'US Immigrants May be Held Indefinitely'

With the recent passage of Bush's detainee bill, we all saw this coming and it will hopefully find its way to the Supreme Court and be struck down eventually although, until that time, the US will hold these prisoners in any way they see fit without any oversight while they're stripped of any rights they ought to afforded as basic human beings:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Monday that Guantanamo prisoners have no constitutional right to challenge their detention before U.S. federal judges, and the lawsuits by hundreds of detainees must be dismissed.
[...]
They say a provision of the law unconstitutionally suspends the right under habeas corpus, a long-standing principle of American law, for detainees to contest their imprisonment.

Justice Department attorneys disagreed. "There is no constitutional habeas right for an enemy alien held outside the United States to challenge his detention," they said. "No actual habeas rights have been suspended."

Well, isn't that twisted bit of logic interesting? If they had no right to habeas corpus to begin with why did congress just take it away from them under their new bill?

So now we have to wait and see how these 400 cases shake out while these prisoners rot away in Gitmo. And remember how Bush kept saying that most of the Gitmo detainees could go home if only their host countries would accept them and would promise not to infringe on their rights? So much for that.

But, that just isn't enough power for these sadistic neocons. They also filed a brief on Monday that would allow them to hold immigrants on terrorism charges indefinitely. Yes, even those who are in US prisons on US soil.

Some of you may have missed the news back in January which relates to this:

KBR, the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co. (HAL : Halliburton Company) said Tuesday it has been awarded a contingency contract from the Department of Homeland Security to supports its Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the event of an emergency. The maximum total value of the contract is $385 million and consists of a 1-year base period with four 1-year options. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005. The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to expand existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs, KBR said. The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, the company said.

New programs like this Bush administration plan to hold immigrants as long as they feel like it because they're suspected of terrorism?

And what's the Justice departments record on prosecuting terrorism cases?

Prosecutors declined to bring charges in 131 of 150, or 87 percent, of international terrorist case referrals from the FBI between October 2005 and June 2006, according to the report. The study was based on the most recent data available from the Justice Department's executive office for U.S. attorneys.

That number marks the peak of generally steady increases from the 2001 budget year, when prosecutors rejected 33 percent of such cases from the FBI, according to the report.

The data "raise troubling questions about the bureau's investigation of criminal matters involving individuals the government has identified as international terrorists," the report said.
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The Justice department disputed that number and said it only rejected 67% of the FBI's cases. Like that makes much of a difference. What it does show, however, is the number of people charged who are never convicted of anything. Yet the Bush administration thinks it's okay to lock up people endlessly until the FBI and the feds figure out what the hell they're doing.

Those new Halliburton detention centers haven't been referred to as internment camps for nothing. Is that Bush's idea of a new 'guest worker' program to solve the immigration problem?

The neocon era isn't over yet and it's up to the Democrats now to stand up for the civil and human rights of these prisoners while Bush gets his veto pen ready every step of the way. The least the Democrats can do is to hold hearings expressing their collective outrage at this continual and willful disregard of peoples rights on the part of their administration.

Enough is enough and the Bush crew has had more than enough of a turn abusing its ultimate power. It's now time to hold them responsible for what they've done.