Friday, November 6, 2015

Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Friday, November 6, 2015

Democracy Now! Daily Digest: A Daily Independent Global News Hour with Amy Goodman & Juan González for Friday, November 6, 2015
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Full Text of TPP Trade Deal Revealed—and Critics Say It's Even Worse Than They Thought
The details are out on the the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and critics say the trade deal is worse than they feared. The TPP’s full text was released Thursday, weeks after the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations—a group representing 40 percent of the world’s economy—reached an agreement. Activists around the world have opposed the TPP, warning it will benefit corporations at the expense of health, the environment, free speech and labor rights. Congress now has 90 days to review the TPP before President Obama can ask for an up-or-down vote. We are joined by Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and a leading TPP critic.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: One of the biggest and most secretive trade deals in history has finally been revealed in full—and critics say it’s even worse than they thought. On Thursday, the complete text of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership was released after years of closely guarded talks. The TPP was agreed to last month between the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. The group represents 40 percent of the world’s economy. It will set common standards in areas including employment, food safety, the Internet, corporate governance and intellectual property. It also establishes new tribunals under which corporations can sue governments for laws that affect their profits. The legal mechanism is called the investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. Activists around the world have opposed the TPP, warning it will benefit corporations at the expense of public health, the environment, free speech and labor rights.
AMY GOODMAN: With the fine print now disclosed, the TPP’s opponents say their worst fears have been confirmed. In a statement, Public Citizen said, quote, "The text shows that the TPP would offshore more American jobs, lower our wages, flood us with unsafe imported food and expose our laws to attack in foreign tribunals."
On Thursday, the White House notified Congress it intends to ratify the TPP, starting a 90-day review period before President Obama can seek final approval. The Senate has granted Obama the authority to fast-track the TPP and present it to Congress for a yes-or-no vote with no amendments allowed. Lawmakers will face heavy lobbying from wealthy TPP backers, but grassroots opposition could play a role, too. In one sign that public opinion could be influencing the political class, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came out against the TPP last month. It was a major reversal for Clinton, who helped push the TPP during her time as secretary of state. Clinton’s rival candidate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has long opposed the TPP.
For more, we’re joined by Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, leading TPP critic.
Welcome to Democracy Now! So the TPP is out. What’s in the fine print? Lori, what surprised you most? What are you most concerned about?
LORI WALLACH: Well, it was worse than we expected, and we knew quite a bit, based on leaks and on admissions from negotiators, mainly from other countries. There are a couple of places where I was shocked to see that actually the TPP actually rolls back what was extremely modest progress, that congressional Democrats had forced on President Bush for his last set of agreements—three specific things.
One, in the area of access to affordable medicines, the TPP’s rules on patents, actually both for developing countries but also for us, would roll back that initial reform and make medicine more expensive in pretty dramatic ways.
Number two, the investor-state dispute resolution system is actually expanded out, in ways we should discuss, so that more kinds of laws can be attacked, and many more companies will be able to attack U.S. laws.
And then the third thing that was kind of a shocker is there is an expansion of the kind of attacks you can have on food safety, on imported food safety, which is really serious, because Malaysia and Vietnam, two of the TPP countries, are amongst the major importers of seafood and shrimp—a lot of their stuff gets stopped now for being unsafe—but this agreement would give them new rights to basically attack our stopping their stuff for food safety purposes and flood us with unsafe imports.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lori, on that food safety issue, what’s the potential effect on the United States, which obviously has a long-term and pretty well-developed food safety system?
LORI WALLACH: Well, I think it’s very telling that yesterday the agribusiness industry was the only major industry that was extremely enthusiastic when the text came out. And they said, "Wow, we got these great ways to stop these food safety attacks on our imports!" Well, they’re thinking of trying to jam our GMO foods into other countries. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, which means the same rules could mean that imports, particularly of—I don’t know how to put this, because people are probably having breakfast, but in Vietnam particularly, there’s a huge issue of farmed shrimp being farmed in pools that, among other things, are fertilized with human poop—can’t put it another way—and then lots of antibiotics are poured into the ponds before the harvest to deal with the diseases that come from the human waste. So we’ve got some really unsafe products. Right now we only inspect a small percentage. But we over-inspect for countries like Vietnam because we know there are big problems. One of the new rules I was surprised to see is you can challenge the inspection, both the way you sample, how you decide to pick out a particular country because they have problems, but also you have limits on how you can do testing, how long you can hold the product. I mean, practically, what does it mean? The TPP could mean poisonous food, that you can’t label from what country it comes from, on your kids’ plates. It could mean major public health issues.
AMY GOODMAN: WhiteHouse.gov has a list of people and organizations who support the TPP. One example is the World Wildlife Fund, which is quoted as saying, "No major trade agreement before this one has gone so far to address growing pressures on natural resources like overexploited fish, wildlife and forests." Another supporter is the National Small Business Association, which is quoted as saying, "The TPP appears to be a positive step for small firms, particularly the inclusion of a chapter dedicated solely to small- and medium-sized enterprises." And the Council on Foreign Relations is quoted as saying, "The TPP deal has the potential to reshape an important part of the U.S. economy, strengthen American diplomacy, and launch a new generation of international economic cooperation." What say you, Lori Wallach?
