airports and the borders, the government has only concluded that eleven have
links to terrorism. In not one of those eleven cases has the government publicly disclosed what
links to terrorism existed.14
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The initial public response to the mass registration program was outrage. When large
numbers of Iranians were detained when they went to register, a protest was held in downtown
San Diego on December 22, 2002, with 500 people demanding their release. The government
responded by releasing most of the Iranians in detention. By early January small protests were
being held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York demanding an end to the registration
program. The director of ACLU‘s Immigrant Rights Project pointed out that the system was
being used to ―lock up people who had already provided extensive information as part of their
green card applications. Therefore the purpose is clearly not to get information but rather to
selectively arrest, detain and deport Middle Eastern and Muslim men in the United States.‖15
Groups of attorneys mobilized to register people going into ICE offices to keep track of who was
being detained. The widespread impact of the registration program, as well as wide ranging
implications of a registration program brought media attention to the program and public
criticisms became widespread.
But there was another impact of the mass detention of immigrants that contradicts.
During the registration period, thousands Pakistani immigrants fled the Coney Island
neighborhood in Brooklyn referred to as ―Little Pakistan‖ for Canada. The Canadian
government quickly became overwhelmed at the border and refugee camps were set up in New
York, Michigan, and Vermont. Vermont Refugee Assistance, a small immigrant rights group
based in Montpelier sheltered more than 200 people in the six weeks leading up to the
registration deadline and turned away hundreds more. Vive La Casa in Buffalo, NY, also tried
to assist the fleeing immigrants. Director Elizabeth Woide told the Buffalo Times, ―These are the
largest numbers we‘ve ever had of people heading to Canada. We have 800 who are waiting for
appointments at the Canadian border.‖16 As the shelters filled up with frantic refugees fleeing
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the United States (an image that may be difficult for many of us to conceive) local governments
in rural New York responded to the influx of immigrants. In Clinton County, New York, the
county government demanded that shelters housing refugees apply for health permits normally
required for hotel owners. Since local shelters could not meet the criteria involved in the
permitting process they were forced to shut down. In early 2003, the Salvation Army Church in
Plattsburgh, NY, announced they could no longer offer assistance to refugee families leaving the
country because of the local county restrictions. All the safety nets in place to support immigrant
communities were dissipating in the post 9/11 period of hatred.17
The registration program created a social crisis within the Pakistani community and
accomplished an important government goal of terrorizing huge numbers of immigrants. ―We
are being made to feel like third-class citizens. I don‘t want my children to grow up around this
kind of hatred.‖18 The horror stories of registration experiences pushed people towards the
border. Ased Reza, a bookkeeper in Brooklyn, took his two sons who are highschool honor roll
students to register with ICE. The two young men were put in handcuffs and forced to sit on the
floor overnight just because of a technical problem in Reza‘s permanent status application. As it
became socially acceptable to terrorize immigrants with the government support from the mass
registration program, employers began to take advantage of the situation. ―I am a taxi driver,
night shift, my boss threatens to fire me because he says I‘m a terrorist.‖ Ashgar Choudhri, an
accountant in Little Pakistan said, ―I try to speak out for those who are being harassed. But
sometimes I keep quiet now. Because you see, I, too, am scared.‖19 The government strategy of
mass registrations terrified everyone inside immigrant communities. It was established that the
government could round people up and disappear them without any type of legal oversight or
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government accountability. Once this type of precedent had been set, the immigrant community
became terrified of standing up for their rights and protesting government policies.20
The exodus of Pakistanis also fundamentally altered the Canadian asylum program.
Whereas prior to the Pakistani exodus, Canada had been seen as a haven for asylum seekers, but
now the Canadians have turned their back on the immigrant community. In April 2004 the
Canadian government adopted a National Security Policy, which stated that any refugees
applying for asylum who did not have proper documentation would be rejected. The Canadian
government went one step further in December 2004 by implementing a new asylum policy,
which noted that if immigrants had first applied for asylum in the United States and their
application had been rejected, they could not be considered for asylum in Canada. Nick
Summers, President of the Canadian Council for Refugees, responded to these changes: ―The
government is reacting in a cowardly manner to pressures from the US by scapegoating refugees,
―who are amongst the world‘s most vulnerable people. Refugees are not a threat to our security,
they are people whose own security is threatened and are asking us for protection.‖21 This means
that the options for immigrants are tightening on a global scale.22
Phase Three – Lock up all the “Criminals”
The government responded to the public pressure opposing a mass registration system by
terminating the program, and instead sought a strategy that would allow them to continue long
term detention and deportation without ongoing conflict. ICE still continues round-ups through
more limited programs such as Operation Condor and the Absconder Initiative. But overall the
policy has shifted to detaining and deporting immigrants with previous criminal convictions.
