FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jeff Migiozzi, media@freedomforimmigrants.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As advocates across the country take to the streets today for the Communities Not Cages National Day of Action, anchored by Detention Watch Network, Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) joins those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in demanding the immediate release of community members and an end to the Trump administration's reckless expansion of mass detention and deportations. Nearly 48,000 people are now in ICE custody, the highest number since 2019.
Carlos, a father and husband who lives in Florida and was detained in February despite having his TPS (Temporary Protected Status) for Venezuela approved, said from a detention center in Louisiana:
“I've always worked so hard for my family. Right now it's very hard for them. I try to do my best for them. But from here, it's very hard because the phone calls are very expensive. They charge us 40 cents for every minute. Right now we are not in detention, like ICE says. Truthfully, we are being held in a prison. They don't want to give people medicine. The living here is horrible. All I’ve ever done is work hard for my family. I even have my TPS approved. It doesn’t matter to them.”
As the Trump administration intensifies its targeting of activists, ICE’s sprawling network of jails has greatly aided the administration’s broader efforts to crack down on political dissent and eliminate due process. Often placed in remote areas, ICE detention centers operate as black box sites that are difficult for families and legal representation to visit. Their remote and secretive nature impedes oversight and facilitates a culture of impunity and abuse among ICE and detention officials.
“Abducting activists in the streets, transferring people thousands of miles away from their loved ones, and concealing their whereabouts are all standard operating procedures at ICE,” said Laura Hernández, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants. “Yet, in a few short months, this administration has cranked up these abuses of power to advance its ultimate goals of separating families, instilling fear, and terrorizing communities of color. The Trump administration is stopping at nothing to eliminate due process and rapidly expand the already massive detention system, deportation infrastructure, and law enforcement partnerships. Taken together, these actions add up to an unprecedented assault on our human rights. But we will not back down. We are on the right side of history. We are the moral consciousness of our time. Today’s demonstrations show the strength of our growing movement, powered by people of all walks of life coming together to demand investments in our communities, not more cages.”
“ICE detention centers have long been plagued by unconscionable human rights abuses, and their remote locations are by design,” continued Hernández. “Separating families from their loved ones by hundreds or thousands of miles compounds the already isolating conditions of detention.”
Call volume to FFI’s National Immigration Detention Hotline has spiked in the last three months, as more people in detention seek resources and speak out against ICE’s abuses. Alarmingly, overcrowding and deteriorating conditions have been reported from several detention facilities. Detention centers are already plagued by abysmal and unlivable conditions. Speaking about the harmful effects of ICE detention, overcrowding, and the agency’s practice of detaining people hundreds of miles away from their loved ones, Carlos continued: “There are too many people here. The abuse you see is unbelievable. They are moving everybody from the coast to the middle of the country. That's hard for our families. We are just trying to be with our families. When I get out, my family will be there waiting for me. I've been away from my home for two months. I got my son, my wife, my brother, my niece, I'm trying to be with them. I have been separated from them.”
A recent ICE request for proposals sheds light on how the Trump administration seeks $45 billion over the next two years to further expand immigration detention. Meanwhile, private prison corporations, which helped fund Trump’s election, are reaping billions of dollars in new or updated detention contracts including at the North Lake Correctional Facility in Michigan and Delaney Hall in New Jersey.
Among other alarming developments, ICE recently announced it’s resuming use of the Glades County Detention Center, where FFI and other partners forced ICE to cease operations in 2022. FOIA requests have uncovered more detention expansion plans in California, including for the McFarland Detention center in McFarland, as well as the California City Correctional Center in California City.
The Trump administration also gutted the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the two ombudsman offices within the Department of Homeland Security, effectively eliminating one of the few ways people in detention could document the abuse inflicted upon them and pursue some level of accountability.
RELATED RESOURCES
Detention centers under the New Orleans ICE Field Office, where many student activists have been transferred to, are characteristic of the detention system as a whole — they’re rife with abuse including racism, retaliatory use of solitary confinement, deadly medical neglect, and an overall culture of impunity among ICE officials.
Overview of abuses and racist practice in facilities under the New Orleans ICE Field Office
DHS memo re: ICE’s Oversight of the New Orleans Field Office Complaints
Recent news reports from around the country highlight how ICE disappears people and leaves their loved ones in the dark for days. Freedom for Immigrants documented hundreds of cases of disappearances in ICE detention that meet the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner’s qualification of enforced disappearances.
ICE transferring students and activists thousands of miles away from their support networks is deliberate. In addition to seeking more conservative courts, ICE transfers people in its custody as a harsh form of retaliation, torture, and labor trafficking, as revealed in FFI’s “Tracked and Trafficked” report. The report analyzes tens of thousands of ICE transfers, including “circular transfers” in which individuals ended up at the same detention facility where they had been detained initially.
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Freedom for Immigrants is an abolitionist organization working to end immigration incarceration by organizing with and following the leadership of currently and formerly incarcerated immigrants. We’re building a future in which all people can move freely and thrive. Learn more at www.freedomforimmigrants.org/.