LORI WALLACH: Well, World Wildlife Fund is out there pretty much by themselves, with a couple of other conservation groups. The big news yesterday was the NRDC, one of the country’s biggest environmental groups—and an environmental group that supported NAFTA—came out against TPP, joining the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, etc., etc. There are some conservation groups that look at animal issues, who aren’t as familiar with trade agreements, who the White House has persuaded that this one provision about shark finning or this provision that says, "Let’s be nice to animals," in the TPP is good for their agenda. The problem is, all of those kinds of policies that a country might adopt can then be attacked under the investor-state system, and this is an agreement that, for advocates like 350.org who are fighting climate change, as is the Sierra Club and the others, is catastrophic in that it would require us—it would basically reverse our current policies that allow us to stop the export of natural gas, liquid natural gas, so that we would basically be exporting a lot of carbon-based fuels against a sustainable, noncarbon future economy, and we would lose a lot of the energy and other policy tools we need to combat the climate crisis. So if you’re working just on a particular species, you may think—you may have been sold this is a great deal, and you don’t know the net effect.
The vast majority of environmental groups are leading the campaign against the TPP, because, just as an example, one of the other shocking things in the agreement is George Bush’s trade agreements—they were bad. They had agreements enforcing seven specific multilateral environmental agreements, so that actually those were the environmental standards that were to be enforced by all of the countries. They had to adopt and maintain and enforce those standards in their laws. Here is this new agreement, and it wipes out six of the seven agreements. There’s only one agreement that’s enforceable anymore. So there are no standards in the environmental standards part of the standards in the chapter on environment.
So, with these groups on the foreign policy front, this is—you have sort of expected. The Council on Foreign Relations is a cheerleader for all of these agreements. They’re going to make this argument that somehow this will help our—this will help us contain China. It’s sort of a strange argument. It’s unclear what the good strategy for that is. That’s the usual argument you hear, when actually the argument about jobs fails. The bottom line with TPP, which we knew before, is it will make it easier to offshore American jobs, and it will push down our wages by putting Americans into competition with folks in Vietnam who make less than 65 cents an hour. We knew that before. Now we know all this additional bad stuff.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Lori, I wanted to ask you—some groups came out against the agreement that you don’t usually associate with trade deals, like Doctors Without Borders and Human Rights Watch. Could you talk about their concerns?
LORI WALLACH: Yes. So, Doctors Without Borders, which basically, as everyone knows, is a major humanitarian group, is extremely concerned about what would happen with medicine prices. And this gets to the language I had mentioned, where I was shocked to see rollbacks of previous reforms that the Bush administration had made. So Big Pharma got a lot of goodies in this agreement. In a "free trade" agreement, we see new monopoly protections for Big Pharma. And so, Doctors Without Borders is basically pointing out that in a whole smorgasbord of policies, where Big Pharma was trying to use the TPP, the "good name of free trade," to put into place a bunch of new protections and privileges to raise medicine prices, they got their way. And the two biggest ones are—which is shocking rollbacks from the old U.S. trade standard, which was bad—is all the developing countries in TPP, including countries that are really poor, like Vietnam, ultimately have to have the same extreme patent standards, extreme exclusivities, that will just price people out of medicines. I mean, it will translate to people dying.
AMY GOODMAN: Lori, let’s go to the MSF, the Doctors Without Borders video. This is a part of it.
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS VIDEO: The TPP is slated to become the most harmful trade agreement ever for access to medicines. The TPP could impose new rules that will extend monopoly protection for medicines, keeping prices sky high for longer and blocking generic drugs from entering the market. For example, one rule would allow patents to be extended beyond 20 years. This means that patients will have to wait longer for access to affordable medicines. And this wait is potentially indefinite, because another TPP rule would allow new 20-year patents to be granted for modifications of existing drugs, for a new dosage, for new formulations, even when there is no real improvement in efficacy for patients, so people must wait longer for affordable, generic medicines to become available. The TPP would also require surgical methods to be patentable—for example, how a doctor operates on a patient.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s what Doctors Without Borders said. This is U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on the impact of the TPP on research and access to life-saving drugs.
MICHAEL FROMAN: On biologics, as you know, this is one of the most challenging issues in the negotiation. We have worked cooperatively with all of our TPP parties—partners to secure a strong and balanced outcome, that both incentivizes the development of these new life-saving drugs while ensuring access to these pioneering medicines and their availability. And this is the first trade agreement in history to ensure a minimum period of protection for biologics. And doing so will help set a regional model and will create an environment in which, through comparable treatment, there will be an effective period of protection to encourage both innovation and access.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the U.S. trade representative, Michael Froman. Lori Wallach, your comment on both clips?
LORI WALLACH: Well, now we’ve seen the text. The American public can look at it. And Doctors Without Borders is right. And the U.S. trade representative is trying to defend an indefensible industry position that the administration has put into this agreement. I mean, the bottom line is, most of the countries involved have no exclusivity for those kinds of cutting-edge drugs, which are a lot of the cutting-edge cancer cures—biologics—and now they will have five years, at a minimum. The industry says they got eight years. There will be enormous pressure to have more monopolies. And just think about the theory of this: a "free trade" agreement that stops competition. It stops the competition of generics that bring down prices. That is actually what’s in the text, whatever the U.S. officials are saying. We can read it now.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Lori, where do we go from here? Obviously, there will soon be a 90-day period for Congress to vote on the fast-tracking of this bill. The protests are already being called for in Washington, D.C. And the president, whose presidency was largely crippled by the Republicans in Congress for the past seven years, will now depend on the Republican majority to get the votes necessary to pass this.
LORI WALLACH: So yesterday the president gave official notice of intent to enter the agreement. That starts the first 90-day clock. So, ostensibly, by the first week of February, the TPP could be signed.
Then the next question, though, and the most important thing for all of us to think about, is it only becomes reality if Congress approves it. Now, we are behind the eight ball because we’ve got fast track, so no amendments, etc. However, by five votes only did fast track pass. That means if five members of Congress, looking at that text and knowing it’s not what they were promised—that it would offshore more American jobs, it would push down our wages, it would flood us with unsafe food and raise medicine prices—if we have five members in the House of Representatives who say, "Oh, no, that is not what I signed up for," that’s the end of TPP. So our mission, basically, is knowing there will be a huge push for a vote early in the spring and that this very day the White House has fanned out across the country with Cabinet secretaries. They’re up on the Hill trying to break arms, get members of Congress to say, "Oh, I’ll be for this thing." We need to do the same thing on behalf of the public, on behalf of the jobs, wages, environment, food safety that our families rely on. And we can get our members of Congress—we only need to move five—to vote no. That’s the end of the TPP.