12
The base for these detentions is rooted in two laws passed in 1996 under the Democratic
congress called the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA). These laws were passed in the
aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, because the administration tried to use that event to
whip up hysteria against immigrants and was successful to the extent that these terrible laws
were passed. The impact on immigrant detention is not fully known. Human Rights Watch
wrote a report in 1998, identifying ICE contracts with 1,041 local jails. Statistics about how
many detainees are held in the United States at any given time and how many total people have
been deported is impossible to determine but we do know that since 1996 over one million
immigrants have been sent into exile.23
In the latest phase of immigration detention and deportation immigrants are targeted from
every single country in the world including Italy, Nigeria, England, Croatia, Pakistan, Brazil,
Mali, Egypt, Columbia, and Canada. They can be people with no immigration status, people
with status that is out of compliance, or people who are permanent residents and have been in
this country for many years–the common factor is they are not ―citizens.‖ Many of the detainees
are asylum seekers, and some have already been granted status under Convention Against
Torture (CAT) by immigration judges but the government keeps them in jail for years appealing
the case. An Egyptian detainee who has been granted CAT, currently held in Bergen County
Jail, has been in immigration for eight years. Another detainee from Guyana now in Passaic
County Jail, who has also been granted CAT, has been held by ICE for over five years. The
detentions are cruel, and in order to justify them the government must be clever.
The main justification for immigration detention is that they are criminals. Immigrants
with ―previous criminal convictions‖ which are categorized as redefined aggravated felonies,
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controlled substance offenses, crimes of moral turpitude, firearms and domestic violence
(including violations against orders of protection), are being held for deportation The redefined
aggravated felonies encompasses a large category of offenses and is legally retroactive. For
example, if someone paid a fine for a misdemeanor twelve years ago, and that misdemeanor has
been legally restructured as an aggravated felony under the 1996 laws, now the immigrant can be
detained and deported for the past offense. In some cases immigrants are transferred from doing
jail time for aggravated felonies right into immigration custody. In other cases they are picked
up years later. Hemnauth Mohabir, a Guyanese immigrant who took a plea bargain on an eighth
degree misdemeanor in 1997 for a police entrapment case, was held in ICE detention for over
two years before being deported. He was picked up by ICE agents after returning from a
vacation to Guyana to see his mother. He noted:
The immigration inspector said that I am charged as an arriving alien, but I have resident
status and a Guyanese passport. I am from Earth. He said the small charge violated my
resident status. I said why tell me that now, they should have told me that in 97 and I
would have appealed my case. He said welcome to INS. They took me straight to jail.
They told me I am not a prisoner, but I am behind bars. I was assaulted twice at Passaic
County Jail by the guards for protesting against the police abuse. I had to eat in puddles
of sewer water. I slept in roach infested beds and didn‘t see sunshine. 24
In addition to the retroactive basis of the law and the redefinition of aggravated felonies,
the law also sets up mandatory detention for people facing these administrative charges. Herein
lies the root of the unconstitutionality of the laws. Since the detainees are not being held on
criminal charges, they do not have any of the protections that criminals have under the law. This
means they do not have the right to court appointed attorneys, a jury trial, or due process under
the law. These basic protections were put in place by our Founding Fathers in direct response to
the abuses colonists faced from the British. But by holding the detainees in legal limbo in jail
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without bringing any criminal charges, the government is doing an end run around the
Constitution.
Over and over again ICE and county officials defend the immigrant detentions by citing
the detainees‘ violent pasts. Most recently, Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale claimed the
detainees were, ―people that cross over the border illegally, commit rape, sodomy, peddling
drugs to our kids.‖25 If the immigrants are so dangerous then why can the government not bring
criminal charges against them and provide them with Constitutional protections to defend
themselves in a court of law? The reality is that immigrants are not criminals. People who have
committed a crime in the past and done their debt to society (either through payment of a fine or
jail time) are no longer criminals. But we have created two sets of laws: one in which citizens
who commit crimes are reintegrated into society, and another where non-citizens, regardless of
their immigration status, are permanently criminalized.26
In addition, the immigration laws are incredibly punitive in that there are no exceptions to
mandatory detention–if the detainee is HIV positive and in the middle of a complex drug
treatment this does not exempt them from detention. If the detainee has a heart condition or
diabetes and needs personalized care outside of a county jail or federal immigration center he or
she will not receive it. One example of this is a Nigerian detainee, Hassan Fagge, who has
permanently lost eyesight in his left eye and is steadily losing his right eye from type II diabetes.
In addition, when Mr. Fagge pushes down on the skin of his left leg his fingers leave a huge dent.
