Freedom Folks: A Bad Idea! Or Contrast and Compare...

Source: Chron.com

AUSTIN -- With so many non-violent Mexican citizens clogging an increasingly jammed Texas prison system, a state lawmaker thinks it may be time for Texas to set up its own prison in Mexico. After all, he figures, the inmates would be closer to home and they're going to be deported anyway when their sentences are complete, so the move would save taxpayers money. "The plusses are that it's a heck of a lot less expensive to build and staff prisons down there," Sen. Craig Estes said. "They would be Texas quality and they'd roughly cost about half." A hidden side benefit? "I would hope some people might look at it as economic development in some areas of Mexico that desperately need it," he said.

Seems reasonable, yes? These things often do until they blow up in your face. Funny how the very story required to shoot this down is so readily avaliable...

The report said immigration agents held as many as 78 people in four cells designed for five people each in Hermosillo. Most of the detainees were Guatemalans, followed by Hondurans and Salvadorans.

The commission's inspectors said there was not enough drinking water or blankets to go around, the toilets lacked water, and detainees were forced to sleep on the floors of the cells.

One detainee at the Caborca jail reported that he and six other migrants were denied food and water from 8:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. the next day.

Mexico's constitution guarantees the right of free travel to its citizens, meaning Mexican authorities cannot stop their countrymen from crossing into the United States. But they are free to detain illegal border-crossers from other countries, and the United States has been urging them to do so as part of efforts to boost its own border security.

Many Mexicans empathize with these Central American travelers. But other people, especially in southern states like Chiapas, fear that Central Americans will eventually begin settling in Mexico and taking Mexicans' jobs. They also are worried about crime brought by the Mara Salvatrucha, Central American gangsters who control the immigration routes.

This is from a story detailing a Mexican prison used to hold those illegal immigrants into Mexico. Or how about this story from last week...

“Get me out of here,” a frustrated Peter Kimber said yesterday from his prison cell in Huatulco, where he suffers from kidney problems and other ill health.

He said he has endured dozens of beatings and atrocious conditions because he can’t pay bribes to get out. *snip*

Kimber related the horrors of living in inhumane conditions, where “dog-eat-dog” fights over food are common because prisoners are given $25 a month to buy food, drinking water, clothing and toiletries.

“I never envisioned eating out of garbage cans that people have been spitting in all day or beating the living hell out of someone because I want his food,” he said.

Kimber estimated he’s been in 150 fights and was stabbed by a blood-filled syringe during a jail robbery.

He said money he’s paid for bribes to get out of the prison has been wasted and he’s been asked to sign blank documents and confessions to crimes he didn’t commit.