And we can do this, and we have brothers and sisters in the other TPP countries who are doing the same thing. Together, our goose is not cooked. We can still make sure the TPP bad future is not ours. But we’re going to have to talk to our members of Congress, and we need to start now. And next week is a congressional recess. So members of Congress will be back in the district. Look on their websites. They frequently have open houses. You can just go. They work for you. And if there isn’t an open house, you call and make an appointment. It is really simple. Go to TradeWatch.org, has all the materials, information from way-into-the-weeds analysis. There is an analysis team that has put together, by chapter by chapter, yesterday, the bullets you need to know on each of these details, but also how to do a congressional meeting. Grab a couple of your friends and your family, go tell your member of Congress you need that commitment. We can stop this.
AMY GOODMAN: Lori Wallach, I want to thank you for being with us, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, author of The Rise and Fall of Fast Track Trade Authority.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, immigration in this country. Stay with us. ... Read More →

The End of Family Detention? PA Immigration Jail Could Be Forced to Stop Locking Up Parents & Kids
The state of Pennsylvania has taken what could be the first step to close a controversial family detention center that has housed thousands of parents with their children who are seeking U.S. asylum. State officials have told the Berks County Residential Center that it won’t renew its 15-year-old license because it was only authorized as a child care facility, not a detention site for families. The Berks jail is a part of the Obama administration’s "detention as deterrence" policy that locks up asylum seekers in what critics call "deportation mills." We get a report from Democracy Now! criminal justice correspondent Renée Feltz, who went inside the Berks County facility.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to an update on immigrant children and their parents who are seeking asylum in the U.S., many of them fleeing some of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere—El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Democracy Now! has reported on how the Obama administration uses a "detention as deterrence" policy that locks up these asylum seekers in what critics call "deportation mills." Two of the most controversial detention centers opened last year in the Texas towns of Dilley and Karnes. They are run by private prison companies, and together they can hold more than 2,500 women and children.
AMY GOODMAN: Efforts to close these facilities have focused in part on a 1999 settlement that outlines federal standards for detaining migrants and bans the placement of children in secure faculties. Now, a lesser-known family detention center in Pennsylvania may soon have to shut down because the state refuses to renew its license. It’s called the Berks County Residential Center, and it’s been operating under the license for 15 years. But there now may be a first step toward closing its doors. Democracy Now! correspondent Renée Feltz filed this report.
RENÉE FELTZ: It was 3:00 in the morning at the family detention center in Berks County, Pennsylvania, when a Guatemalan migrant named Ana woke up to the news that her request for asylum had been denied and she was being deported. "They said they had an order," she says. "They did it quickly, very quickly." Ana and her 12-year-old daughter had spent a year in detention while seeking asylum from life-threatening attacks. Because that asylum claim was still winding its way through the courts when they were deported in June, a judge ordered their return. The two were sent back to the Berks detention center. This time they were released within hours. The next day, Ana joined a protest directly across from the facility, where she spoke through a translator.
ANA: [translated] We were detained at this detention center for a year, and our rights were violated, both our human rights and also the rights of my daughter.
RENÉE FELTZ: Standing next to Ana was her 12-year-old daughter, Yubitza. Tears ran down her cheeks as demonstrators chanted, "You are not alone," to those still detained across the street. After a few minutes, the girl grabbed the bullhorn. "All together, we can do it," she says. "We can shut this place down." That was July. Now, Yubitza’s demand has been echoed by the state of Pennsylvania. At the end of October, the state’s secretary of human services, Ted Dallas, announced in a letter to the head of the center that he would not renew its license to operate if it continues to hold families instead of children.
JENNIFER LEE: I really do think it’s a statement saying, "We can’t license a family detention facility," which basically means you can’t have a family detention facility here in Pennsylvania.
RENÉE FELTZ: Jennifer Lee is a professor with Temple University Law School’s Sheller Center for Social Justice. She and her students work with a coalition to shut down Berks.
JENNIFER LEE: Essentially, the Berks facility has a child residential facility license under state law, but it doesn’t meet any of the requirements for a child residential facility. And the biggest example of that is that the child residential facility license is really only a license for a facility that holds children, not a facility that holds children with adults.
RENÉE FELTZ: The Berks detention center is housed in a former nursing home that holds about 95 people. It’s the only immigration facility that holds fathers as well as mothers, who have come to the United States with their children. Immigration attorney Carol Anne Donohoe says her clients there have described how kids are housed with their parents in rooms of six, along with unrelated adults.
CAROL ANNE DONOHOE: You know, I asked a father, because, you know, a sweet little eight-year-old girl, you know, quiet and shy. And I asked him, you know, "Who are you in the room with?" And he said that there are—there were, at that time, two other fathers and, according to what he said, a 14-year-old boy and another nine-year-old girl.
RENÉE FELTZ: Unlike the private family detention centers in Texas, Berks County operates this facility in Pennsylvania under a contract with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The agreement requires rooms to contain cribs, playpens and rocking chairs on an as-needed basis for residents.
BRIDGET CAMBRIA: We’ve represented clients—or children, sorry—as young as nine days old, all the way to 17 years old.
RENÉE FELTZ: Bridget Cambria is another immigration lawyer with clients at Berks.