The diabetic condition has been compounded by a heart condition. The county jails are totally
unable to respond to the complex needs of Mr. Fagge; instead of releasing him, ICE prefers to let
him slowly die in jail. Mr. Fagge was in Passaic County Jail, but after being taken to the hospital
several times the jail decided they could not longer house him. He was put on a van to be sent to
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Bergen County Jail. When he arrived there, the Warden refused to take him because of his
extreme medical condition. Subsequenlty, he was driven down to Monmouth County Jail where
the Sheriff has repeatedly denied the jail is not providing adequate care and instead has insisted
that Mr. Fagge is creating his own medical problems. Mr. Fagge is just one of many sick
detainees who has no legal recourse. He has filed a pro-bono civil lawsuit against the jail, but
has not been able to get a civil rights attorney to represent him in the case so it will be quickly
thrown out of the courts.
Monmouth County Jail appears to be the stop of last resort for detainees with extreme
medical needs in New Jersey. Paul Pierre, a Haitian detainee, had his esophagus crushed while
in Rahway State Prison and underwent surgery that left him with a feeding tube in his stomach.
While all the other county jails in New Jersey with ICE contacts refused Pierre, Monmouth was
willing to accept him. Mr. Pierre requires four small servings into his tube every day and a very
sterile atmosphere. Monmouth was not able to provide him with this very specialized care.
Instead of receiving four portions a day, he would receive anywhere between nothing to three
servings. The jail responded to complaints from Mr. Pierre by saying that he does not really
need the tube feeding, that he was witnessed by other detainees eating through his mouth. This
incredibly cruel response is endemic of the attitudes from county jail officials towards the
detainees. Since their countries of origin are unwilling to accept back sick individuals, or
returning to their countries of origin would mean a death sentence, the detainees languish in jail
for months and even years while their medical conditions slowly deteriorate.
The detainees‘ problems of accessing adequate medical care is compounded by their
inability to get appropriate legal representation. Many detainees are trapped in limbo;they are
willing to accept voluntary deportation but have no place to go and no legal assistance. A
16
Lebanese detainee held at Middlesex County Jail spoke to the problem many other detainees
face. He notes:
The real problem is that when I arrived in America in 1989 at JFK Airport, I was unable
to establish papers for myself because of the Civil War in Lebanon, when I came on my
mother‘s passport 15 years ago. So now I am stuck in jail. The search for my documents
has been going on without success. On February 9, 2004 I received an answer from the
Lebanese embassy. They said I was not Lebanese and there was no paperwork on me. I
have no attorney and cannot afford one. 27
Only about 10% of the detainees have any type of relief under the law. For those 10%
very few are lucky enough to get attorneys that will represent them. Friendly lawyers often ask
for assistance on cases because the law is so complex they do not understand how to best assist
the detainees. Unfriendly lawyers, who constitute the majority, are collecting anywhere from
$5,000 upward to $20,000 in initial fees, refusing to give family members or detainees copies of
any papers that may have been filed, and hold documents hostage in return for future payments.
Most of the detainees have sporadic contact at best with their attorneys who can not be bothered
to travel to the jail. While ICE detention standards specify that detainees should have access to
free, private phone calls to their attorneys, none of the county jails in New Jersey can meet these
conditions. In addition, when civil rights problems arise at the jail, the majority of attorneys
refuse to get involved since they are immigration attorneys. These various factors combine to
greatly deepen the detainees‘ sense of isolation in the jails. A few months ago as I was touring
Monmouth County Jail facilities, I noticed detainees making phone calls standing up in the
middle of the unit. I specifically asked the sheriff where the detainees could make private calls
to their attorneys, and he replied that they did not have any such space available. At Passaic
County Jail, for a long period of time in early 2005 their phone access to attorneys was blocked
completely. This meant that detainees missed important legal deadlines and their sense of
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isolation intensified. During that time the detainees went on a hunger strike specifically
protesting the lack of phone access, both to their attorneys and their families. The hunger strike
fell apart after two days without the jail making any changes.
Detainees respond to this terrible social and political isolation by fighting back. Groups
unify across cell lines and engage in hunger strikes. This is the only tactic available to the
detainees and as difficult as it is to stop eating for long periods of time, out of absolute
desperation detainees, have returned to this strategy over and over again. ICE does not officially
recognize a hunger strike until the detainees have gone without food for 72 hours. When this
period is up, the jail officials will first threaten the detainees with transfer, and if that does not
work, then second, ICE agents will come up from Washington and make threats that if the
detainees continue they will ―disappear.‖ These are not idle threats; detainees are constantly
transferred in retaliation for their organizing to other county jails in New Jersey; York,
Pennsylvania; or parish jails throughout Louisiana. The jail officials often try to identify the
leaders of the strike and turn the other detainees against them. In the case of a hunger strike at
Passaic County Jail in early September 2005, when 113 detainees stopped eating for 72 hours to
protest the horrible food, the jail put one of the leaders, a Haitian detainee, into the general
criminal population as punishment which put him at so much risk that the other detainees
stopped the hunger strike to protect him.
