Media Contact: Rebekah Entralgo, rentralgo@freedomforimmigrants.org

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- On the morning of March 13, 2020, visitor volunteers reported to Freedom for Immigrants that they were blocked from social visitation at jails and prisons operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Later that day, ICE announced it has banned all social visitation in immigration detention nationwide.

ICE and the private prison corporations it contracts with have a proven record of failing to adequately provide basic health care, let alone respond to public health crises. This is exactly why community presence in these facilities is vital. At the same time, people held in detention are still being forced to pay exorbitant fees to access phone and communication services to contact loved ones and community members. The agency has not released plans on how facility officials, contractors, and people in detention will be screened for COVID-19 exposure.

Freedom for Immigrants is deeply concerned that the government’s response to COVID-19 will only result in more harm to vulnerable populations inside. The organization is calling for social visitation to be immediately restored, and for ICE and its contractors to offer free video visitation in the prisons where it currently exists, as well as free phone calls. This will allow visitor volunteers and families of impacted persons to keep in regular contact with people in immigration detention. We also join the voices of many immigration and criminal justice organizations in calling for ICE to begin paroling out immigrants in detention in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“If ICE is truly serious about ensuring the health and well-being of people in its custody, the agency would release people from immigration detention, beginning with vulnerable populations,” said Christina Fialho, co-founder/executive director of Freedom for Immigrants. “Immigrants in detention are always vulnerable to abuse and medical neglect. During a health pandemic, the likelihood of abuse occurring with no accountability is at an all time high. ICE’s nationwide ban on social visitation amounts to holding people incommunicado, especially when ICE has not taken steps to minimize this social isolation by providing people in their custody with other free means to connect with the outside world. Isolating immigrants while cutting off the only mechanism for watchdog groups like ours to monitor these prisons does nothing to promote health or safety.”

Freedom for Immigrants supports a network of over 4,500 visitor volunteers visiting 69 immigrant jails and prisons across 26 states. Not only do visitor volunteers provide community support to people isolated by our country’s carceral state, they also monitor these jails and prisons for human and civil rights abuses. For example, volunteers at visitation groups affiliated with Freedom for Immigrants currently support people on prolonged hunger strike who are now immunocompromised in their weakened state. Last week, Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention -- a local visitation group -- joined us in filing a civil rights complaint in support of a suicidal asylum seeker with mental disabilities who was placed in solitary confinement for over eight months. Without the advocacy of communities on the ground, these injustices could have never been brought to light.

“ICE is weaponizing this pandemic in order to isolate people in detention and spread xenophobia as they have historically done during previous outbreaks,” said Sofia Casini, Southern Regional Visitation Coordinator for Freedom for Immigrants. “Infectious disease outbreaks, such as chickenpox and mumps, have been used to justify prolonged lock downs and restrictions to community access at specific facilities. Now, the agency is taking this tactic to the national level.”

In the meantime, Freedom for Immigrants is running its own National Immigration Detention Hotline to ensure people in detention and their families have access to the outside world and resources, especially during this time. People in detention can call us at extension 9233 for free, and family members on the outside can contact us at 209-757-3733.