BRIDGET CAMBRIA: I can talk to you about our infant client. She came to Berks—I believe she was 11 days old. She was detained at nine days. During that time, she went to the hospital one time. She was seen for one hour in a hospital as a newborn. And from that, she was put on a plane and taken to Berks, where she remained for about two weeks before she was freed. And when she was finally released, she was released at 3:00 in the morning, in the middle of the night.
RENÉE FELTZ: Cambria says cases like this drive home how the Berks detention center fails to comply with Pennsylvania law.
BRIDGET CAMBRIA: The child welfare laws are very clear. They do not want children detained under nine in secure facilities. They want to allege that Berks is not secure. It obviously is secure. You walk up, there are signs that says this is a secure property, right? It’s advertised.
RENÉE FELTZ: The limited freedom parents and children have at Berks is less visible to observers compared to the family detention centers ICE has in Texas, which are surrounded by barbed wire and high fences. In contrast, Berks has an outdoor recreation area that’s separated from a parking lot and a forest only by a row of plastic traffic cones. Activist Erika Almirón says that’s enough.
ERIKA ALMIRÓN: I know for a fact that the women told me that ICE had gone in and told them, if they were to leave the facility while we were there and join us, even though there’s no fence, if they were to cross—they put out these orange cones—if they were to cross over the orange cones, that they would be charged federally, and they would wind up in actual, actual prison. And so there was a lot of how—you know, it’s like a mental block. It’s like they put a big fear in the women of leaving. So you don’t need a fence anymore when you start talking like that.
RENÉE FELTZ: Almarón is executive director of the Philadelphia immigrant rights group Juntos. They’ve been working with detainees at Berks to monitor and improve conditions. Almarón says the push by advocates and lawyers for Pennsylvania to revoke Berks’ license has resulted in a partial victory. She welcomes the announcement the state may not renew Berks’ license when it expires in February, but she questions the delay.
ERIKA ALMIRÓN: I’m glad that this came out, because I think for months we have been saying that the license did not fit what they were doing on the inside. It’s really important to see it on paper and to finally be validated for all the things that we’ve been saying. I just think that partly also, as I’m reading this, right, as we see this as a huge victory, the center is still open. Berks is still operating. There are still children in there. And if it’s not licensed correctly now, there is nothing that Berks can do to fix it, to fix the license, so it can fit the license. So, what I don’t understand is: Why are we waiting until February?
RENÉE FELTZ: Meanwhile, immigration authorities say they’re reviewing the state’s correspondence to determine the next appropriate steps. In Berks County, Pennsylvania, I’m Renée Feltz for Democracy Now!
AMY GOODMAN: And Renée joins us now here in New York to talk more about her reporting. And congratulations, Renée, for just winning the Front Page Award for TV Special Reporting from the Newswomen’s Club of New York for reporting on the Obama administration’s mass detention of women and children from Central America in private prisons. And you can see those reports [Part 1 and Part 2] at democracynow.org.
But to this report, you just got back from Berks, and you interviewed a mother there. Talk about what you found.
RENÉE FELTZ: Yes. I was able to go inside the facility and speak with a young woman from Guatemala, who came here seeking asylum, escaping domestic violence and also extortion from gangs there, where she tried to work in the capital. Her nine-year-old daughter is also held there and has also faced harassment and came with her. Now, Myra is a person who’s come several times, and therefore, since she’s been deported previously, she’s not able to get released immediately right now under the way things are being handled.
So, what’s interesting in part about Myra, in addition to just her personal story, is that she was held in a facility down in Texas, the Karnes detention center. And then, because of new limits that ICE is trying to place on how long these women and children are held in the facilities, and they’re trying to keep it to maybe 20 or 30 days, she was not released after that time, but instead she was moved from the Texas facility to the Berks facility in Pennsylvania. So that was interesting to find out.
Now, one of the things I mention in the report is the characterization of this facility as a "secure facility." How free are people to roam? When I was done with my interview with Myra, she was able to get up and walk out of the room. It did seem kind of free, witnessing the facility inside. I didn’t see locks on the doors, for example. However, as I say in the report, the women do face punishment if they were to leave. And during the interview, Myra repeatedly would descend into sadness in her answers to me and appeared very tired and would slump over. And I asked her to confirm whether or not the counselors, as they call them in the facility, check on them at night. And she did say, yes, they come in about every 15 minutes and shine a flashlight to check on people. And I’m not sure if that’s why she was so tired. She seemed, you know, pretty stressed out about the whole experience.
I wanted to also mention, in terms of what’s next here, the role of the county commissioners. I mention in the report that it’s a facility run by Berks County in Pennsylvania in combination with ICE. And maybe we can play a clip here of Commissioner Mark Scott, who touted the benefits of this facility recently during a debate before the election.
COMMISSIONER MARK SCOTT: There are a number of benefits that accrue to the Berks County taxpayers by continuing the operation of that residential center. First of all, it makes productive use and brings in revenue from buildings that would otherwise be vacant, and vacant buildings deteriorate very quickly. So we get out of the costs of maintaining a vacant building or trying to preserve it intact. We get additional revenue, which is substantial. We create some local employment of roughly 70 employees who work there, who are Berks County residents. And we serve our country’s effort to—sometimes I think it’s halfhearted—to enforce the immigration laws so that we deal with legal immigration instead of illegal immigration.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Renée, your response to that clip? And also, you were able to talk to one of the women in the detention facility, but not film her. Could you talk about that, as well?
