WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 6, 2020) — The House Appropriations Committee this week proposed a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill for fiscal year 2021 that begins the long overdue process of defunding our nation’s deadly immigration detention system. This bill takes steps to hold Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) accountable for their wasteful spending, which has torn apart thousands of families and cost more than 55 lives in custody since 2017. The proposed spending bill also reduces money for detention, rescinds money for wall construction, and does not include any new money for border patrol agent

Nationwide – On Tuesday June 23, Inland Coalition For Immigrant Justice, For Freedom for Immigrants, Friends of Miami-Dade Detainees, American Friends Service Committee (Colorado), La Resistencia (Washington), and directly impacted voices from inside GEO owned Detention facilities denounced the dire situation hitting the limelight about ICE and GEO’s use of toxic chemical disinfectants. Aside from the dangerous side effects that these harmful chemicals are causing people held by ICE, they are also experiencing retaliation for speaking out.

Nationwide – Beginning in early May, both the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ICIJ) and Freedom for Immigrants began to receive a series of distressing calls from people detained at the Adelanto Detention Center in California. Callers described how a powerful chemical disinfectant called HDQ Neutral is causing bloody noses, nausea, and difficulty breathing. Similar reports of chemical disinfectants causing adverse medical reactions have now been reported at immigrant prisons across the country, including at the Glades County Jail in Florida, the for-profit GEO Detention Facility in Aurora, Colorado, and Northwest Detention Center in Washington.

Washington, D.C. – In solidarity with the millions of Black people and allies who have taken to the street to defend Black lives and demand justice for those who have been killed by police, the Defund Hate Coalition issued the following statement:

Freedom for Immigrants stands with Black communities across the United States who have risen up to demand justice and transformation in the face of the continued extrajudicial killing of Black people. We condemn the use of both militarized law enforcement and the military to violently quash dissent. We stand with the call that Black-led organizations and activists have made to #DefundPolice and invest in community-based, anti-violence programs, trauma-informed services, and restorative justice programming.

Washington, DC — Today, House Democrats hosted a virtual forum on the “response” by Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to the COVID-19 pandemic and current conditions in ICE detention. This hearing comes a week after the death of Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, who was detained at Otay Mesa Detention Center, and after a federal judge, earlier this month, described ICE as acting with “deliberate indifference” to the condition of people detained in three south florida detention centers.

05.11.2020 - Today, an alliance of key criminal justice, immigrant rights, and public health organizations released The Budget to Save Lives, a detailed proposal highlighting the urgent public health need for the California 2020-21 budget to prioritize decarceration efforts. The package comes as Governor Newsom prepares to release the May revision to the state budget amid a record shortfall caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

2020.5.7 - In the wake of the preventable death yesterday of Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejía from COVID-19, the Dignity not Detention coalition issued the following statement.

We mourn the tragic and needless death of Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, a human being trapped in the systematically abusive Otay Mesa Detention Facility, managed by for-profit corporation CoreCivic for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).