Oversight by the Government? Not in New Jersey.
For several years the NJCRDC has been linking the torture in the New Jersey jails to the
torture at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib prison. The conditions the detainees face is
18
surprisingly similar. Innocent people are criminalized, divorced from the protections of the legal
system, and terrorized by guards and jail officials who have impunity. These conditions are
linked to each other, whenever Constitutional protections are stripped away, then abuse and
torture are inevitable. NJCRDC documented many conditions of abusive conditions at Passaic
County Jail, including ongoing beatings and dog attacks. Throughout 2003 and 2004, there were
a series of attacks inside the jail and we were able to bring in increasing press coverage. This
culminated in November 2004 with two exposes, one in El Diario and the other on National
Public Radio.28
Attack dogs were used at Passaic County Jail to control and terrorize the detainees. Dogs
were regularly brought into the detainee units during ―shake downs,‖ which is when the jail
claims it is searching for drugs. In reality, however, the shake downs are used to keep the
detainees in a constant state of anxiety because they can happen at any time. The guards enter
the units with the dogs, screaming and swearing at the detainees and take all their personal items
and dump them onto the filthy floor. Since the food that is so inadequate and inedible, detainees
supplement their diets by purchasing food from the jail commissary. The presence of the dogs
inside the units, snarling and lunging at the detainees is something they will never forget. But
even more significant is when the guards used the dogs to actually physically attack the
detainees.
Rosendo Lewis, a Cuban Muslim detainee, told NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee what
happened to him when the jail turned the dogs on him
On May 10, 2004, I leaned out of my cell and asked a captain to speak to him but
accidentally called him Sergeant. ―You piece of s—t, who the f—k do you think you are
talking to?!‘ I said, ‗Sir, why do you talk to me like that ? I‘m just trying to ask a
question.‘ The Captain said, ‗You don‘t ask me nothing. Do you understand?‘ My reply
was ‗I have the right to speak.‘ He became very angry and walked away. About 5 to 10
minutes later he came back, this time through the front door of the dorm […]
19
accompanied by nine other officers and a German Shepard K-9 dog. All ten men, once I
was taken out of the dorm and into the hallway, commenced to hit me, slapping me in the
face, pulling me by the beard, punching and kicking me, then finally the dog was
unleashed and clamped down on my forearm for what seemed like an eternity. 29
The news reports of the dog attacks were so explosive that ICE was forced to respond.
ICE issued a memo to its field offices ordering them to refrain from contracting with jails that
use dogs around detainees. However, the memo stated the facilities would still be able to use the
dogs to sniff for drugs and other contraband, and to guard regular prisoners not held on
immigration charges. This seemed like a victory, but the limited scope of the memo made it
clear the dogs are still a threat. ICE responded to the worst of the reports, that dogs were being
used to physically attack inmates, but not to the overall chilling atmosphere that dogs are used to
terrorize the detainees. Since November 2004 we have received numerous letters and phone
calls from detainees who talked about hearing the dogs barking, having to walk past the dogs to
go to the medical unit, and dogs being used in units where they were being held. Detainees in
Monmouth County Jail sent multiple reports about being pinned in a small room with dogs
lunging at them in June, 2005. When the Sheriff was asked about this incident, he justified the
use of dogs saying they were being used to sniff drugs. More significantly, no charges have ever
been brought against any of the correction officers or jail officials involved in the multiple dog
attacks throughout the ICE detention system. The officers act with complete impunity under the
law.
That brings in the government oversight that is supposed to be taking place. Coming out
of the November 2004 press expose, the Office of Inspector General, the Congressional
oversight committee that reviews the Department of Homeland Security, announced they would
be investigating ten immigrant detainee facilities throughout the country. The two jails
mentioned in Zwerdling‘s NPR report, Hudson and Passaic County Jails, were included in the
20
audit. This is not the first time Passaic County Jail has come under government scrutiny. Three
previous OIG reports had mentioned the problems inside the Jail, but the conditions had not
changed. The OIG made recommendations to Congress about how immigrant detentions could
be better handled, but that did not result in changes on the local level. Subhash Katel, an
organizer for Families for Freedom, an anti-detention group based in Brooklyn, pointed out that
the OIG published hard hitting audits because of, ―rallies, hunger strikes and public outcry forced
the administration to confess that they had abused their powers.‖30 This community pressure
combined with the sympathetic ear of the OIG head, Glenn Fine, who had a background in labor
and employment relations, made NJCRDC hopeful that the new audit might force through some
changes, such as a termination of the ICE contract at Passaic.31
However, President Bush refused to reappoint Fine in December 2004, and instead put in
place Richard Skinner, who had a background in FEMA and has now been put in charge of
overseeing corruption in Katrina contracts. If he approaches the Katrina contracts with the same
approach as he has brought to the ICE audit, then the people of New Orleans can expect very
little. Initially, the auditors postponed their arrival to New Jersey on five different occasions, and
when they did finally appear it was in a cloud of hostility. NJCRDC was concerned about the
number of detainees who were being transferred out of Passaic County Jail in the period leading
up to the audit and sought support from the OIG to protect the witnesses. We had done a lot of
work in collecting testimony from the detainees about the jail conditions and preparing them for
the interviews, only to watch some of our most vocal detainees leaders be transferred out of state,
out of contact with their families and attorneys. The OIG refused to respond to the transfer issue
and has repeatedly refused our requests to bring in witnesses during the interviews for detainees
who do not have attorneys. In an even more bizarre twist of events, the Sheriff at Passaic County
21
Jail, Jerry Speziale, threw out the OIG auditors. Passaic County spokesman Bill Maer protested
the audit on the grounds that, ―There‘s no due process in this investigation, they just run off half-
cocked.‖32 Flavia Alaya, a member of NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee, argued in response
that the real showdown is still to come, not between the jail and the OIG, but ―between both of
them and the people‘s democratic determination to get at the truth.‖33
The detainees at Passaic County Jail, working closely with NJ Civil Rights Defense
Committee, took matters into their own hands and issued a powerful petition on December 17,
2005, demanding an end to the contract. (See Appendix 1) It was the first time the three separate
units had ever issued a joint statement. This was not a simple task, since first the members of the
unit had to agree on the petition and then coordinate with each other. NJ Civil Rights Defense
Committee was instrumental in coordinating between the various units and in strategizing with
the detainees. NJCRDC and the detainees had a discussion over collect phone calls and decided
that we should be united in our demand to terminate the contract. A few days after the petition
was released, the Sheriff announced he was terminating the contract with ICE. This tremendous
victory came after three long years of exposing the brutality and torture inside Passaic County
Jail. As recently as December 13, 2005, a detainee had been pepper sprayed and beaten while
handcuffed. Just when it seemed no matter how hard we fought Passaic County Jail would
continue the violence with impunity the contract was over. ICE began to quickly deport
immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, but the detainees left behind were excited about
their victory and wanted to push ICE further.
The Next Step in the War at Home
22
The detainees at Passaic County Jail have rejected the rhetoric that they are criminals.
They have demanded their dignity as innocent human beings who are not illegal and do not
deserve to be in jail. They will not be silenced by repression, but instead continue to raise their
voices for justice. People who seek to silence immigrants with violence cannot stand up to this
type of pressure, as witnessed by Passaic County spokesperson Bill Maer‘s statement that, ―we
have 2,000 other inmates in the jail, none of whom send out press releases.‖35 Two weeks after
the first petition, one unit of remaining detainees issued a statement demanding their release.
This went far beyond a call for the termination of the contract but instead challenged the very
basis of their detentions as illegal. (See Appendix 2)
The detainees have taken the lead in The War at Home, now when will the American
public rise up in response to the outrages taking place in our own communities? When will we
reject the torture that is not just in Afghanistan and Camp X-ray, but also right here in our own
county jails? New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee hopes that we can build community
awareness and action before all of our civil rights are stripped away. The OIG promised to issue
a finding of it‘s detention facilities investigation by the beginning of February 2006 but has not
only not produced a report but has repeatedly canceled meetings with immigrant rights groups.
Possibly they believe with the termination of the Passaic contract the whole issue of abuses
inside detention centers can be swept under the rug. The OIG has failed both Congress and the
public as a oversight agency. In the mean time dozens of detainees remain inside Passaic County
Jail months after the contract was terminated because ICE has no other facilities to move them
to. Here in New Jersey, we believe the solution to the detention crisis is for informed citizens to
demand a response from the government. The only possibility for maintaining democracy and
rejecting the apartheid legal structure is to extend citizenship rights to all immigrants in this
23
country. We have shown that coalitions between detainees and community organizations, unity
between immigrant and native born, can be a powerful catalyst for change. But our one victory
against the crimes conducted against immigrant detainees at Passaic County Jail does not turn the
tide of the government attack on immigrants. We have taken only the first step in building a
mass movement that will demand civil rights for all.
2
Hughes, Langston, Let America be America Again: And Other Poems (New York: Vintage, 2004).
3
Fifth Amendment - No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when
in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice
put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use,
without just compensation. Sixth Amendment - In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a
speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed,
which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in
his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense. Fourteenth Amendment, Section One - All persons
born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
4
Foner, Eric and John A. Garrety. The Reader‘s Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Company;
Grover, Kathyrn. The Fugitive‘s Gilbralter: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Amherst (University of Massachusetts Press) 2001.
5
For more information on NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee see http://www.nj-civilrights.org. Alaya, Flavia.
―America‘s Apartheid Detention Program‖ Counterpunch, August 16, 2003..
6
Solomon, Alisa ―Detainees Equal Dollars: The Rise in Immigrant Incarcerations drives a prison boom‖ Village
Voice, August 14-20, 2002.
7
Libal, Bob ―Intelligence Bill Signals Boom for Immigrant Incarceration Industry‘ Z-Net. February 20, 2005.
8
Gohlke, Josh. ―Doubly Trying Time for Muslim Citizens: Even Sikhs Feel Backlash,‖ The Bergen Record,
September 15, 2001, p. A15. Editorial, ―A Nasty Backlash; Arab-Americans Unfairly Treated,‖ The Bergen Record,
September 15, 2001, p. A19. Kovaleski, Serge F. and Frederick Kunkle, "Northern New Jersey Draws Probers' Eye:
Many in Area Feel Wrongly Targeted," The Washington Post, September 18, 2001, p. A6.
9
‗We Are Not The Enemy‘: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim After
September 11‖, Human Rights Report Volume 14, No. 6 (G). November 2002
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Bernstein, Nina ―Lawyers Sue Over Tapes with Detainees‖ The New York Times, July 2, 2004.
14
―US Threatens Mass Expulsions‖ BBC News World Edition, June 10, 2003.
15
―ACLU Calls Immigrant Registration Program Pretext for Mass Detention‖ Press Release from ACLU, December
19, 2002.
16
Buffalo Times, March 7, 2003
17
―Plattsburgh Refugee Shelter In Fight with County‖ National Public Radio, April 9, 2003; ―Plattsburgh Refugee
Shelter Closes Doors‖ National Public Radio, April 14, 2003.
18
―Hundreds of Pakistanis Try to Flee to Canada as New Registration Deadline Looms‖ Democracy Now,
Wednesday, March 19, 2003.
19
Soleimany, Zubrin. ―As INS Deadline Approaches, Pakistanis Flee for Canada‖ Gotham Gazette, February, 2003.
24
20
;Washington, Michael Powell. ―An Exodus Grows in Brooklyn: 9/11 Still Rippling Through Pakistani
Neighborhood‖. Washington Post, May 28, 2003.
21
―CCR Decries Security Policies‘ Impact on Refugees‖ Press Release from Canadian Council for Refugees, April
28, 2004.
22
―Safe Third Country Agreement Comes into Force Today‖ Press Release from Citizenship and Immigration
Canada, Ottawa, November 29, 2004.
23
Human Rights Watch, ―Locked Away: Immigrant Detainees in U.S. Jails,‖ September 1998; Statistics from
Immigration and Naturalization Service Statistical Yearbook
24
Correspondence between Hemnauth Mohabir and the NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee.
25
Interview with Jerry Speziale on NBC Channel 4 Nightly News, January 30, 2006.
26
Keller, Karen. ―Protest outside, 3 arrests inside jail.‖ The Herald News. January 9, 2006.
27
Correspondence between Detainee and NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee.
28
Sanchis, Eva ―Use of Dogs in Passaic jail raises alarm‖ El Diario/La Prensa. November 19, 2004; Sanchis, Eva
―Dogs Torture Detainees in Prison in New Jersey‖ El Diario/La Prensa, November 18, 2004; Zwerdling, Daneil
―Immigrant Detainees Tell of Attack Dogs and Abuse‖ National Public Radio, November 19, 2004. Zwerdling,
Daniel ―U.S. Detainee Abuse Cases Fall Through the Cracks‖ National Public Radio, November 18, 2004.
29
Correspondence between Rosendo Lewis and NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee..
30
Shahani, Aarti. ―Official Report Slams Detainee Abuse: FBI, Justice Dept. Faulted‖ War Times.
31
―The September 11 Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in Connection
with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks‖ Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General
Audit, June 2, 2003
32
Loder, Asjlyn. ―Sheriff boots feds out of jail: Calls investigators arrogant and inept.‖ The Herald News, August
17, 2005, p. A1
33
Alaya, Flavia. ―Showdown at Sheriff‘s Plaza: The Inspector General Struggles to Save His Audit, and Maybe, just
Maybe, his Soul‖ Counterpunch, October, 1, 2005; Loder, Asjylyn, ―Sheriff considers lifting ban on federal auditors
at jail.‖ The Herald News, August 26, 2005.
35
Parry, Wayne. ―Federal immigration detainees petition for release.‖ The Associated Press, January 6, 2006.
Appendix 1
December 17, 2005
All immigration detainees at Passaic County Jail are demonstrating to terminate the contract between Homeland
Security and Passaic County Sheriff because of the very poor and health risk conditions at this jail.
Enclosed all detainees signatures in this matter:
Ijaz Ahmed, Pakistan
David Antolos, Croatia
Sami Al-Shahin, Jordan
Lin Chang, China
Wong Heung Wah, China
Lin Liong, China
Mohamed Kiani, Pakistan
Khalid Kiani, Pakistan
Rahal Nabil, Egypt
O. Amunikodo, Nigeria
Noel A. Richards, Jamaica
Edward Ach, Ghana
Joseph Masimba, Guyana
Vasiliy Savchuk, Ukraine
Diallo Mamadou, France
Ghani Hamouche, Algeria
Bin Hui Lin, China
M. Castro, Columbia
Carlos Tuentes, Guatemala
25
Benancio, Honduras
Noe Garundo, Mexico
Felix Jiminez, Dominican republic
Jose Santana, Dominican Republic
Ramon Paulino, Dominican Republic
Freddy Pinza, Ecuador
Carlos Herrara, Columbia
Abdel Kawas, Jordan
Nazar Alidani
Kevin Scotto
Hua Li
Lin Hong
Donald Woods
Ali Asker Baser
Surez Suryan
Wilson Rodriguez
Elmer Martines
Pedros Ramos
Juan Ramos
Erick Morales
Weng Dong
Pedro Garcia
Rene Antoine
FrankVera
Jose Mejia
Daniels Clayton
David Johnson
Adolfo Vera
Albert Campbell
Sarbjeet Singh
Danilo Arthur
Garfield Guy
Celik Muhmat
Shanif Salan
Hugo Moreira
Rigoberto Figueroa
Tony Yang
L Westney
Chen Chao
Tarem Diwoh
Hejandro Galindo Medina
Edito Nunez
Rasheed Sanni
Rafael Felipe
Foo Minaya
Jose Hernandez
Michael Jackson
Gonzalez Zapata
Alieu Sesay
Jerome Bazumye
Erick Zelusie
Roddys Sanchez
Mohammed Ali Eya
Ahdonl Azia Diallo
Jose R. Cuellar
26
Mastan Singh
Santo Martin Canales
Alexander Aguilar
Jamie Ariste Molina
Lazo Rodriguez
Enrique Alvarado
Nolasco Nelson
Melvin Cortez
Tomas Ramirez
Isaac M. Canales
Feranado Sisera
Juan Carlos Alvarenga
Elias Albino
Harry Foster
Appendix 2
December 29, 2005
Petition Re: immediately release for immigration detainees held in the custody of Immigration Custom Enforcement
ICE)
We immigration detainees in the custody of ICE are demanding immediately (sic) release from punitive detention
here at Passaic County Jail and ICE and not to be transfer to another jail where immigration detainees will be
subjected to more and more punitive detention by Passaic County and other jail (ICE).
Noted (sic) that these immigration detainees are not criminals and don't have any criminal charges pending against
them, but the immigration detainees are treated as notorious criminals jail behind bars. For years, months without
legal representation the immigrant detainees constitutional rights are in limbo with ICE.
The immigration detainees are treated as criminals but don't have the same rights as criminals to attorneys and a jury
trial, and put in jail for months years. NOW where is our constitutional rights freedom for all USA (sic).
We immigration detainees are held in legal limbo with department of Homeland Secuirty.n detainees to deprived
(sic) them of there life and liberty and place the detainees behind bars without having a criminal charges against
them. It's unconstitutional to deprived (sic) human beings of there (sic) life and liberty and most of all there (sic)
families.
Many of the immigration detainees are in jail for the Immigration Custom Enforecement (ICE) for months and even
years and many detainees never gets a chance to reunite with there families, parents are being taken away from there
(sic) children. Where are the family ties laws. (sic) The immigration services just disregard there laws to make
money off of there (sic) poor detainees keeping them behind bars for many years.
Noted (sic) on Racketeering by the jail DHS
Immigration judges are deliberately extending detainees cases for many months to keep detainees in jail to profit off
of them. It's a big racketeering (sic) by the DHS and the contracted jail.
Signed by 35 Detainees from Unit 2G2 inside Passaic County Jail
Rasheed Sanni
Kawas Abdel
Mohammed Eyad Ali
Peter Ali
Stone Andrew
27
Rene Antoine
Chao Chen
Victor Diaz
Weng Qi Dong
Diego Dorced
Nuntes Edito
Pedro Garcia
Carlos Gonzalez
Garfield Guy
Samuel Hernandez
Lin Hong
Michael Jackson
David Johnson
Erick Morales
Alidani Nazar
Ronald Pennil
Paul Phillips
Juan Ramos
Ramon Rodriguez
Wilson Rodriguez
Kevin Scott
Claudio Saguay
Alieu Seday
Mastan Singh
Suraez Suryan
Vladimir Tapias
Roderick Thompson
Erick Villegas
Leroy Weslley
Tony Yang
Ernico Zaluoli
Works Cited
Editorial, ―A Nasty Backlash; Arab-Americans Unfairly Treated,‖ The Bergen Record,
September 15, 2001, p. A19.