RENÉE FELTZ: That’s right. You know, Juan, as my role here at Democracy Now! in part is a criminal justice correspondent, I’ve been able to go on death row and film and interview in person with a prisoner. But this facility does not allow any filming or recording of any type of their detainees, and they say it’s for their own safety, but advocates have raised concerns about getting these women’s voices out to the public and, again, you know, the freedom that they have to express themselves. In terms of the commissioner, I know that advocates are disappointed that the county is not taking action. But it remains to be seen what’s going to happen there in the next steps. ... Read More →

Locked Up & Neglected After Fleeing Danger, Immigrant Women Detainees Launch Hunger Strike in Texas
Last week, 27 immigrant women detained at the for-profit T. Don Hutto facility in Austin began refusing meals, demanding an end to mistreatment and their immediate release. Most are asylum seekers from Central America, which has seen a surge in migrants fleeing violence and abuse. The detainees said they’ve faced threats and unjustified surveillance as they languish in custody without hope of freedom. Immigration officials have denied the hunger strike is even taking place. While exact figures are unknown, advocates say the hunger strike grew this week substantially, possibly into the hundreds. Hutto is run by the country’s largest private prison firm, Corrections Corporation of America. The hunger strike is the latest by immigrant detainees around the country, following three others in the past month. "Women are fleeing Central America and Mexico because they are in danger," says Cristina Parker, immigration projects coordinator for Grassroots Leadership. "We respond by putting them in a prison for profit that cuts corners, that serves bad food, that neglects people’s medical care and needs. This is the system that these women are exposing, and they’re doing so, so bravely."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A hunger strike by immigrant women at a Texas detention center has reportedly spread. Last week, 27 women confined at the for-profit T. Don Hutto facility in Austin began refusing meals, demanding an end to mistreatment and their immediate release. Most are asylum seekers from Central America, which has seen a surge in migrants fleeing violence and abuse. In letters released along with their action, the women detainees said they’ve faced threats and unjustified surveillance as they languish in custody without hope of freedom. One wrote, quote, "I’m dying of desperation from this injustice, from this cruelty."
Immigration officials have denied the hunger strike is even taking place. But at least one immigrant detainee reached by Democracy Now! says she was transferred out of this facility in retaliation for her involvement. Francisca Morales Macías, a Mexican domestic abuse survivor, held for seven months, was moved to the mostly male South Texas Detention Complex on Monday. Democracy Now!’s Amy Littlefield spoke to Morales by phone and asked her why she and other women decided to go on a hunger strike.
FRANCISCA MORALES MACÍAS: [translated] We decided to do this fast because we are women of second entry, women who have entered the United States for a second time. And they are not giving us the opportunity to stay to fight our case here in order to be able to stay here in the United States. This is the reason.
AMY LITTLEFIELD: Can you talk a little bit about the situation you faced in Mexico, why you came here to seek asylum?
FRANCISCA MORALES MACÍAS: [translated] In the past four years of my life, I have suffered persecution by organized crime, physical and verbal torture. I have not had a life. They were monitoring me on repeated occasions. They told me that if for some reason I left my country, they would find me and they would kill me. The times when I tried to leave my home city, they found me and made me return to my city. I come fleeing to seek asylum in this country. I want them to hear my case. Please help me. If they deport me, not much time will pass before they kill me.
AMY LITTLEFIELD: Did you feel retaliated against when they moved you to the Pearsall detention center after you went on hunger strike?
FRANCISCA MORALES MACÍAS: [translated] I felt very discriminated against because they moved me without giving me a reason. One morning they just told me, "You’re going." And they brought me here. There was no reason. I did not behave badly. I’ve always been a very hard-working woman. And if they investigate, they are going to realize that I was never a problem, nor will I be a burden to the United States. I am only asking that they give me asylum, that they give me freedom. I am not a bad woman.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Francisca Morales Macías, an immigrant detainee who was transferred out of Hutto in Texas after taking part in the hunger strike there. While exact figures are unknown, advocates say the hunger strike grew this week substantially, possibly into the hundreds. Hutto is run by the country’s largest private prison firm, Corrections Corporation of America. The hunger strike is the latest by immigrant detainees around the country. Three other immigration jails have seen hunger strikes in the last three weeks: the Adelanto Detention Facility in California, the LaSalle Detention Center in Louisiana and the El Paso Processing Center in Texas.
For more, we’re joined by Cristina Parker, immigration projects coordinator for Grassroots Leadership. She gathered and released the letters written by 27 women at Hutto when they launched their hunger strike.
Welcome to Democracy Now!, Cristina. Tell us the extent of this hunger strike and what the women are demanding. And respond to the prison saying they’re not on hunger strike.
CRISTINA PARKER: Sure. Thanks so much for having me on. We know that 27 women started last week, but we heard over the weekend from a woman, who’s since been moved in retaliation, that casi todo, which in Spanish means "almost all," of the women are on hunger strike. There is a contract that ICE has with CCA guaranteeing that at least 500 women will be held there on any given day. And, of course, that’s just to ensure their profits. So we know that that’s—you know, it’s possible that this hunger strike could be in the hundreds. That’s what we know from inside. We have a loose network of people who are giving support to the women on hunger strike, who have been in constant contact with them, who have heard from them via phone or gone to visit them in person or are receiving emails. And all of them say the same thing, that there is a hunger strike inside and that it’s spreading.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this whole issue of other facilities also possibly joining in, what reports are you hearing about that?
CRISTINA PARKER: Right. Well, we heard earlier this week that the Adelanto facility in California had started on hunger strike, which brought the total number of people on hunger strike in all the four facilities to at least 95, if not more, because there are so many women in Hutto. You know, I think this shows a pattern. This shows that immigrant detention—it doesn’t matter where it is, it doesn’t matter if they’re holding men or women or, in the case of family detention, women and their children—immigrant detention is an abusive system, and people are rising up against it. And more and more are.
AMY GOODMAN: And you know Francisca’s case, the woman we were just listening to?
CRISTINA PARKER: I read her letter, though I’ve never talked to her.
AMY GOODMAN: And how typical is it?
