Pressroom

“Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear where he stands with immigrant communities. His racist and incendiary remarks have inflamed anti-immigrant sentiments across the country and given cover to far right and white supremacist agendas of exclusion and demonization.

Washington, DC – Marking the Latin American holiday, Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, Detention Watch Network (DWN) held a funeral procession from the White House to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Headquarters to bring awareness to the untimely deaths of immigrants in government custody. Recent investigations into deaths in immigration detention have found that inadequate medical care at detention centers has contributed to numerous deaths.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than 340 immigrant rights, faith-based and civil- and labor-rights organizations delivered a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson Wednesday calling for the government to end its use of private prison companies to detain immigrants.

Statement from Silky Shah, Co-Director of Detention Watch Network, on news that the United States Justice Department plans to end its use of private prisons:

“We are encouraged by today’s announcement that the Justice Department plans to end their toxic relationship with the private prison industry. For far too long, private prison companies have treated people’s lives as profit in the mass incarceration system, stripping people of their dignity and leaving a trail of abuse and mismanagement in their wake.