Are only those workers that produce surplus value “productive”? Can you comment on this point?

Ernesto Oleinik
Stockholm, Sweden
 
 
Fighting deportation
Greetings to the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and the Socialist Workers Party.

On June 23 the immigration authorities transferred me to the Monmouth County Correctional Institution at Freehold, New Jersey. The conditions here are very bad.

The prison authorities lock us up in our dormitories for two or three days at a time, letting us out only to shower and pick up our food, which we have to eat in our rooms. They’ve taken away yard recreation. Before, they used to let us out every day; now they do so once a week. They don’t want to give us nail clippers or items for cutting our hair. They deny us access to church. The food is of poor quality and insufficient quantity. There is no filtered water. Visits last only 15 minutes, no more.

On August 16 I was moved to a new dormitory where we have only 1 shower for 30 persons, 4 telephones, 1 TV. There’s no yard, no gym.

This jail does not give out underwear; I’m referring to stockings, underpants, and undershirts. Other county jails give out one pair of each as a minimum. An 18-year old youth from Costa Rica who was arrested outside Philadelphia was going around with nothing on underneath. We had to obtain some used clothing for him. They also give out shoes or boots that are used, and there are therefore many cases of infection.

The prison authorities have ignored my requests to see the doctor. In July I put in the first request, and just yesterday they called me. I saw a nurse, not the doctor. Immigration does not want to pay bills for doctors and medicines after the first month in this prison, so the detainee has to pay himself. Up to this moment they haven’t charged me. But they are charging me for the visit yesterday.

There’s a person here with a terminal illness who needs pills every day. Yet they give him only a five-day supply, and then the next five days he doesn’t get anything. The poor guy has lost weight and looks very haggard. The immigration people do this to “break us” psychologically and emotionally.

They have restrictions on our use of the library (Law Library), so that the immigration prisoners cannot make copies and find legal cases in our favor. For two months they haven’t wanted to take us there, no matter how much we complain.

I keep fighting day after day for my freedom against this gigantic machinery of the immigration authorities. I already went through this in 2000. So I know how to struggle against all these things.

And I know that in the end I will be free and emerge victorious.

Moisés R. Mory,
Freehold, New Jersey

[Moisés Mory, a steelworker and president of United Steelworkers of America Local 13742, was arrested by immigration authorities at his home in West New York, New Jersey, on May 7, 2004. A permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. for several decades, Mory faces a deportation order based on a 1987 felony conviction. He is currently being held with other immigrant detainees at a maximum security prison in Freehold, New Jersey. In 1999-2000 Mory spent a year in jail in an earlier attempt by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport him. The letter has been translated from Spanish.—Mike Taber, Newark, New Jersey]

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of interest to working people.

Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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