Victory
for Immigrant Hunger Strikers: Lawsuit Challenges Slave Wages at Private Jail
By
Mike Ludwig, Truthout
September 22, 2017 |
| NWDC protest. Photo: Thomas Soerenes/The News Tribune/AP |
For
three years now, incarcerated immigrants have staged hunger strikes and work
stoppages to protest conditions at the Northwest Detention Center, an
immigration jail in Tacoma, Washington, run by a private prison company that
pays detainees as little as $1 a day to work in the jail.
"This
week folks were offered chips or a soup for several nights of waxing the
floors, so not even $1 [per] day," one person incarcerated in the jail
recently reported to NWDC Resistance, an immigrant-led group fighting to end
the deportation and detention of immigrants.
Five
hunger strikes have been held so far this year, with participants and
whistleblowers facing solitary confinement, threats of forced feeding and other
forms of retaliation from prison authorities, according to NWDC Resistance.
Their
efforts paid off on Wednesday when Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson
announced a lawsuit against GEO Group, a massive private prison firm that runs
the Northwest Detention Center under a federal contract.[…]
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the full article:
For
earlier coverage of the Northwest Detention Center, go to:
Trump
Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees
By
Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Somini Sengupta, New York Times
September 18, 2017
WASHINGTON
— Trump administration officials, under pressure from the White House to
provide a rationale for reducing the number of refugees allowed into the United
States next year, rejected a study by the Department of Health and Human
Services that found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government
revenues over the past decade than they cost.
 |
| Photo: James Lawler Duggan/Reuters |
The
draft report, which was obtained by The New York Times, contradicts a central
argument made by advocates of deep cuts in refugee totals as President Trump
faces an Oct. 1 deadline to decide on an allowable number. The issue has
sparked intense debate within his administration as opponents of the program,
led by Mr. Trump’s chief policy adviser, Stephen Miller, assert that continuing
to welcome refugees is too costly and raises concerns about terrorism.[…]
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the full article:
World
Citizenship Is More Popular Than You Might Think
A
poll of more than 20,000 people in 18 countries, conducted by GlobeScan for the
BBC World Service from December 2015 through April 2016, found that 51 percent
of respondents saw themselves more as global citizens than as citizens of their
own countries.
By
Lawrence Wittner, History News Network
September 17, 2017
Has
nationalism captured the hearts and minds of the world’s people?
It
certainly seems to have emerged as a powerful force in recent years. Trumpeting
their alleged national superiority and hatred of foreigners, political parties
on the far right have made their biggest political advances since the 1930s.
After the far right’s startling success, in June 2016, in getting a majority of
British voters to endorse Brexit―British withdrawal from the European Union
(EU)―even mainstream conservative parties began to adopt a chauvinist approach.
Using her Conservative Party conference to rally support for leaving the EU,
British Prime Minister Theresa May declared contemptuously: “If you believe you
are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.”[…]
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the full article:
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