Queer in Immigration Detention

via HuffPost, by Jonathan Perez

There I stood in South Louisiana Correctional Center, hundreds of miles away from my home in sunny California. Immigration detention means the end of the line for most undocumented immigrants. But I was not worried when or if I would be released. In the first place, I went in there on purpose.

I also knew there were people organizing to get me out, including Dreamactivist, Immigrant Youth Coalition, and people from all over the country. It was part of a "silent action" challenging the Obama administration's immigration policy, which allegedly does not detain undocumented persons without criminal records. But there I was.

After dozens of civil disobedience actions, we learned that Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) would not detain us during public events.

We would simply get arrested and go undercover pretending to be the type of immigrant that they usually detain, and not the ones who know their rights and have connections to advocacy groups. But most importantly, we pretended to be afraid.

My home for the next 10 days would now be "Wolf 1," a pod with a dozen grown men from different parts of Latin America. I knew it wasn't going to be easy to adjust but I felt okay about it.

I was there because I needed to organize and help them out in any way I could. We created a team of a couple other detainees that were ready to organize a hunger strike.

We weren't sure exactly how or when it would happen, but we knew we needed a number of issues to focus our efforts around. In the meantime we began to take stories of people who were detained and connected them to their families and immigration attorneys.

We took on deportation cases for those that can be won, like people who have been here for more than ten years, have citizen children, no criminal record and even DREAM Act eligible youth.

But there was always a splinter in my mind, something that always told me to be careful. Although I was detained with a friend who supported me, I knew he could never understand fully what I felt, and much less what I was thinking.

Looking at all the sweating men exercising and running by me only made it harder to ignore. There was Jose from Honduras; he was a father of three and a super nice guy with hazel eyes. He was caught driving without a license, and "Secure Communities" kicked in when he was booked. He was debating whether or not to sign a voluntary removal to get to his family as soon as possible.

One day, I began to think that I maybe I could tell the guys the truth -- that they wouldn't see a problem, since I had gotten to know them and they trusted me. I was wrong!

Dead wrong. As we walked back to our pod after lunch, I noticed two other men just like me on the other side of the fence. I felt relief, and I was glad to know that I was not alone.

But then the taunting began. They were mocked, whistled at, and harassed by the other detainees. They were called names like, "putitas," 'maricones," "jotitas," etc., pretty much different ways of saying faggots. I was shocked at first, and then I became sad.

It took me to a place I had not been to in a long time. It felt like I was in elementary school or middle school again. I was forced to mask my identity with a tough exterior, and had to be careful of what I said and did.

We only saw them when they walked by on their way to their pod, and every time they were ridiculed with enthusiasm by detainees. Their gender expression was more "feminine" than mine.

They were openly queer, and so they became targets. Most people never realized, and therefore didn't make fun of me or hit me. They actually assumed I was just like them.

A few days later, I was transferred to "Wolf 2," an adjacent pod where the two queer men, along with seventy other men were housed. I was afraid.

For all of the times I claimed to be undocumented and unafraid, I was out of my element. But I saw one of the Queer guys walk by 70 beds with his head held up high, with such energy and pride, and it made me feel so ashamed.

Ashamed that I could not do what he did, to be out and proud in a place where everyday there was someone harassing you and trying to put you down.


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Suit Claims Gay Inmates Denied Access to Rehab

via Advocate, by Julie Bolcer

The Riverside County, Calif. jail system’s policy of separating gay inmates from the general population effectively bars them from accessing a drug rehabilitation program, a lawsuit alleges.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the suit filed by Michael Lamar Salomonson of Palm Springs. A chronic methamphetamine user, he was arrested and charged with burglarizing a home last year.

He was sent to a residential substance abuse program at the Banning detention center instead of a receiving a two-year jail sentence.

“But sheriff’s officials refused to enroll Salmonson in the program,” according to the Times. “Under jail policy, inmates who enter into county jails and disclose they are gay are placed into protective custody and separated from the general jail population.”

The attorney for Salmonson said inmates in protective custody are routinely unable to access the rehab program.

The suit does not challenge the policy of placing gay inmates in protective custody, but it seeks to make sure gay inmates in protective custody are accepted into the rehab program.

Sheriff’s Chief Dep. Jerry Gutierrez, supervisor of the county jails, said inmates are housed together in the intense six-month treatment program, which limits the service to the general population.

Officials want to avoid the “volatile situation” that could be created by enrolling protective custody inmates, a population that also includes individuals with “medical disabilities, victims of jail assaults and inmates convicted of sexually assaulting children.”

The program could be expanded if enough protective custody inmates qualify for rehab, he told the Times.


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HIV positive man claims he was denied medication while jailed

via Chicago Sun-Times

A South Shore man claims he was denied HIV medication for a week while he was imprisoned in a downstate jail last year, a case that advocacy groups cited as an example of a hidden problem in correctional facilities.

Arick Buckles, 39, was detained in the Bureau County Jail in Princeton last fall after learning he was the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant for forgery charges.

Buckles said he “stressed to every jailer I came into contact with” that he was HIV-positive and needed to take antiretroviral medication daily. But he did not receive medication or see a doctor during his weeklong stay at the jail, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a June 20 letter to Bureau County Sheriff John Thompson.

Buckles, who said he experienced severe diarrhea after his release, described his time behind bars as terrifying, because “I didn’t know what the offset of my not having those medications would be.”

“I often wonder, if I had been a diabetic, would I have been denied medication,” he said.

Jail officials allegedly told Buckles they could not give him his medication because of the cost of the drugs, a justification the ACLU letter called “inappropriate and unconstitutional.”

Read more.

Deaf, numb and blind

It is bleak. It isn't "OZ", It isn't "Prison Break".

Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away...only a phase...

-Joni Mitchell, "The Last Time I Saw Richard."

by Billy Minshall

It is hard to know where to begin as I attempt to recollect my time as an HIV test counselor at the Cook County Jail.

I now have a little distance from this experience, having left my job there nearly nine months ago. However, I frequently field questions regarding this experience. I always feel that what I tell colleagues or friends fall short of their expectations. I have to explain that I rarely felt threatened while I worked there. I have to try to convey to my gay brothers that there is no resemblance between slickly produced prison porn, and what goes on at 26th and California. I try to convey that most offenders are there for traffic violations and other misdemeanors. Most are not murderers, most not criminal masterminds. Most are repeat drug offenders or sex workers. Many are homeless. This generally isn't what people want to hear, but it is the reality. It is bleak. It isn't "OZ", It isn't "Prison Break". It is much sadder and, in my opinion, scarier than all the incarceration cliches.

Condoms are contraband in Cook County Jail. Being that I was an HIV test counselor/Health Educator this made my job seem, at times, hypocritical. After all, how was I supposed to effectively educate a population plagued with stereotypes and misinformation, and at the same time deny them the means to protect themselves? Jail folklore includes many detainees (not inmates, as they have not been convicted of anything. This is jail, not prison) using Cheetos bags from their lunches for contraception. Although not ideal, at least they were being resourceful. Remember, most of these guys are in and out of the jail system constantly. They have husbands and wives, girlfriends and boyfriends, parents and children. And some of them are having, most likely, unprotected encounters with members of the same sex. Do they disclose this information to their sex partners in "the real world"? Hardly. But, what happens in jail, doesn't stay in jail, as much as everyone wants it to.

The stigma surrounding HIV is alive and well, particularly in the jail community. Conspiracy theories and misinformation abound within those walls. I was once told by a corrections officer that Magic Johnson didn't have HIV and that AIDS had needed a spokesman and they used Magic for this. I argued that an NBA All Star would have no reason to do this, particularly in 1991 when the only HIV treatment was toxic amounts of AZT, a mono therapy method that saved some but killed others. I conceded that perhaps HIV was made by the government. After all, it is an awfully smart little retrovirus and seems a little man made to me as well. However, I stressed that the origin was not of the highest importance, rather what we could do to prevent and, if necessary, treat the virus.

