Pages

The Town of Southwest Ranches, Corrections Corporation of American (CCA), and DHS / ICE want to build one of the largest immigration detention centers in the nation within walking distance of thousands of homes; thus, reducing the quality of our life and our community. We do not agree with the federal government privatizing our immigration detention centers throughout the nation when there is clear evidence that privatizing our prisons creates a clear public safety threat. For ICE to continue to privatize these institutions and bring this safety threat through their "secure communities Initiative" to our community is unacceptable. Depriving someone of their liberty is a non-delegable governmental function and privatizing of such a function is infecting our nation like a virus.

The Town of Southwest Ranches has now entered into it's THIRD Fire Contract within the last year now with the Town of Davie, costing taxpayers $120,000 in ramp up fees. They are now closing several roads in western Southwest Ranches charging the tax payers $80,000 for the gates. They have paid an unknown amount of money for lobbying with ICE regarding this prison. They have several lawsuits against the Town, 1- Involving Open Meeting Violations on a November 5th meeting concerning the ICE Detention Center, 2- Open Records Violations, and 3- The Town is putting together a lawsuit to sue Pembroke Pines for breach of contract because the City utilized their exit clause and cancelled for convenience their Fire/EMS contract which included water and sewer at the last minute for the CCA prison. In the contract it states that there should be no third party beneficiaries. CCA would be a third party in this instance.

CCA has also filed suit in Federal court against the City of Pembroke Pines saying they are denying them water however the City had never seen a water application. The City did file for a Declaratory Judgement in State Court but that has been put on hold until the Federal Court hears the suit from CCA.

Is ANYONE CONFUSED as to why the Pembroke Pines/Southwest Ranches Fire Agreement was cancelled? The Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff attempted to "slip" into the agreement a portion that guaranteed water for the prison at CCA's request. This is something that should have been brought up separately. CCA should have brought it forward on their own in a water application. This is sleight of hand that CCA and the Town attempted to do because they were so afraid of CCA being on the Pembroke Pines agenda.

As of June 2012, ICE put out a statement that the site selection was no longer needed due to the fact that the extra bedspace was no longer needed. READ UPDATE HERE!


Friday, March 30, 2012

The Beat Goes On... Is ICE Incompetent or Untrustworthy? Take your Pick.

The Beat Goes On
(A Congressman you can Listen to.... Unlike DWS)

All of us now want to get to the bottom of who was told what, and when.  Pembroke Pines has entered a public records request with the Town of Southwest Ranches and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with ICE trying to get to the bottom of what happened two days ago, 3/28/2012, when Debbie Wasserman Schultz's office announced to the public and to the City of Pembroke Pines that ICE pulled the plug on the Southwest Ranches detention facility.



We know that some fast intervention must have taken place and some severe back peddling took place to have the day culminate with egg all over Wasserman Schultz's face and an apologetic Southwest Ranches town attorney.

The unfortunate thing is that Debbie's office is still completely unresponsive and did not have the courtesy to even respond to our FOIA request when Davisdon was asked yesterday.  That's not out of character for Wasserman Schultz's office to simply ignore correspondence with residents.  It fact, it's par for the course.  Just ask how many residents have actually spoken with Debbie about the prison.

Either ICE is consummately untrustworthy or they are grossly incompetent.  Thus, our Town should NEVER sign an IGSA (contract) with them. You can review Pines' City Manager Charlie Dodge's letter to ICE Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, Gary Mead here:

Ltr to Gary Mead From Charles Dodge Re City of PPines Town of SW Ranches Proposed Den Tent Ion Facility (1)


We will learn what happened, shortly.



Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 30, 2012 at 4:52 PM

    Pines is being sued, the govt is playing games and Debbie is throwing her city under the bus, all because Pines said no to the prison

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 30, 2012 at 5:26 PM

    We may find out what was said, but will we find out HOW MUCH WAS PAID?!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 31, 2012 at 2:53 PM

    ICE new acronym is:

    Incompetence and
    Careless
    Entity

    And to think that they are part of "homeland security"......how secure would you feel with hundreds of inmates roaming around your neighborhood with ankle bracelets??????????

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comments. Your comment will be posted by the moderator. Any threats of people are discouraged and as such those comments will be removed. Thank you for contributing to our conversation on the Southwest Ranches ICE/CCA Detention Center

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)