Update on Richard Sitcha from the Sitcha Defense Committee, October 2005 in Worcester.

Suzanne Carlson (Greenfield MA), Carl Doerner (Conway MA), Andrew Cohen (Cambridge MA), Lorena Dutelle (E. Windsor CT), Albert Marceau (Hartford CT)

All five members of the SDC met in Worcester on October 9, along with Malik Ndaula of the National Immigration Project (Soros Justice Fellow; "Keeping Hope Alive" project), who has been guiding our efforts and providing legal documents and procedures since April. Lorena arrived fresh from a visit with Richard in Plymouth. Everyone exerted great effort to travel to meet together (a first) to share information and to strategize.

PERSONAL UPDATE on Richard: his spirits remain very good, even though he's not sure what's happening. He's been in detention for over two years, while seeing others released (mostly not deported); he was never offered voluntary departure.
Following an assault by another inmate, Richard and his cellmate Hugo were put in protective custody (2 weeks ago), and about a week later moved to another unit (D-1), where the ratio of "INS-detained" to "convicted " is worse. Richard was invited to move into a cell by someone who knew him, so he is with a Mexican (who appreciates Richard's fluency in Spanish) and 3 "criminals". (Does this put detainees at greater risk to inmate violence? Who is responsible for their security?)

Richard has been having trouble (as have others) with restrictions on participation in religious services. Catholic service happens on Sat., he must sign up ahead of time, is often disallowed to attend, and hasn't seen a priest since mid July (always a Deacon leads the service). Lorena, calling the Prison Chaplain, was told they have to attend on alternate Saturdays because those with felony charges are separated from those without. (They can't pray and worship together but they can be housed together!?)

During the moves, Richard has been unable to access material for writing letters. He still hasn't received all his things from F3 unit (and he never got back the things from Franklin, shipped to Boston).

LEGAL UPDATE:
In Fed. District Court in Hartford CT, the Government had moved to lift/vacate the Stay of Deportation (to clear RS for deportation). Even though Malik said the motion was "frivolous" (since the Real ID Act passed in May, they should maintain the stay for pending "habeas" cases), Malik and RS filed a motion to maintain the Stay of Deportation.

FLAG: Their motion indicates the Govt. has travel documents from Cameroon which would be valid to use for deportation.

The Real ID Act requires all habeas motions to be filed in the district where the case was decided -- i.e. for RS that means Hartford, where we (with Malik, Carl and Albert) filed the habeas motion for Richard , pro se, in mid-May.

The First Circuit (to which we had appealed Judge Ponsor's dismissal of RS's habeas petition in April) recently agreed to release the case, which leaves us only in the (more promising) Second Circuit, which is what we've been wanting and striving for since May.

This means the Second Circuit Court of Appeal (actually in NY) would review the record on its legal merits (e.g. RS should have been, but was not given opportunity to cross-examine the government witness in the hearing that resulted in revocation of his asylum status).The tough news is that the courts are backed up and months more will pass before a decision is rendered. There will be no public appearances in this venue.

A petition to the Court of Appeals for a re-hearing of the case could end in rejection of his bid, with the next appeal to the Supreme Court. That court would almost certainly not set his case for argument. Most are rejected. If RS has a favorable result in Ist District appellate court, this woul be a remanding of the case back down to BIA (Bureau of Immigration Appeals), the immigration court, at which time the merits of his case would again be argued in open court in Hartford. We would want and could likely find and hire an attorney, have one appointed by the court, or find one pro bono to handle these arguments. (The reason for hope the appellate court will so rule, and the BIA grant him asylum, is that his asylym was reversed on the basis of hearsay.)

Malik also filed an amended petition to challenge "prolonged detention" (after 6 months it becomes "incarceration" and could be challenged as illegal, esp. after 2 years.) This would be heard in Hardford's Fed. District Court.

ISSUES AND STRATEGIZING
(1) Prison conditions: housing detainees with criminals is against policy and law. Richard has twice (Feb. 2004 in CT and Sep. 2005 in Plymouth) been assaulted by an inmate. One, if not both, incident was with a criminal inmate. We will explore this issue and how to address it with the appropriate authorities. This will include research into who owns PCCF and how we can communicate with them; high costs of canteen items; poor quality and small quantity of food for meals.

(2) Religious services/worship: Richard (and others) have been denied access to a priest/sacraments (communion and confession) since mid-July. We are exploring various religious persons and ways to establish religious protection/rights for all the inmates. This will include researching who organizes and provides religious services at PCCF; asking RS to get detainees to document the issues, and mobilizing religious and lay people to work out these issues.

(3) Updating people on our lists on the situation and including them in campaigns; we need to get lots of people on board before we tackle the problem. We expect we may go first to the warden, then to immigration officials.

Various resources that we will contact for assistance:
Bishop Razaza (CT) who has been writing to RS and been supportive.
Father Ahern
Father Jack Roach
Chaplain at PCCF; Catholic Services coordinator?
Sisters of Mercy contacts
Holyoke Catholic High School contact (Joe Toritto via Suzanne)
Agape community, Ware MA
Sts. Francis & Therese Catholic Worker, Worcester (who arranged
our meeting space at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament), and their "Catholic Radical" newsletter (article on RS in next issue).
MIRAC (Mass. Immigrant Rights Advocacy Coalition)

Senators and Members of Congress
Anyone with suggestions for us or wanting to get involved, please contact us:
Suzanne Carlson, (413) 774-2112; suzannec@crocker.com;

Lorena Dutelle, lorenadutelle@yahoo.com
Andrew Cohen, acohen@wesleyan.edu
Carl Doerner, cdoerner@surfglobal.net
Albert Marceau, marceauaj@students.ccsu.edu