Saturday, March 22, 2008

Another "holding pen for wetbacks"

Another immigration detention facility to house children and families like the one in Williamson County may be coming to Central Texas, except that government officials don't all call it an "immigration detention facility." In a public agenda for the Creedmoor Water Supply Corporation, a public entity with an elected board providing water service to the proposed facility, they called it a "holding pen for wetbacks."

You can't make this stuff up. I wonder if that will be the name on the facility's signage? Via Eye on Williamson County.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My favorite part is where the guy refused to apologize or step down, because the people that were going to be held there were illegals and as a result really were wetbacks.

I love backward-ass small-town mentalities.

Anonymous said...

I hate cities like Austin acting holier than thou by meddling is another community's business. Doesn't the Austin city council have better things to do like look for ways to cut taxes or ways to reform the police or fire department?????

Lauren said...

The phrasing is bad enough, but shouldn't we be more worried about having another family detention center? Especially when CCA's has been so controversial?

BTW- the one official directly quoted was a representative to the legislature for Mustang Ridge, and while Austin city leaders might also be furious,

Lauren said...

oops: I posted that before I was finished...

Correction: The News 8 Austin article quotes a few people.

Rodriguez, however, represents the Mustang Ridge area (and part of Austin)... I would be disappointed if he did not respond to this and he were my representative.

And is this a "small-town" problem? I have heard many city-folk say the same things; because they are not public officials. their words don't end up in the news. I think it's too easy to say this is a small-town-Texas problem. This erases local opposition to such facilities- such as there has been in Taylor - and "others" the rural. This only fuels comments like anonymous above, who would rather city-folk leave well enough alone.

Also, we're talking about federal immigration detention here, paid for with federal (yours and mine) tax dollars. This is not and issue of local or county law enforcement. And for that reason alone, everyone in the U.S. has a stake in what happens with these detention centers. And if detention centers are being built with explicitly racist reasoning behind them, anti-racist Americans have a responsibility to act and speak. Perhaps small-town public officials should keep this in mind when they court federal immigration detention centers.

rosskay62 said...

First of all, I think the guy who used the derogatory term is an embarrassment to the folks who elected and/or appointed him. Also, isn't it a bit of a conflict of interest for the guy to be Mayor Pro-Tem AND GM of the water supply corporation?

And I do think that the City of Austin does have a legitimate interest in the situation, given that the H20 supplier does have contracts with Austin to supply water to some of Austin's ETJ. I am giving Mike Martinez the benefit of the doubt here and assuming that he is calling on the fellow to resign his position as GM, and not his seat on the Mustang Ridge City Council.

But on what basis can Martinez claim that this is racist ? Against what race? Bigoted, yes; offensive, yes; prejudicial and anti-Mexican, certainly. Maybe I missed the news the day that "Hispanic" or "Mexican" became racial categories. I'm sure someone will take this opportunity to enlighten me if I am mistaken.

Anonymous said...

The City of Austin has no legitimate interest in another city's or governmental entity's business. They can't even run this city properly, much less take on the responsibility of running other peoples lives, who didn't even vote for the busy bodies.

Anonymous said...

Well finally the presidential election is over and we are told that we're Finally gonna have CHANGE. Well if its a moddow then we should put it on the dollar or nickel

-Kelly

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