From Rio Grande Guardian

Activist starts blog to highlight plight of immigrants in 'Tent City' Raymondville
By Staff
Elizabeth Garcia
RAYMONDVILLE - A Brownsville activist has set up a blog to highlight the plight of El Salvadorian detainees in Tent City Raymondville ahead of Sunday’s caravan trip to the compound.
“Tent City Raymondville is the largest immigration detention center in the United States and the detainees being housed there are not being treated humanely,” said Elizabeth Garcia, a member of the Pax Christi grassroots organization in Brownsville.
“The detainees, most of them from El Salvador, are being treated like criminals. They are locked up for 22 hours a day and are only allowed outside for an hour a day. It is inhumane.”
Garcia’s blog can be found at http://tentcityinraymondville.blogspot.com/. She said she plans to keep people from around the world informed with what is happening at the Raymondville facility, though she acknowledges it will not be easy.
“There is no transparency. We are not being given any information. The authorities will not tell us what is going on. That is why we are holding the protest and vigil on Sunday. We have to raise awareness of the plight,” Garcia said.
Garcia said she does not condone illegal immigration but argues there has to be a more humane way of handling those detained.
The $65 million Raymondville facility, sandwiched between a federal prison and a county jail, is called Tent City because it comprises ten huge tents on concrete pads. Each tent holds around 200 people.
Built last summer, the facility is surrounded by a 14-foot-high chain-link fence looped with barbed wire. It houses around 2,000 detainees, around 85 percent of whom are from El Salvador.
Like the nearby detention center in Bayview, which predominantly houses Mexican immigrants, Tent City Raymondville is administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE contracts with private prison management companies in both cases. Corrections Corporation of America handles the Bayview facility and Management & Training Corporation looks after Tent City Raymondville.
The one civil rights attorney that was being allowed into the Raymondville compound to see her clients - at least until recently - was Harlingen-based Jodi Goodwin. Goodwin has said she is concerned about detainees getting decent medical attention and food.
“Jodi Goodwin has done an excellent job of shining the spotlight on Tent City. The immigrants cannot speak for themselves, so it is left to the rest of us to raise awareness and give them a voice,” Garcia said.
Garcia said thus far the local media has done a lousy job of letting the people of the Rio Grande Valley about Tent City and the treatment handed out to its detainees. “I find out a lot more by checking the New York Times or the Washington Post,” she said.
Garcia said she hopes all that will change with her blog and Sunday’s caravan. Among the groups taking part in the caravan are People for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, MEChA, Student Farmworker Alliance, La Union Del Pueblo Entero, Pax Christi, Holy Spirit Peace and Justice Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, UTPA Environmental Awareness Club, Foro Socialista del Valle, Proyecto Libertad, Comunidades Eclesiales de Base de San Felipe de Jesus Church, Iglesia Mennonita Rey de Gloria, Iglesia Methodista de Brownsville, Students for Change and Peace-UTB, Movimiento del Valle por los Derechos Humanos, Christian Peacemakers Team, El Tribuno Newspaper, Mens Resource Center.
Those participating from the lower Valley are asked to meet at FM 802 and Paredes Lane in Brownsville at 3:30pm. Those coming from the upper Valley are asked to assemble at the LUPE offices, off of Business 83 and Cesar Chavez, in San Juan, also at 3.30 p.m. Both groups will meet in Harlingen before proceeding together to Raymondville. The protest and vigil will run from 6 to 8 p.m.
“This is the first time protestors from lower Valley and the upper Valley have come together in this way. We really are building a broad coalition,” said upper Valley caravan organizer Jennifer Bryson-Clark. “Many of the activists from the upper Valley are young students in their early and mid-20s so there is so much energy. We want to keep that momentum going.”
Bryson-Clark said she was expecting around 50 to 100 protestors from the upper Valley to join the caravan. She said that number would be much higher but for the fact that many LUPE members are afraid of being detained.