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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!


Monday, February 6, 2012

The CCA Advisory Meeting -- A Place of Surrender

Pembroke Pines Commissioner Carl Shechter warned us about inconsistent messages when they debated the resolution to inform the President that we did not want this detention center.  He said that the inclusion of the 10 demands to ICE "should" they insist on building the prison anyway, sent an inconsistent message and telegraphed defeat.

All those involved, from the 4 commissioners and Mayor to every single public speaker were very clear in that we are not going to negotiate terms of surrender.  The resolution included statements from 19 HOAs representing 90,000 (at a bare minimum) of the 150,000 residents of Pembroke Pines that they STAUNCHLY oppose the immigrant prison.




In order to complete the legitimacy of the process of jamming a prison down our throats, private prison company Corrections Corporation of America, LLC, has been conducting closed-to-the-public advisory group meetings which are by invitation only and spearheaded by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz who is also the chair of the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to justify that the public was listened to and she was correct in endorsing the immigrant prison.

These meetings are being used to undermine your opposition to the prison by bringing legitimacy to the negotiations you are engaged in to give us the best prison we can get.  You are writing our terms of surrender and we have made our voices clear.  NO SURRENDER.

If you disagree with this assessment, please read the following letter from Director of Enforcement and Removal, Gary Mead as he responded to Mayor Frank Ortis' demand that Southwest Ranches be taken out of consideration.  He's actually calling these sham advisory meetings "town council meetings."

This is a travesty of representative government.  Again, the advisory meetings you are attending are by invitation only and they EXCLUDE those who refuse to negotiate for the "best prison we can get" including most members of the Residents Against the SW Ranches ICE Detention Center.


HOA presidents, your attendance lends credibility to their process.  Your actions are undermining opposition to the prison. You need to immediately boycott these meetings especially if you signed on to this resolution in opposing the prison.

There are no negotiations.  We will only discuss THEIR concession to leave our communities alone.
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 7, 2012 at 10:02 AM

    They are specific meetings to SELECTED GROUPS so they can SWEET TALK YOU into liking this JAIL!!!! DO NOT DARE TO ATTEND ONE OF THESE MEETINGS UNLESS INVITED!!! You will be ejected, or threatened with arrest, or both.They use the BSO SWR Officers to do their strong arm dirty work!!!!!

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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

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