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).

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.

Washington, DC — The Defund Hate Coalition issued the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s request for massive funding increases for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in response to COVID-19:

WASHINGTON — Over 250 national, state, and local advocacy groups and organizations urged Congress to dramatically reduce the budgets of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and to enact strong measures to prevent the Trump administration from diverting additional funds from unrelated government accounts for immigrant detention and border wall construction, in a letter sent today to congressional leaders.

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.

Freedom for Immigrants (FFI), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, and Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center (CREEC) have filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) on behalf of Mr. Anderson Avisai Gutierrez, a 27-year-old Guatemalan asylum seeker detained at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana. Despite an attempt to end his own life and severe mental health disabilities, Mr.Gutierrez has been placed in solitary confinement for over eight months, where his mental health has further deteriorated.

Adelanto, CA -- Immigrant rights advocates are denouncing the Adelanto City Council’s decision late last night to remove Planning Commission Vice-Chair JayShawn Johnson from his post. Last week, Johnson was the only member of the Commission to oppose a controversial proposal by multi-billion dollar prison corporation GEO to expand its immigration detention capacity in the city. The expansion has been widely slammed as an attempt to undercut California’s AB 32, which bans for-profit prisons and detention centers in the state.

On Tuesday, Freedom for Immigrants (FFI), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention (Louisiana AID) filed two complaints with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) on behalf of South Asian men detained at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana.