CPTnet
18 July 2007
 BORDERLANDS: Everybody does not love Raymondville

by Haven Whiteside

[Note: People wishing to follow the progress of Christian Peacemaker Team's
Borderland's Witness drive may do so at
http://cptborderlandswitness.blogspot.com/]

Everybody does not love Raymondville, a federal detention facility forty
miles north of the Mexican border, near Brownsville, Texas. Run by
Management Training Corporation (MTC) of Utah, under contract with the
Department of Homeland Security, it holds persons suspected of immigration
violations of various kinds. Currently 2000 prisoners are awaiting
processing there. The U.S. authorities have brought from all over the
United States, so most of them are far away from family or any other
support.

According to attorney Jodi Goodwin, who works with these immigrants,
processing can take from weeks to many months. The only inmates to receive
legal advice are those with money to hire a private attorney, or lucky
enough to find one pro bono.

Jay Johnson Castro, a border activist from Del Rio, Texas, calls
Raymondville a "concentration camp." Elizabeth Garcia (CPT-Brownsville) and
others have nicknamed it "RITMO," because they see it functioning in ways
similar to the GITMO facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where prisoners from
the U.S. "War on Terror" are held without due process and mistreated.

Some refer to Raymondville as "Tent City", because it consists of ten huge
tents of Kevlar-like material, holding 200 people each. In the middle of
each are the toilets, with no privacy. Food is inadequate and does not meet
the nutritional needs of people from the many different countries and
cultures there. Surrounding the facility are two 14-foot chain-link fences,
with double coils of razor wire on top and in between.

Most of these prisoners are only accused of various immigration violations
and are not required under the law to stay in detentions while being
processed.

On Sunday morning, after Mass and breakfast at San Felipe de Jesus in
Brownsville, the CPT Borderlands Witness team headed to Raymondville for a
vigil. We parked in the lot out front and got out our banner, saying "Close
RITMO Now." To our surprise, we found no signs restricting our presence. But
before long, two guards driving the perimeter road stopped and told us to go
back. While walking towards the front, were able to show our banner to some
young men in the yard inside. They gave us thumbs-up signs. The guards
walked respectfully behind us, just making sure we kept going until we
reached the front corner of the administrative building.

There they said we could hold our prayer vigil on the sidewalk, which we
proceeded to do for the next half hour. Later, apparently on word from
above, an officer directed us to the parking lot, where we continued our
vigil. The only audience was the guards. When invited, they declined to join
us, but some appeared to be listening.

As the hour drew to an end, a county official came out with him and said the
sheriff was on his way. Not sure of the implications, but apparently free to
go, we packed up our banner, got in the car, and headed down the road before
noontime, on a quiet Texas Sunday.