[Crossposted from Latino Político]
What is it going to take, America™, for you to snap out of your complacency to see that in your furvor to deport and criminalize people in your midst, the goon-squad deigned to carry out the mission are serial human rights abusers? Quit thinking that this is about Mexicans or Central Americans or any other unwanted hordes of brown menaced invaders. As long as that mindset continues to fester, stories like this will continue to be a blight upon the pure and spotless homeland you are so want to protect, yet only exists like a deceiving mirage.
Police in Berry Hill, Tennessee decided that Juana Villegas DeLaPaz needed to be arrested after a routine traffic stop even though she produced proof of insurance and her consulate card to the officer that stopped her. Since local officials have decided that federal immigration law enforcement is the new hip, and she didn’t have the necessary paperwork to prove citizenship, Juana was detained like an animal.
Nine months pregnant and in labor, she was shackled until two hours prior to the birth of her child and then re-shackled afterwards. Following the birth of the baby, authorities denied her the ability to breast feed the newborn, who was at a high risk of jaundice as a result of it.
So far, this story has been confined to NewsChannel 5 out of Nashville (their story was the sanitized version) and pro-migrant blogs. Tim Chávez of Political Salsa has been doing yeoman’s work to cover this horrific tale of torture and human rights abuse in Tennessee.
sígame…
Then consider being shackled at your feet when you try and go to bathroom to simply clean yourself after all the mess of childbirth. This hygiene is necessary to prevent infection and more pain.
Finally, imagine the mental and physical pain of having your newborn taken from you, before you have the all the necessary time to breast feed your child to ensure he or she receives all the early nutrients to build a body’s immune system to full capacity. The sheriff department officer overseeing your every move — and wanting to return you to your jail cell — prevents your nurse from giving you a breast pump to drain your milk.
Nurses caring for Mrs. Villegas DeLaPaz were reduced to tears.
So you are returned to your jail cell with your breasts swollen and hurting, the pain preventing you from sleeping after one of life’s most draining ordeals.
While on one hand, the sheriff’s department tonight defended itself to NewsChannel 5 by saying it followed procedure and the law in the terrible treatment of Mrs. Villages DeLaPaz, its spokesperson then noted that it let her go after seven days of illegal holding when it should have deported her.
Clearly they were being lenient.
Monsters.
Here is the contact information for officials who should be called upon to immediately investigate and halt these inhumane procedures.
Nashville Office: Phone: 615-736-5295, Fax: 615-736-7479
DC Office: Phone: 202-225-4311, Fax: 202-226-1035
Chairman, Rep. Christopher Carney (PA-10) – Democrat
House Subcommittee on Management, Investigations & Oversight of Department of Homeland Security
DC Office: Ph: (202) 225-3731, Fx: (202) 225-9594
Berry Hill Police Department
Chief Robert Bennett, Email: rbennett@berryhilltn.net
Phone: (615) 297-324, Fax: (615) 269-9819
“I was just doing my job.” ¡Madre Santa!
This is beyond unacceptable.
“I was just doing my job” sounds a lot like ‘just following orders’ doesn’t it and just as inhumane and creepy as always. No need to go overseas to torture people. Is humanity or empathy being bred out of some people..I wish I knew what causes this shriveling of the soul that allows people to do something like this and say hey just doing my job.
In a unrelated note but applicable I think is the fact that here in California that 4 migrant workers have died from heat prostration in the last month or so. I get emails from United Farm Workers which give link to send our governor emails to get him to do something about making these business follow even standard labor practices. I’d just sent off another email when another email from UFW sent another report of worker dying of heat stroke. Sickeningly preventable. I don’t know what good it did but Arnie went to the 17 year old girls funeral that had died little over a month or so ago.
hi ink, if only Arnie would ensure that water and adequate shade during breaks were provided instead of “gracing” the families with his presence after they’re loved one is dead.
there’s habanero in my blood today, can you tell?
Oh I agree, any show he put on then hasn’t accomplished anything as far as breaks for water for water and such as 3 more have died since that young girl died. But that’s the whole point of big business using migrant workers-they don’t have to follow any standard labor practices because no one gives a fucken damn what happens to these people.
The water and shade you mentioned-it isn’t even like this would be some huge expense on part of the business who run these farms..it’s just plain sick and disgusting that something so simple that could save lives and isn’t being done. Just another form of torture in my mind.
Just another form of torture in my mind.
Absolutely.
“it’s just plain sick and disgusting that something so simple that could save lives and isn’t being done”
ah…but these aren’t human lives, you see. Not in the eyes of the bosses and accountants. All that matters to them is the bottom linbe. They want machines. When a machine wears out and fails it is replaced with a new machine. It’s a business expense, an operational reality. To grant human status to these workers would hurt the bottomn line and we all know that that might as well be considered unamerican.
As far as I’m concerned, the animals who treated this poor woman that way should just be summarily lined against a wall and shot. Or better yet, kicked out of a truck into the middle of the Sonoran desert without water or proper clothing. Let ’em suffer a little before shooting them. Violent? Yup. But I have no more room in my heart to offer compassion to filth like that.
This is why I daren’t read too much at work. This just makes my tears well up and makes me depressed and angry.
I hear you, Lisa.
That’s where I read it first and it affected me the same way …
it seems to be easier for some to commit these kinds of inhumane crimes against innocents if there’s a difference in skin color, language, or whatever excuse is convenient.
A haunting poem, dada, that hits the mark.
I get so worn out reading story after story after story like this, but it is not about me, and certainly no where on the scale of trauma and fear that these workers and families are facing.
They wouldn’t even let her call her husband while she was in the hospital and made her waddle to the bathroom with her feet chained together. It’s barbarism.
Like you Manny I get worn out reading these stories and sometimes take a break. I start having bad dreams and that doesn’t do anyone any good(why I haven’t been to Sanctuary lately). I don’t know how families of anyone involved in this kind of inhumanity cope-just reading these stories I feel like a small piece of my own heart or soul shrivels up a little more due to this inhumanity and as you rightly said barbarism.
this is horrible … you called it right … monsters.
that word was like a reflex when I was sifting through Tim’s posts on the incident. I can’t wait for that newborn citizen to grow up and vote against any and all politicos or policies that would let it happen again.
Hope you don’t mind Manee, but I sent a link of this story to my niece who is a reporter in Argentina. This is such an awfull story!
hiya cruz! yes, please. the more people that know about this, the better. they fear being held accountable, which means they also fear too many people knowing about their despicable behavior.
Manny – I don’t know if others would like to join me, as I am going to send a link to Tim’s piece to any e-mail contacts given at La Leche League – TN.
“La Leche League is an international, nonprofit, nonsectarian organization dedicated to providing education, information, support, and encouragement to women who want to breastfeed.”
I know they have been involved in court cases.
an excellent suggestion! will share it widely
La Leche League is international!
If any of us needed a reason to remain politically active, this incident alone is more than enough. Sadism lurks beneath the surface in every community. Some of you know from painful personal experience who and what these sick people are. Keep on shinin’ that light, Man Ee and make these cockroaches scuttle back into the dark from whence they came.
well said, Indianadem. we could always use more flashlights 😉
this is what is happening all over our country, not just to any particular skin color, but to all on the lower end of things.
there is no compasion, there is just pasion to hurt people, and it seems to give them an inate internal power, that is ulimated from our so-called leaders.
I beleive these types of people receive a euphoric sense of control when they commit these types of acts.
It is growing and an alarming rate in every rank of our society, and if it is not stopped, …..well, it’s not going to be pretty.
I could go on and on, but right now I’m so angry, I need time to think a statement through collectively, and then comment.
later
Hi iPig. I was angry to the point of shaking yesterday, when I started reading the details. The silver lining is that more and more people are learning about this horrific incident and, hopefully, educating those around them that it is not. acceptable. It’s the only way we will turn back this tide of hate.
This story is disgusting…the dravity of some people knows no limits, does it?
I am wondering…what became of the baby? Was he/she returned to the mother after she got out of jail?
Dravity = depravity. Dang typos.
it sounds like she was released after a week, which elicited the snarky reply from authorities that they did her a favor instead of deporting. How kind of them…
How dare anyone treat a human being like this? “I was just doing my job,” wasn’t an adequate defense for the Nazis-and it won’t work here either.
that’s really the gist of all this. I just had someone throw a tantrum at my blog about the “illeguls” blah blah blah and my response and thinking is: it shouldn’t matter a person’s status. you don’t shackle a woman in labor nor deny her the ability to breastfeed. Period.
But, as with most issues surrounding the immigration debate, it’s easier to dehumanize and violate human rights when we’ve programmed ourselves to see undocumented workers as something lower than scum.
how can this possibly be happening here in the America I grew up in? This should be widely condemed but no, the fucking press is too busy trying to get the first picture/story of Angelina’s twins.
I fear that this country is headed for something really bad, something none of us is prepared for. BushCo has seen to it that the economy is collapsing, keeping the poor folk down, other countries are buying up American companies and Bin Laden is laughing his ass off somewhere in the middle east.
I fear that this country is headed for something really bad
me, too, Nancy. Unfortunately, we’re still in the “she/they had it coming” phase of things. Perhaps someday we’ll all remember that we are human beings first, rather than members of a giant country club with strict membership.
Gotta tell the truth here, I hope I don’t live to see it but feel that I have failed if it happens in my grandchilds lifetime.