Interview with Jerry Speziale on NBC Channel 4 Nightly News, January 30, 2006.
―US Threatens Mass Expulsions‖ BBC News World Edition, June 10, 2003.
Buffalo Times, March 7, 2003
―Plattsburgh Refugee Shelter In Fight with County‖ National Public Radio, April 9, 2003
―Plattsburgh Refugee Shelter Closes Doors‖ National Public Radio, April 14, 2003.
Hundreds of Pakistanis Try to Flee to Canada as New Registration Deadline Looms‖ Democracy
Now, Wednesday, March 19, 2003.
Alaya, Flavia. ―Showdown at Sheriff‘s Plaza: The Inspector General Struggles to Save His
Audit, and Maybe, just Maybe, his Soul‖ Counterpunch, October, 1, 2005
Alaya, Flavia. ―America‘s Apartheid Detention Program‖ Counterpunch, August 16, 2003.
American Civil Liberties Union, ―ACLU Calls Immigrant Registration Program Pretext for Mass
Detention‖ Press Release, December 19, 2002.
Bernstein, Nina ―Lawyers Sue Over Tapes with Detainees‖ The New York Times, July 2, 2004.
28
Candian Council for Refugees, ―CCR Decries Security Policies‘ Impact on Refugees‖ Press
Release, April 28, 2004.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada―Safe Third Country Agreement Comes into Force Today‖
Press Release, November 29, 2004.
Human Rights Watch, ―Locked Away: Immigrant Detainees in U.S. Jails,‖ September 1998;
Statistics from Immigration and Naturalization Service Statistical Yearbook
Correspondence between Hemnauth Mohabir and the NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee.
Correspondence between Rosendo Lewis and NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee..
Correspondence between Anonymous Detainee and NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee.
Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General Audit, ―The September 11
Detainees: A Review of the Treatment of Aliens Held on Immigration Charges in
Connection with the Investigation of the September 11 Attacks‖, June 2, 2003
Gohlke, Josh. ―Doubly Trying Time for Muslim Citizens: Even Sikhs Feel Backlash,‖ The
Bergen Record, September 15, 2001, p. A15.
Human Rights Warch, ‗We Are Not The Enemy‘: Hate Crimes Against Arabs, Muslims, and
Those Perceived to be Arab or Muslim After September 11‖, Report Volume 14, No. 6
(G). November 2002
Keller, Karen. ―Protest outside, 3 arrests inside jail.‖ The Herald News. January 9, 2006.
Kovaleski, Serge F. and Frederick Kunkle, "Northern New Jersey Draws Probers' Eye: Many in
Area Feel Wrongly Targeted," The Washington Post, September 18, 2001, p. A6.
Libal, Bob ―Intelligence Bill Signals Boom for Immigrant Incarceration Industry‘ Z-Net.
February 20, 2005.
Loder, Asjlyn. ―Sheriff boots feds out of jail: Calls investigators arrogant and inept.‖ The Herald
News, August 17, 2005, p. A1
Loder, Asjylyn, ―Sheriff considers lifting ban on federal auditors at jail.‖ The Herald News,
August 26, 2005.
Parry, Wayne. ―Federal immigration detainees petition for release.‖ The Associated Press,
January 6, 2006.
Sanchis, Eva ―Use of Dogs in Passaic jail raises alarm‖ El Diario/La Prensa. November 19,
2004
Sanchis, Eva ―Dogs Torture Detainees in Prison in New Jersey‖ El Diario/La Prensa, November
18, 2004;
Soleimany, Zubrin. ―As INS Deadline Approaches, Pakistanis Flee for Canada‖ Gotham
Gazette, February, 2003.
Shahani, Aarti. ―Official Report Slams Detainee Abuse: FBI, Justice Dept. Faulted‖ War Times.
Solomon, Alisa ―Detainees Equal Dollars: The Rise in Immigrant Incarcerations drives a prison
boom‖ Village Voice, August 14-20, 2002
Washington, Michael Powell. ―An Exodus Grows in Brooklyn: 9/11 Still Rippling Through
Pakistani Neighborhood‖. Washington Post, May 28, 2003.
Zwerdling, Daniel ―Immigrant Detainees Tell of Attack Dogs and Abuse‖ National Public
Radio, November 19, 2004.
Zwerdling, Daniel ―U.S. Detainee Abuse Cases Fall Through the Cracks‖ National Public Radio,
November 18, 2004.
29