04.17.07
Toddlers Are Not Terrorists
TDH had the story on Sunday’s protest, Protesters still defiant against T. Don Hutto.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Jose Orta, founding member of the Taylor League of United Latin American Citizens Council, said. “Just by being here we are making a difference. It’s the little things that we can see happening. We’re not going to move a mountain overnight. We’ll take our victories as we get them.”
[…]
“We’re here because we think this violates everything America stands for,” Jay Johnson-Castro of Del Rio said. “There is no longer this feeling of ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ in this country. The government baits immigrants with a promise of liberty and then they profit off of their incarceration.
“This isn’t about keeping immigrants out of the country because it would be a lot cheaper to send them back home, not incarcerate them.”
According to the lease agreement between Williamson County and Corrections Corporation of America, which operates the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, the county agrees to subcontract all aspects of the facility’s operations to CCA. In exchange, CCA receives payment of about $2.8 million from ICE to house up to 512 inmates. The company pays the county an administrative fee of $1 per day per inmate held at the facility.