Tag: detention

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Tracing ICE Infrastructure: Trailboss, Hutto Location

Edit 02/2024: This location appears to be permanently closed

In recent struggles against I.C.E., deportations, and all the state apparatuses that reproduce the violence of borders, there has been a shift from making demands of politicians to directly targeting the contractors, detention centers, and infrastructure that make these operations possible. The wisdom of this strategic maneuver is its recognition of the organization of power in our world–wherein power flows not primarily through the halls of politicians, but in the mundane infrastructure that reproduces this society and its violence. An important portion of this infrastructure, particularly in the context of the deportation machine, is the transportation and logistics infrastructure–that is, the vans, buses, and other means by which the State transports incarcerated migrants. This circulatory system keeps assorted offices, processing centers, and detention facilities connected. Sometimes, this infrastructure is managed directly by the State–whether I.C.E, Border Patrol, or DHS. However, in many places this infrastructure is contracted out to other private companies.

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Lakeway Police Chief Is ICE Guest Lecturer

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on contracted services, which include everything from IT and technical support to chartered flights and ground transportation. Dozens of companies grow rich from giving ICE the tools they need to surveil, incarcerate, and deport an ever-increasing number of migrants.

ICE also pays individuals for services, and among them is Todd A. Radford. A career cop, Radford is currently the police chief of Lakeway, Texas, an 82% white suburb of Austin with a 3.3% poverty rate. Radford has a combination of criminal justice and business degrees, and makes money on top of his police chief salary from giving lectures. The average salary of a police chief for a town the size of Lakeway is about $90,000/year.

ICE has paid Radford an average of more than $11,000 a year for these lectures. One lecture is billed as “a unique training geared to law enforcement management”, and the other is simply described as “law enforcement training”. One can imagine the pearls of wisdom Radford has gained after 30 years of doing capitalism and nationalism’s dirty work. As the police are given more and more money, discretion, and military equipment, ICE is eager to cozy up behind the thin blue line with them.

People who live near the US/Mexico border and people suffering from poverty alike know how militarized cops of all stripes have become. Collaborations like the one between ICE and this police chief can only further harm migrants, racialized people, and poor people as cops of different stripes become more and more comfortable with sharing knowledge and information. This collaboration between Radford and ICE is above and beyond what the infamous SB4 requires of law enforcement. Radford denounced the law in 2015 while he was running for Travis County Sheriff. Unsurprisingly, he does not actually give a shit about the people he criminalizes.

Close the lines of communication between the pigs and open the borders!

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Red, White, & Blue

A submission from Mapache. September 28th marked two weeks since they were deported.

windows just big enough to see the flags they used to lock me up
but we all saw this coming
it was just a matter of time
tossed in the back of a van and taunted with threats of being sent back to a home i dont remember
kidnapped
taken by cowboys who would die for those 3 colors which persecute me
the same 3 colors which destroy the countries my cellmates seek refuge from
they guard the entrance to this prison
and haunt my only view of the outside world
red, white, and blue
judge, jury, and executioner

Write a letter to Mapache at the upcoming letter writing night for Mapache & Red Fawn, being hosted by the Austin Anarchist Black Cross and the Autonomous Student Network.

Got a story you need to tell? Publish it with us! Send us your opinion pieces, art, zines, reviews, news, statements, report-backs, or anything else you wanna see put out in the world. We take all kinds of content, with an eye towards marginalized perspectives and news about movements & revolutionary organizations. Submit content to austinautonomedia [@] autistici [dot] org.

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Hell’s Walls–A Poem From Mapache

 Submission from Mapache, a community activist incarcerated by ICE.

It has been over one month since ICE kidnapped community activist Sergio Salazar aka Mapache. On September 14th, he was deported–a decision chosen by Mapache in order to get out of the cage faster, and a result of the corner he had been backed into by the feds. Through his friends in the (now de-camped) Abolish ICE SATX camp, we have received and are republishing this poem he wrote while being held in the Webb Detention Center. We look forward to publishing more works from Mapache soon. We also encourage you to attend the upcoming letter writing night for Mapache & Red Fawn, being hosted by the Austin Anarchist Black Cross and the Autonomous Student Network.

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