FREEDOM FOR IMMIGRANTS IS DEDICATED TO BUILDING A WORLD WITHOUT DETENTION.
The profit-driven immigration incarceration industry thrives under the assumption that incarcerating immigrants is necessary. But the real reason people are being locked up for months or even years is because it is profitable. It is profitable for private prison companies and other private interests, who have entrenched rural communities in dependency on carceral economies and carceral employment markets.
There is another way.
What are Alternatives to Detention?
The Interfaith Committee for Detained Immigrants operates the Marie Joseph House of Hospitality for Men in Cicero, Illinois, to provide food and shelter for men released from detention.
Since immigration detention has existed, communities have organized to free their loved ones and advocates have offered refuge to newly arriving immigrants. In this way, alternatives to detention in the form of post-release support initiatives have existed as long as immigration detention. In response to community organizing efforts, the private prison industry co-opted the term "alternatives to detention" to describe cruel, unethical, and nefarious government programs, such as the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), that function as alternative forms of detention.
This is why Freedom for Immigrants has chosen to no longer use the term “alternatives to detention” to define our work. Instead, we define our vision for a world without immigration detention as a community investment strategy.
Our Vision for Community Investment
Freedom for Immigrants believes that any immigration system should be built upon fairness and transparency; freedom and opportunity; and respect for human rights and public health. Any immigration system must be affordable for the country and realistic to implement.
We can divest from detention and redirect funding to effective and compassionate community programming. There is a range of viable, community programs that offer an individualized approach to supporting both recent asylum seekers and people with longstanding community ties who desire to opt into supportive programming. Rather than be incarcerated for months and years, immigrants arriving at the border would go through customs, receive screenings and assessments, a temporary I.D., an immigration appointment and/or hearing date, and be assigned a community-based organization to help acclimate and/or guide them through the country’s immigration system and laws. This would be a more fair, efficient, and affordable approach that upholds our country’s basic values of dignity and respect for all life.
Our Community Investment Programs
A Freedom for Immigrants volunteer accompanies a recently released immigrant to a government meeting.
Since 2010, Freedom for Immigrants has been building and piloting various forms of community investment programming, starting with our Post Release Accompaniment Project (PRAP). We have since expanded the scope of this Bay Area-based demonstration model into our current national programs:
Today, we run a National Bond Fund to secure the release of people from immigration detention on a cash bond--which is like bail--while they continue fighting their case in court. However, rather than paying the government a ransom to release asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking, and others with longstanding community ties, we believe this capital could be better spent on community investment. Learn more about our theory and work.
We also convene a National Sponsorship Network with a vision for ensuring that any person who comes to our nation’s border will be met with hospitality. Learn more about how you can get involved.
Through our Post-Release Accompaniment & Mental Health Program, we provide supportive programming for people released from detention back to their families and communities. Immigration detention is a brutal system, and once people are released, the healing process can begin. Through our programming, we provide one-on-one phone calls with our team, connections to volunteers in or around their community and resources, and opportunities for therapy. In fact, we are running a pilot mental health program. Learn more about the mental health effects of immigration detention.
And through our Policy Advocacy, we convene with the Women’s Refugee Commission a Working Group in Washington, D.C. on “alternatives to detention,” and we helped pass into law an FY21 budget bill that includes $5M for community-based programming! The program will be managed by the Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties (CRCL) at DHS and housed in FEMA.