Media Contact: Rebekah Entralgo, rentralgo@freedomforimmigrants.org
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, Freedom for Immigrants has launched a series of tools that track U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) response to the virus and conditions within its jails and prisons.
Beginning Thursday, advocates and loved ones of people in detention can call our COVID-19 Detention Hotline at 209-757-3733 to report instances of abuse. .
Some of the information collected through the Hotline will be publicly available on our interactive map on U.S. immigration detention. The map will track confirmed cases of COVID-19 in ICE jails and prisons; visitation/communication barriers; lack of access to hygiene products/unsanitary conditions; inadequate medical response; reports of medical neglect; and abuses and retaliation in connection to internal organization in response to COVID- 19. The map will also track media reporting on COVID-19 in ICE detention.
“The danger posed to the safety and well-being of people who are in ICE’s custody cannot be overstated,” said Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Christina Mansfield. “Because ICE has cut off all social visitation, the COVID-19 Detention Hotline and our exhaustive national mapping effort are key to ensuring some measure of accountability for how ICE is handling and responding to the virus in real time. We will use the collected data to confront ICE’s lies that the agency can guarantee the safety of everyone in its custody.”
The detention map acts as a centralized database for loved ones, legal services providers, organizers, advocates, and detained people to report on ICE’s response to COVID-19 and help bolster calls to #FreeThemAll.
“The most reliable source of information regarding conditions in ICE jails and prisons comes from those on the inside and their loved ones,” said Cynthia Galaz, National Hotline Director and Policy Monitor at Freedom for Immigrants. “In this current moment, the Hotline is an indispensable tool and helps us hold ICE accountable so we can fight to free them all.”
People in detention can still use our National Immigration Detention Hotline to report abuses and conditions in ICE detention, whether it is related to COVID-19 or not, using the extension 9233. Calls made through our National Detention Hotline are free, confidential and unmonitored.
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