CRISTINA PARKER: Very typical. Women are fleeing Central America and Mexico because they’re in danger. And they’re doing it the way that they’re supposed to. You’re supposed to come to the border and ask for asylum and present your case and say why you’re here, why you’re asking for help. And we respond to these women by putting them in a prison—in a prison for profit that cuts corners, that serves bad food, that neglects people’s medical care and needs. This is the system that these women are exposing, and they’re doing so, so bravely. And they’re being retaliated against.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And don’t federal officials have any monitoring responsibilities with regard to these private detention facilities?
CRISTINA PARKER: Well, they should. But what we know is that they actually leave so many of these facilities—and Hutto is an example of this—in the hands of private contractors. In fact, ICE isn’t usually there on the day-to-day, but since news broke of the hunger strike, they’ve been in there questioning women, asking women, giving—asking them who’s eating, who’s not eating, trying to take inventory of them, giving presentations on the dangers of not eating. We know that even though ICE denies this hunger strike, they’re taking it very seriously, because they’re rounding up women for transport to other facilities, they’re telling women that they’ll be deported unless they eat. So we know that they’re in there retaliating and trying to intimidate women. We actually received calls and emails last night. At least three members of our support committee, who are supporting the women, got calls and emails last night that at least six, and as many as 12, women were rounded up and told that they would be transferred or deported. And that, to me, suggests that ICE is trying to get rid of witnesses.
AMY GOODMAN: Cristina Parker, we want to thank you for being with us, immigration projects coordinator for Grassroots Leadership, author of the report, "For-Profit Family Detention: Meet the Private Prison Corporations Making Millions by Locking Up Refugee Families." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org. ... Read More →

We Are Many: Global Feb. 15 2003 Protests Didn't Stop Iraq War, But May Have Changed the World
Up to 30 million people in nearly 800 cities rocked the globe on February 15, 2003, in antiwar rallies against the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq, making it the largest coordinated protest in history. And while the first U.S. bombs would hit Baghdad weeks later, a new documentary argues that the protests weren’t just a one-day historical feat, but a spark that changed the world forever. The new documentary "We Are Many" tells the story of that historic day of protest and how it’s helped shape global political movements ever since. We are joined by the film’s director and producer, Amir Amirani.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Up to 30 million people, nearly 800 cities—those are the numbers that made the February 15, 2003, global protests against the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq the largest in history. And while the first U.S. bombs would hit Baghdad weeks later, a new documentary argues that the protests weren’t just a one-day historical feat, but a spark that changed the world forever. The film is called We Are Many.
DANNY GLOVER: Not in our names! Not in our names!
PETER OBORNE: The institutions of the Bush state had set out to tell lies.
REV. JESSE JACKSON: It was the biggest demonstration coordinated in the history of the whole Earth.
DAMON ALBARN: It was off the hook.
RON KOVIC: Something began on that day that cannot be reversed.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: A mass, beautiful movement that’s going to stop them from dropping those bombs.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: We had something like 60 percent of the American people believing that Saddam Hussein was connected with 9/11.
DAMON ALBARN: They blatantly lied to all of us.
UNIDENTIFIED: The rallies of February 15 followed the sun.
UNIDENTIFIED: It was Australia. It was Sydney.
UNIDENTIFIED: North Asia and South Asia, Africa, into Europe.
ANAS ALTIKRITI: And then we had London.
MARK RYLANCE: I thought I was on the wrong march, because there were all these families.
CLARE SHORT: Literally everybody I know was on it.
RICHARD BRANSON: The whole of my family went on it.
MARK RYLANCE: It was so beautiful.
TONY BENN: This was the future of humanity.
PROTESTER: They can’t hold us back! Bush, you can’t hold us back!
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Fellow Americans, let’s roll.
BILL FLETCHER JR.: This bastard is actually going to take us to war.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: The American people do not want this!
HANS BLIX: It was over.
SOLDIER: Back up! Back up!
PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR: Our victory, not theirs.
DESIREE FAIROOZ: War criminal! War criminal! Arrest this man!
JASON HURD: These were lies!
VINCE EMANUELE: They can take their medals back!
HOSSAM EL-MAMALAWY: That’s when hell broke loose in Egypt.
DAMON ALBARN: If you keep coming back, at some point you will make the change.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the trailer for We Are Many, a new documentary on the historic February 15, 2003, rallies against the Iraq War that rocked the globe. The film tells the story of that historic day of protest, how it’s helped shape political movements around the world since. And we’re joined by the film’s director, Amir Amirani.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Congratulations on this film. Talk about the significance of that day, why we care in 2015 about what happened in 2003. After all, soon after, the U.S. and Britain did bomb Iraq.
AMIR AMIRANI: Yes, they did bomb Iraq, and, you know, we are now still living with the consequences of that. So whilst at the time it looked like it had failed—ostensibly, it could have been seen as a heroic failure—for me, it seemed like a historic event and a story that was worth telling for posterity. And as we see now with all the recent revelations about the emails between George Bush and Tony Blair and so on, what’s happening in Syria—in Blair’s own words, they were partly to blame, if not entirely to blame—so we are still living with the consequences of what people warned would happen in 2003.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what made you decide to make the film in the first place?
