In a victory for constitutional rights, two Transportation Security Authority (TSA) officials and JetBlue Airways have paid Raed Jarrar $240,000 to settle charges that they illegally discriminated against the US resident based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on his t-shirt. TSA and JetBlue officials prevented Jarrar from boarding his August 2006 flight at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport until he agreed to cover his shirt, which read "We Will Not Be Silent" in English and Arabic, and then forced him to sit at the back of the plane. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Jarrar’s behalf in August 2007.

On Dec. 12, some 1,300 federal prisoners staged an uprising at the privately run Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, Texas, to demand better medical treatment after a detainee died at the facility, allegedly of natural causes. The Reeves County Detention Center has been run since 2003 by the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, under contract with the federal government. The medium security prison holds more than 2,400 people, mainly inmates detained for immigration law violations. The uprising took place after the detainee's body was removed from the prison, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper John Barton told the Pecos Enterprise. The prisoners set a fire in an exercise room at the facility and were evacuated to an outdoor yard, where they took two prison recreation workers hostage. The newspaper reported that firefighters had to extinguish bonfires inmates had set to keep warm overnight.

On Dec. 10, ICE agents arrested 15 immigrants who were employed as contract janitorial workers at the BP oil refinery in the town of Whiting in northern Indiana. ICE said the arrests stemmed from "a two-year critical infrastructure worksite enforcement investigation that is continuing." The 11 women and four men arrested on administrative immigration charges were all employed by United Building Maintenance (UBM) of Carol Stream, Illinois. One of the workers is from Guatemala; the others are from Mexico. All were expected to be placed into deportation proceedings. Each case is also being reviewed for possible criminal charges by the US Attorney's Office, Northern District of Indiana. Two former UBM employees from Mexico were arrested by ICE earlier this year after they were discovered working without authorization at the BP refinery; they are currently facing criminal prosecution in the Northern District of Indiana. "BP Corporate Security has been fully cooperative in the investigation and has provided invaluable assistance to ICE," according to an ICE news release. (ICE news release, Dec. 10)

On Dec. 4, ICE agents raided Idaho Truss & Component Co., a wood framing company in Nampa, Idaho, just west of Boise, arresting 16 of the 22 workers present. The workers, all Mexican men, were expected to be placed into deportation proceedings for administrative immigration violations. ICE's investigation began with a tip from the public, said ICE spokesperson Lorie Dankers. ICE then initiated an investigation after reviewing the employment records of individuals who were helping build military housing at Mountain Home Air Force Base, about 50 miles south of Boise. Further investigation revealed that some of the workers may have secured employment using false Social Security numbers and other counterfeit identity documents. The company had been providing information to ICE for the past several weeks, said Idaho Truss President Kendall Hoyd. ICE was assisted in the investigation by the Metro Violent Crimes and Gang Task Force based in Nampa and the US Postal Inspection Service. (ICE news release, Dec. 4; Idaho Statesman, Dec. 5; Boise Weekly, Dec. 10)

Lipan Apache Women Defense announced Dec. 23 delivery of a letter to President-elect Barack Obama urging him to halt construction of the border wall, stop the illegal seizures of border communities' properties, and to uphold and respect the rights of indigenous people. The letter from the border community of El Calaboz Ranchería, Texas, was delivered to the co-chair of Obama's Interior Department transition team, Robert Anderson (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Bois Forte Band), director of the Native American Law Center at the University of Washington. The letter requests the incoming administration review the Homeland Security Department's "unlawful" use of condemnation proceedings against indigenous peoples' lands. It calls for a "community-based partnership with the new Obama-Biden administration to transform the US's relationship with Indigenous peoples."

Read the fine print. "Five Muslim immigrants from South Jersey were convicted today of plotting to kill American soldiers, a crime that prosecutors said demonstrated how Al Qaeda was using the Internet to recruit, train and incite supporters for attacks in the United States and around the world." So states the lead paragraph in the Newark Star-Ledger's Dec. 22 coverage of the verdict in the Fort Dix pseudo-conspiracy case. Except that it's the usual bait-and-switch: al-Qaeda had absolutely nothing to do with it...

A lone protester at El Paso's Rio Bosque Wetlands Park temporarily halted construction of the US government's border fence Dec. 17, before being arrested by the Texas Rangers. Judy Ackerman, a local Sierra Club activist and founding member of Friends of the Rio Bosque, was one of about 25 who gathered to protest at the construction site. Alone, she donned a work helmet and blocked construction equipment for eight hours. The Border Patrol reportedly called in the Rangers for the arrest. "I am going to stay here until they leave me alone or they arrest me because I believe that the construction of this wall should stop completely," she told supporters. "The river is life; the wall is death." She may face federal charges. (El Diario, Ciudad Juárez; El Paso Times, Bobby Byrd blog, El Paso, Dec. 17)

Shades of 1936—already. From AP, Dec. 7:

CHICAGO — Workers who got three days' notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won't go home without assurances they'll get severance and vacation pay.