By Alan Bean

Tucson immigration rights activists in Tucson successfully shut down Operation Streamline.  It’s only in one courthouse in one community, but it is just another indication that concern about Streamline is growing.  It takes courage, and a measure of desperation, to undertake this kind of protest.

Activists block Tucson courthouse, immigration hearings canceled for the day

October 11, 2013 8:12 am  •

Perla Trevizo Arizona Daily Star

A protest today by immigration rights activists continued in Tucson for more than four hours, prompting the federal court to shutdown a deportation process known as Operation Streamline for the day.

About 80 immigrant rights activists are protesting at the federal courthouse downtown, blocking entrances as well as buses carrying people to hearing that could result in their deportation. By noon police had used power saws to remove two of about 10 protesters who had used chains to attach themselves to the wheels of one of two buses. By 12:30 one of the buses was back on the road and officers worked on removing protesters from the second one. About 30 minutes later that bus was also able to leave.

The group stopped the buses on the Interstate 10 frontage road as they approached the courthouse, and some of the activists chained themselves to the wheels while others hung banners critical of the fast-track immigration deportation court process called Operation Streamline. (more…)

By Alan Bean

I have written a number of posts about Operation Streamline, a dreadful and dehumanizing process of “expedited removal” that unfolds daily, primarily in border town courtrooms in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.  To be honest, these posts don’t get a lot of attention.  I’m hoping this opinion piece by Roberto Rodriguez, an assistant professor in Mexican-American studies at the University of Arizona, will be different.

Rodriguez draws attention to the stark racial undercurrents that most observers are too polite to notice.  On a dozen occasions, he has taken college classes to witness these “cattle call” proceedings and they always come away sickened:

When my students leave the courtroom, they say they feel defiled, dirty … as if they have just witnessed something abominable, something that should not be taking place, something contrary to the US Constitution, something amoral. And all of it takes place compliments of our tax dollars.

Then there’s this:

There was a time when being apprehended on the border simply meant returning the migrants across the border … until someone decided that criminalization and incarceration could be profitable – literally, a big business. The more bodies, the more beds, the more money for the private prison industry.

And this:

I remember the first time I went to this operation, President George W. Bush was in office. When Sen. Barack Obama ran for and won the presidency, we all thought that this kangaroo court procedure finally would be shut down, something akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Instead, as written into the current comprehensive immigration reform proposal, this Expedited Indian Removal program will become three times bigger than its current form.

Operation Streamline: Expedited Indian Removal

Wednesday, 09 October 2013

By Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Truthout

On the left side of the courtroom, 60 to 70 short, dark-brown men and a few women are seated, handcuffed and shackled from the wrists, waist and ankles. All are silent. They take up about 20 rows, including the two corresponding to the jury box. The scene is surreal. Their chains, their color and height are very pronounced – yet in this courtroom, are hardly noticed by the lawyers and other court officials, including the judge.

This kangaroo court called Operation Streamline is America’s modern version of Expedited Indian Removal; chase, capture, pseudo-judicial proceeding, incarceration and deport. It convenes daily at 1:30 PM in Tucson, Arizona. (more…)

By Alan Bean

The Senate immigration bill triples the scope of Operation Streamline, one of the most expensive and unjust legal scams ever perpetrated on the American public.  Actually, the American public have nothing to fear from Operation Streamline, which is what makes it so dangerous–out of sight, out of mind.  But former US Attorney A. Bates Butler III has seen the process up close and personal and is appropriately appalled.  No one who has witnessed this legal travesty can feel good about it.  When you realize that the benefits of Operation Streamline benefits no one but the private prison industry, and that corporations like CCA and Geo Group bankroll the re-election campaigns of the Gang of Eight Senators responsible for the Senate bill, you detect an unpleasant odor in the air.

Guest Column: We need sensible immigration reform; Operation Streamline must end

A. Bates Butler III and Mo Goldman Special To The Arizona Daily Star

July 12, 2013

The Senate, under the leadership of the Gang of Eight, last month passed comprehensive immigration reform following years of hope for reform from the millions of undocumented residents in the United States.

Undoubtedly, our antiquated immigration system needs a dramatic overhaul. Yet the current immigration bill that passed the Senate includes enforcement components that would have us double down on failed policing strategies and expand an already bloated border enforcement budget that costs U.S. taxpayers $18 billion annually. (more…)