AMIR AMIRANI: Well, I was a filmmaker working largely for the BBC and Channel 4 in London. In February 2003, I happened to be at the Berlin Film Festival, and I knew this thing was going to happen. And I felt I had to go on it. It was—now, looking back, it was the first political act I had ever taken part in. When I got back to London and I discovered how big it was there, it got me thinking, "It’s happened in London, it’s happened in Berlin. Where else has it happened?" And then I saw that it was this extraordinary historic event. And then the filmmaking part of my head kicked in and said, "Something like this doesn’t just happen. And if it’s happened, it potentially means something." And even though I didn’t what that was or what it would portend, we can now see that we’ve lived through a decade of protest.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to a few clips in the film. This is Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. He gives a brutally honest assessment of the U.S. government’s culpability for the Iraq War.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: If it were my choice to have Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush go before some kind of tribunal, and I had to go with them in order to be—in order for that tribunal to be successful, or to even have a chance for success, and that it was also possible I would be in that conviction, if you will, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
AMY GOODMAN: This is really amazing, what Lawrence Wilkerson goes on to say, when he said he was with Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.N. February 3rd, 2003. When he gave that push for war at the U.N., saying absolute evidence of massive weapons of mass destruction, over his shoulder is George Tenet, the head of the CIA, in full view.
AMIR AMIRANI: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: He says it’s the worst moment of his life.
AMIR AMIRANI: And he says it was the worst moment of his life, that he wished he had resigned. And he says that, actually, they perpetrated a hoax on the U.N., on the international community and on the American people. And this is exactly what happened. People warned about that, and it’s proven to be the case. It’s an extraordinary firecracker of an interview. And I think and hope that when it’s seen in America, that it might get the kind of reaction and get people who might have had another kind of view change their view about that time.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this is another clip of British and French lawyer Philippe Sands, author of the books Lawless World and Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, in another clip from the film.
PHILIPPE SANDS: It was only much later that I came across the single most devastating document, which is the legal memorandum written by Lord Goldsmith in which Lord Goldsmith tells the British prime minister, "You cannot use force without a further Security Council resolution." If you go down the document, at paragraph four, you’ve got Lord Goldsmith telling the prime minister, "I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of Resolution 1441 is that it does not authorize the use of military force without a further determination by the Security Council." And just to the left of that, a little scribble: "I just don’t understand this." Who wrote that? Tony Blair wrote that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Philippe Sands. Your comments—we have about 30 seconds—on this particular clip?
AMIR AMIRANI: Well, you know, that is—that shows exactly the kind of dynamic that was going on: Essentially, they didn’t want to hear the facts. It remains to be seen why the decision was changed about the legality of the war. And Tony Blair recently came out with this so-called non-apology apology to try and, you know, essentially avert this kind of news.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to continue this conversation and post it online at democracynow.org. Iranian-born British filmmaker Amir Amirani, director and producer of the documentary, We Are Many.
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We Are Many: The Story of the Largest Global Protest that Would Change the World Forever ... Read More →

No Kids Behind Bars: For-Profit Texas Immigration Jails Challenged over Child Detention
Two of the most controversial detention centers nationwide opened last year in the Texas towns of Dilley and Karnes. They are run by private prison companies, and together they can hold more than 2,500 women and children. Last week a Texas judge temporarily halted the state’s efforts to license their family detention centers as child care facilities, putting their future in jeopardy. For more, we are joined by Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which filed the lawsuit prompting the stay in Texas.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, last week, a Texas judge temporarily halted the state’s efforts to license their family detention centers as child care facilities, putting their future in jeopardy. We’re also joined by Bob Libal, who is executive director of Grassroots Leadership, which filed the lawsuit prompting the stay in Texas.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Bob.
BOB LIBAL: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what’s going on now in Texas.
BOB LIBAL: Sure. Well, essentially, Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group, the two private prison corporations that operate the two massive family detention camps in Texas, in Karnes and in Dilley, have applied for child care licenses for these family prisons. And the state of Texas has responded by attempting to go through an emergency process to license these facilities, even though these facilities have been open for more than a year, and it doesn’t appear that this is in any response to any sort of child care issue.
And so we’ve joined other advocates around the country, 140 organizations and social workers and legal professionals, in writing a letter to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services saying that this is, you know, not in the best interest of children. And we’ve also filed suit with the state of Texas, saying that there was no reason for them to issue emergency licenses. And we’ve actually won a temporary restraining order. And we’ll be in court again next week to—for the next step in that process. Essentially, we’re arguing that groups like ours and other child welfare organizations should have the ability to weigh in on this process, and that, you know, this is happening to appease Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group and—
AMY GOODMAN: These private prison companies.
BOB LIBAL: Right, these for-profit prison corporations are attempting to license what is essentially the largest trend in family detention since Japanese internment as child care facilities.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was exactly my point. How do they get away with trying to redefine a detention center as a child care facility? What is the—what’s the criteria or the bright line that they have to pass to go from one to the other?
BOB LIBAL: Right. Well, the state of Texas has laws, right, that sort of lay out what child care facilities are supposed to be. And part of that process is that organizations have the ability to weigh in, right, and have the ability—there’s a procedure by which a facility can be licensed as a child care facility. And the state of Texas has essentially not followed the law and not allowed Texans to weigh in on that process.
AMY GOODMAN: What does the American Academy of Pediatrics say about this?
BOB LIBAL: Well, they’ve been very firm that family detention is not appropriate for children. And another thing that I would note is the social worker—the head social worker at the Karnes family detention center actually resigned her position and said that she could no longer continue being a social worker at this facility, that she thought that what she was doing there actually endangered her licensure. And so, this was a very experienced social worker, former professor, former social work teacher.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thank you so much for your reporting, Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, and Renée, for your reporting. Renée Feltz is the criminal justice correspondent for Democracy Now! And you can link to her reporting at democracynow.org. When we come back, We Are Many. Stay with us. ... Read More →
Headlines:
Exxon Under Criminal Investigation over Lying About Climate Change
Oil giant ExxonMobil is under criminal investigation over claims it lied to the public and investors about the risks of climate change. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has issued a subpoena to Exxon demanding the company turn over financial records, emails and other documents. This comes after recent exposés by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that for decades Exxon concealed its own findings that fossil fuels cause global warming, alter the climate and melt the Arctic ice. Exxon scientists knew about climate change as early as 1977. But beginning in the 1980s, the company openly embraced climate denial and spent millions of dollars funding outside groups that sought to undermine climate science. Bill McKibben of 350.org praised the New York probe, tweeting: "Just a remarkable day. [The] World’s most powerful fossil fuel company may actually be held to account for helping wreck our planet." Legal experts say other oil companies who have promoted climate denial could face similar investigations.
