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“Dignity, Not Detention" Campaign Launched
to Halt Expansion of the U.S. Immigration Detention System
National Coalition Calls on President Obama to take immediate steps to stop human rights abuses occurring under the U.S. enforcement and detention regime
February 25, 2010 - Community leaders, clergy, legal experts, formerly detained individuals, and immigrant advocacy groups in cities across the country announce today the launch of a national campaign: “Dignity, Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights and Restoring Justice”. The campaign is a national effort to expose the profit-driven expansion of the detention system as a key contributor to the unprecedented number of immigrants held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and calls for an end to detention expansion. The launch includes a series of events in Phoenix, San Antonio, Gainesville, GA, New York, and Los Angeles demanding a reduction in government spending on detention, the use of cost-saving alternatives, and the restoration of due process in the government’s enforcement of immigration laws.
In San Antonio, Grassroots Leadership, Southwest Workers Union and Texans United for Families will hold a press conference and protest outside the local ICE office, where they will deliver a petition signed by 244 individuals detained across the state demanding an end to mandatory detention and basic health and safety needs such as hygiene products and adequate medical attention. Family members of individuals detained at the Port Isabel detention center have lodged complaints with government officials concerning allegations of abuse by guards in retaliation for a hunger strike organized by individuals detained at the facility. In Phoenix, members of Puente will march from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s offices to the local ICE office where they intend to deliver a letter calling for an end to Arpaio’s reign of terror in the community and termination of the local enforcement programs that are contributing to detention growth. In Gainesville, GA where Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) recently opened the North Georgia Detention Center, Georgia Detention Watch will hold a press conference followed by a vigil calling upon Georgia municipalities to terminate contracts with CCA for detention facilities in the region in light of CCA’s deadly track record and its failure to abide by ICE’s own non-binding detention standards. The group urges greater utilization of community-based alternatives to detention which have proven to be effective and much less costly to taxpayers.
Andrea Black, Network Coordinator for the Detention Watch Network, the coalition leading the campaign said, “The U.S. immigration detention system is in deep crisis. In recent years it has expanded dramatically and at great cost to human rights principles and the rule of law. The government’s unprecedented reliance on the use of detention as an immigration enforcement tool has resulted in a vast detention system that has exploded in a very short period of time, creating insurmountable management and oversight challenges.”
Over 300,000 immigrants a year are detained in a secretive web of 350 private, federal, state and local jails, and prisons at an annual cost of more than $1.7 billion to taxpayers. Over eighty percent of detained immigrants go through the immigration system with no lawyer. Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any meaningful judicial review of whether they should be released. While detained, immigrants face horrific prison conditions, including mistreatment by guards, solitary confinement, the denial of medical attention and limited or no access to their families, lawyers and the outside world. In many cases, these conditions have proven fatal: since 2003, a reported 107 people have died in immigration custody.
John Morton, the head of ICE announced last year that he plans to institute major reforms in the detention system, yet to date advocates say there is little evidence of change. Anton Flores of Georgia Detention Watch said, “Our communities are still suffering and human rights abuses continue to occur each day.”
Rama Carty, after being detained by ICE for 16 months in six different facilities, was joined by 70 others held at the Port Isabel detention center in a hunger strike in protest of the unjust and inhumane immigration enforcement and detention system. Mr. Carty said, “I witnessed the destruction of American families in a clearly inhumane process. That’s what led to the hunger strike. We had no other recourse to demand our basic human rights were protected.” Mr. Carty was held in detention centers in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana before being sent to the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas. Mr. Carty has since been released from ICE custody.
For more information on the “Dignity, Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights and Restoring Justice” Campaign, visit www.dignitynotdetention.org.
Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a coalition of organizations and individuals working to reform the immigration detention and deportation system so that all who come to our shores receive fair and humane treatment. The DWN members active in these events are speaking on behalf of themselves or their organizations. For more information, visit www.detentionwatchnetwork.org.
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LOCAL PRESS CONTACTS
Arizona - Phoenix
WHO: Puente, ACLU-AZ
Event: March, Press Conference, Delivery of letter
Location: 2035 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ
Time: March at Noon, Press Conference at 1pm (MST)
Contact: Carlos Garcia, Puente, 520-248-1697, carlos@puenteaz.org
New York/New Jersey - Manhattan
WHO: AFSC, Families for Freedom, New Sanctuary
Event: Morning Press Conference at Varick Street Detention Center; Evening Vigil at Hudson Cty Jail
Location: Varick Street Detention Center, 201 Varick Street ,NY, NY 10014; Hudson County Jail, 35 Hackensack Avenue, Kearney, NJ 07032
Time: 11:30am (NY), 7:00 pm (NJ) (EST)
Contact: Amy Gottlieb, AFSC (NJ) 917-494-6415, AGottlieb@afsc.org /Alina Das, New York University, Immigration Law Clinic (NY) 347-693-6485, DasA@exchange.law.nyu.edu
California - Los Angeles
WHO: NILC, Will Coley
Event: Video Launch
Location: http://www.youtube.com/user/DetentionWatchNetwrk
Time: Available for press calls 11 am - 12:30 pm (PST)
Contact: Will Coley, 917-523-1963, will@aquifermedia.com
Texas - San Antonio,
WHO: Texans United for Families and Grassroots Leadership
Event: Press Conference, Action and Delivery of Petitions
Location: 8940 Fourwinds Dr., San Antonio, TX, 78239
Time: Noon (CST)
Contact: Bob Libal, Grassroots Leadership/TUFF,512-971-0487, blibal@grassrootsleadership.org
Georgia - Gainesville
WHO: Georgia Detention Watch
Event: Press Conference, Public Testimony, & Prayer Service
Location: North Georgia Detention Center, 622 Main Street, Gainesville, GA 30501
Time: Noon (EST)
Contact: Azadeh Shahshani, Georgia Detention Watch/ACLU of GA,770-303-8111, ashahshahani@acluga.org; PJ Edwards, info@travelerstogether.org