This discussion quickly unraveled. Most detainees and staff in CCDOC are African American. I was once referred to as "Opie" and "Snow White". I began to understand that, as a white boy from Kansas, I did not understand. I had not lived the same struggles. No Tuskegee, no history of slavery, and no mistrust of the establishment that still runs so deep in the hearts of so many. I will never truly understand. I realized that I am only called to listen with a compassionate heart, and that has to be enough. I cannot help my skin color, or the sum of my experience any more than anyone else. I had to concede that I couldn't fix this, no matter how much I wanted to.

22.5 million people are infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. However, in the 3rd largest city in the wealthiest nation (for now) on Earth, we forbid condoms to our imprisoned. I believe that this says something about how we view those less fortunate than us. We choose to turn our backs, turn a blind eye and pretend there is no crisis in our own back yard. We want to be comfortably numb, so to speak. Too much reality is unpleasant. But how can some of us justify helping all the "poor people" in Africa when there are literally thousands of souls crying out in this city. You can't take the plank out of your neighbor's eye when you have a great big one in your own, to loosely quote the book of Matthew.

Perhaps a new administration will bring light to this situation. Perhaps not. In a time of global economic meltdown, it seems we are increasingly worried about ourselves, our jobs, our comfort. There is nothing wrong with that, until it becomes the focus of one's universe. We forget that we all belong to the same universal laws. Action, reaction. None of us exempt from consequence.

I don't have the answers. I just know it is not just. It seems we put more value on certain lives than others and I'm sick of it. I would like to believe that we are all in a period of transformation, of growing beautiful in that chrysalis stage, gearing up to emerge with strong, gorgeous wings. If we can band together to call for change in this country's administration, surely something can be done about this. I must admit that I doubt it will change. I would love to be proven wrong.

[Read "Full Blown God", also by Billy Minshall, on LifeLube.]

Reality and Denial in California Prisons

October 19, 2007
Editorial - New York Times

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political courage clearly failed him when he vetoed a bill that would have permitted the distribution of condoms in California’s AIDS-ravaged prisons. At the same time, the governor ordered up a pilot distribution program for one as-yet unnamed prison. A small, exploratory program falls far short of the mass distribution effort that the system clearly needs.

Public health officials around the world have long realized that condom distribution is central to any meaningful AIDS-prevention effort. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made that point last year when it urged states to consider starting condom programs in prisons. Programs are already up and running in Canada and much of the European Union, as well as in jails in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and New York.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said he vetoed the bill because it conflicts with state law that makes sexual contact among inmates illegal. That’s self-defeating and a denial of the reality of life behind bars, and the governor seems to know it. His veto statement acknowledged that condom distribution represents a reasonable “public policy, and it is consistent with the need to improve our prison health care system and overall public health.”

The governor should have gone with what he knows and signed this bill. His pilot program needs to get under way quickly and should be expanded as soon as possible. That’s the only way to improve California’s prison health care system and overall public health.

California Senate Says YES to Condoms in Prison

via Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report

The California Senate on Thursday voted 21-18 to approve a measure (AB 1334) that would provide prison inmates in the state with condoms in an effort to reduce the spread of HIV, the Los Angeles Times reports (McGreevy, Los Angeles Times, 9/7).

A similar measure (AB 1677) was vetoed last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). The bill would have allowed not-for-profit organizations to distribute condoms in prisons. The bill, proposed by Assembly member Paul Koretz (D), would have allowed public health organizations to distribute condoms, dental dams or "other sex-related protective devices" to California's 162,000 prison inmates. The bill was sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, AIDS Project Los Angeles and the Southern California HIV Advocacy Coalition (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/20/06).

According to the Times, there was a "largely partisan split" over the new legislation. The bill, sponsored by Assembly member Sandre Swanson (D), would require prison officials to allow agencies to distribute condoms and dental dams to prison inmates. Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D) argued in favor of the bill, saying it is needed to address the high number of HIV cases among prisoners. The bill is needed to help the state "fight this dreaded phenomenon," Ridley-Thomas said. Sen. George Runner (R) said distributing condoms would condone illegal behavior. "It seems incredibly inconsistent for us to say that this behavior is not acceptable in prisons and then to provide devices to assist in that behavior," he said. Supporters of the new measure say they hope that they have addressed the administration's concerns with the previous bill and that it will be signed into law this year (Los Angeles Times, 9/7).