Report: Climate Change Had Role in 50% of 2014 Extreme Weather Events
This comes as a new collection of scientific studies on extreme weather events says climate change played a role in at least half of the droughts, floods and storms last year. Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann told The New York Times, "The question is no longer whether there is an influence of climate change on extreme weather events. The debate is simply over the magnitude and extent of that influence."
Report: Broad Global Support for Greenhouse Gas Limits
Meanwhile, a new survey by the Pew Research Center shows people around the world overwhelmingly agree on the need to limit greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change. The survey polled people in 40 different countries. In all but one, the majority of respondents said they support emission limits. This comes as a group of Iowa state legislators have called on visiting presidential candidates to sign onto a pledge calling for a World War II-style mobilization to transition the United States to a clean economy. The pledge urges the United States to end all fossil fuel use by 2025 and for the government to employ tens of millions of Americans in expanding clean energy and agricultural infrastructure. Iowa is considered a key swing state for the 2016 presidential race.
Obama: It is "Possibility" Bomb Downed Russian Plane in Egypt
President Obama says it is "a possibility" that a bomb downed a Russian passenger plane in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula over the weekend, killing 224 people aboard. This comes as the BBC reports British investigators believe a bomb was placed in the aircraft’s baggage compartment just before takeoff. An affiliate of the self-proclaimed Islamic State has said it was responsible. Egypt and Russia have rejected this claim, saying there is no evidence to support it. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the U.S. has not yet made a determination on the cause of the crash.
Josh Earnest: "There’s obviously an Egyptian-led investigation into this tragic incident that remains ongoing. At this point, the United States has not made our own determination about the cause of the incident. However, we can’t rule anything out, including the possibility of terrorist involvement."
After 10 Months, U.S. Refugee Program Fails to Admit a Single Kid
A program intended to help Central American children apply for refugee status has failed to admit a single child into the United States in over 10 months. The Central American Minors program was established last December as a way to let children submit their applications from their home countries so they could avoid the dangerous trek across Central America and Mexico. More than 5,400 children have applied from El Salvador alone. All were seeking to join parents who have legal status in the United States. Bureaucratic red tape has prevented a single child from being approved. We’ll have more on Central American migration with Democracy Now! correspondent Renée Feltz later in the broadcast.
Germany Announces Plan for Special Centers to Fast-Track Deportations
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced a new plan for people seeking asylum. It involves creating special centers that will fast-track deportation proceedings for people who do not qualify for refugee status. Approximately 800,000 people have arrived in Germany this year, most fleeing violence in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea and other countries.
Brazil: 17 Die After Toxic Mining Waste Floods Village
In Brazil, at least 17 people have died after a dam burst at a mining waste site, unleashing a deluge of toxic red mud that flooded a village in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais. The dam is jointly owned by two mining giants, Vale of Brazil and BHP Billiton of Australia.
Brazilian Oil Workers Strike to Stop Privatization of Oil Giant Petrobras
Meanwhile, Brazilian oil workers are on strike in efforts to stop the privatization of state oil company Petrobras. It’s being called the most disruptive strike at the company in 20 years. Simao Zanardi, the leader of the refinery union, spoke out.
Simao Zanardi: "We will remain on strike until the government gives us a sign that it will not accept to negotiate the privatization of Petrobras. We also want them to finish the works at the Abreu e Lima refinery in Pernambuco; at the Comperj, the petro complex of Rio de Janeiro; and the fertilizer factory in Três Lagoas, in Mato Grosso do Sul. These three projects are vital for Petrobras and Brazil to conquer their sovereignty in energy."
PA: Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Unarmed Man in Back Acquitted
In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a police officer who fatally shot an unarmed driver in his back as he lay face down in the snow has been acquitted. In February, Officer Lisa Mearkle tried to pull over David Kassick for allegedly having an expired inspection sticker. She chased him to his sister’s house, where Kassick got out of the car and ran into the backyard. There, the officer repeatedly shocked him with her stun gun while he lay face down on the snowy ground. She then shot him twice in the back. The shooting was caught on camera. On Thursday, a jury found the officer not guilty on charges of manslaughter and third-degree murder.
2 Former Traders Convicted of Criminal Fraud in Libor Rigging Scandal
In New York City, two former London traders have been convicted of more than two dozen counts of criminal fraud and conspiracy for rigging Libor, the interest rate which underpins trillions in global transactions. Former traders Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti could face a decade or more in prison.
Canada: Activists Sit-In at Trudeau’s Home to Demand Tar Sands Freeze
In Canada, dozens of people have launched a four-day sit-in at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s home to call for a freeze on tar sands expansion. The protesters are also calling on Canada to transition toward a clean energy economy and to honor government treaties with First Nations. Organizer Clayton Thomas-Muller outlined the demands.
Clayton Thomas-Muller: "Number one, that we freeze the expansion of the Alberta tar sands. And the second ask that we have, of course, is that we unthaw investment into Canada’s renewable energy economy, and that it’s done so in a just transition framework."
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau was sworn into office this week. Last month, oil giant Shell abandoned its plans to construct a massive new tar sands mine, citing concerns there aren’t enough pipelines to transport the crude oil. The construction of major new pipelines to move Alberta tar sands crude has faced massive resistance, especially by First Nations.
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