Kristy Carter

I am from ART

from Oil and Ink

I am from the Gulf

Humid, Salty, and Wildlife

It felt like home

I am from the Pelican

the Magnolia

Beautiful, and Louisiana

I’m from the Laughter and Italian

from Tony and Krystine

I’m from the Head Bangs

and Concerts

from Don't Play in the Ditch

and Clean Your Room

I’m from Baptist,

Haven't been to church in 5 years

I’m from Mardi Gras and Italy

Spaghetti and Poboys

From the Spandex and Perm days

The covered head to toe in mud days

On the Wall in the Hall

I am from Rock and Roll

From the Hugs and Smiles

You walk outside take a deep breath, ahhh fresh air. Not mucharound to contaminate the air. Dad is out back at work and so is mom and lotsof the rest of the family in fact. You take in the scenery, beautiful flowers everywhere;Dad sure did do a good job. You wave tofamily across the street; the warmth of family is everywhere. You put on yourfavorite sunglasses and go for a drive; that’s the only way you can get anywhere.Fifteen minutes later you see all of you favorite places, the base where yousister now works then the dairy dip where you get your favorite malt and thentake one video your favorite place to rent movies (since you were a kid) Themore you drive the newer Belle Chasse comes into view, The high school whereyou just graduated (thank goodness). After a while you find yourself goingacross a bridge where it is no longer home. You turn around crank the music upeven louder and keep driving twenty minutes back home.

In2009 Barrack Obama was elected into office, since then over one millionImmigrants have been deported. Less than twenty percent of these immigrantshave been convicted of a serious crime. In Frontline’s “Predictable” Riot atTexas Prison Followed Years of Complaints” by Sarah Childress, theinvestigative team goes to Willacy County Correctional Institution, one of thelargest privately owned prisons in the county. In 2011 they uncover theaggressive and abusive environments that immigrants are being forced to livein. Our law on immigration has been the same for a long time; they know whatthey are getting themselves into. The abuse that they received is wrong andsomething has to be done to stop it.

Itis truly heartbreaking to see families be separated like the video showed.Families that have children who are American but the parents are not. Mothersbeing deported and their children have to live with other family members. Thereare now four and a half million American kids with one or both parents that areundocumented. Most immigrants are discovered during routine traffic stops. Whywould anyone want to live a life of fear, the fear of being caught and alwayshaving to watch your back? Once immigrants are discovered they are sent tofacilities called “Secure Communities”. This is where the innocent areseparated from the criminals and are deported according to how much of a threatthey are. Investigators visited one in Texas called Willacy County CorrectionalInstitution run by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement where they foundevidence of abuse and mistreatment towards the inmates. I.C.E has a quota ofabout four hundred thousand immigrants that each year they must deport in orderto keep their funds. Sheriff Curran calls it “enforcement on steroids”. Thesepeople make be lawbreakers but they are still human and deserve to be treatedas that. (Childress, 2015) “What’s stunning about it is its sheer size, itlooks like an airfield with Kevlar white domed tents and you walk in and thereis razor wire all around it and in each one of them their holding two hundredpeople, with very limited space for movement where they are basicallywarehoused in order to infatuate their removal,” said Mark Flemings, Atty.Natl. Immigrant Justice Center. Whileunraveling the story of Willacy investigators spoke with a few of the institute’sold employees. Tuwana Cooks Allen was the former mental health coordinator. Sheheard countless stories of abuse at Willacy. When conducting a survey Allen wasconfronted by a detainee who said they were threatened by guards for givingnegative comments about the facility to the survey. She also said that therewere also lots of allegations of sexual abuse within the prison. A former guardsaid one day she saw a security video of guards beating a detainee close todeath and when asked why she said from her understanding is that he spoke backto the guards. These people cannot defend themselves because they are notAmerican citizens and do not have the right to an attorney. Most were told thatif they said anything it would be worse for them. In the words of PresidentObama” The system just isn’t working and we need to change it.

Thereneeds to be reform, some type of change.(Childress,2015) “He promised usimmigration reform and what did he give us, a million people being deported,”said a protestor. There has to be a way to make this work. Not allowing anymoreimmigrants over the border and then only deporting ones that are a threat. Thenthe ones that are not a threat force them to go through the