WASHINGTON, D.C. — Leaders in immigration detention and communities across the U.S. are launching a national campaign to reinstate visitation after Sunday, March 13, 2022, marked the two year anniversary of the suspension of visits.

SAN DIEGO — In a complaint filed today by a coalition of legal and advocacy organizations, 12 immigrants currently or previously detained in federal immigration custody at the Otay Mesa Detention Facility in San Diego have come forward to report severe mental health abuses at the hands of a psychologist whose pattern of negligence and misconduct further traumatized and endangered those who acknowledged risk of harm to themselves or others due to mental illness.

CHICAGO — Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) today announced that Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants (ICDI) is the recipient of the 2022 Reverend John Guttermann Legacy Award, an honor presented annually to recognize the achievements of local immigration detention visitation groups and their critical contributions to the detention abolition movement.

Advocates join community members currently detained in the Orange County Jail (OCJ) in Goshen, NY, in calling for immediate releases amid an outbreak of COVID-19 driven by unmet requests for vaccines and boosters, lack of medical care for people who are ill, an inability to safely quarantine and inadequate PPE supplies.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a new letter addressed to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a group of 17 members of the U.S. House urged the Biden administration to immediately close the Glades County Detention Center (Glades), an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prison located in Moore Haven, Florida, recently subject to investigation by the civil rights division.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the omicron variant rapidly spreads across the world and the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is poised to continue to recklessly endanger the lives of the people in its custody. ICE currently detains nearly 22,000 people in its network of abusive immigrant detention centers—a 54 percent increase in detention population since the beginning of the Biden administration.

NEW ORLEANS –– A coalition of immigrants’ rights and human rights organizations today delivered a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, demanding immediate intervention from the Biden administration to address torturous and racially discriminatory abuses, unlawful conduct and lack of oversight within immigrant detention centers under the jurisdiction of the New Orleans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office.

MIAMI — Nine Black immigrants in federal custody today filed a civil rights complaint with the Biden administration, speaking out against a disturbing pattern of anti-Black racism and abuse at the Krome North Service Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Miami, Florida. Advocates with The UndocuBlack Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and Freedom for Immigrants submitted the complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL).