Sign Now: Demand Journalists Be Given Immediate Access to Detention Centers

Journalist Emilio Gutierrez-Soto, right, and his son Oscar during an interview with CBC's Adrienne Arsenault at the El Paso Processing Centre, a U.S. immigration detention facility

Over the past year, immigrant and civil rights groups have witnessed a dramatic increase of immigration enforcement and detention due to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy along the border. This includes the practice of family separation, a policy that has left hundreds of children in child detention centers across the country.

Shelters that were at 30 percent capacity one year ago are now at 90 percent.[1]

According to a Health and Human Services official from the Obama administration:

“The closer they get to 100 percent, the less ability they will have to address anything unforeseen. Even if there’s not a sudden influx, they will be running out of capacity soon unless something changes.”

Thanks to dogged reporting by journalists along our southern border, we learned earlier this year about children and families being separated at the border. But that reporting was mainly from outside the detention centers, because the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement routinely denies or limits journalists access to child detention centers, arguing that they need to protect the privacy of children. But professional journalists are capable of reporting on children responsibly, and the government could easily negotiate with them on ways to do so.

Demand that journalists have access to detention centers so that the American people and the world can see the permanent harm the Trump administration’s policies are having on children and families in the name of our government.

Sign the petition today!

These shelters are not the solution but in order to hold the government accountable we need to have access to them.

- Daily Kos

Click here to send the following message.  (Add a personal comment for more impact. )

PETITIONING

Office of Refugee Resettlement

Our Message to Office of Refugee Resettlement:

Since May of 2017, the number of migrant children in custody has jumped from 2,400 to 12,800 as of September. The administration’s recent investment in “tent cities,” which provide harsh living conditions for children, is horrifying and unacceptable. The Office of Refugee Resettlement routinely denies or limits journalists access to child detention centers, arguing the need to protect the privacy of children. But professional journalists are capable of reporting on children responsibly. We demand that journalists be given immediate increased access to detention centers―to honor our constitutional right of freedom of the press and to ensure government transparency and accountability. Only through our free press will we begin to understand and be able to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.

Resistance needed: Trump and Republicans are trying to build more family prisons

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The petition to Congress reads: "Immigrant families belong together and free. Block any bill that gives Trump the power to imprison immigrant families indefinitely and build more family prisons, including the FAMILIES Act (S. 3478)." Add your name:

Reports of stomach-churning child abuse in detention centers should compel any lawmaker with a conscience to stop Donald Trump's xenophobic attacks, but Republican extremist Sen. Ron Johnson just introduced legislation that would push the United States over the cliff of cruelty.1 The FAMILIES Act would add more family prisons to Trump's deportation and mass incarceration machine and worsen the crisis of corruption and abuse at the border. Democrats and Republicans of good conscience need to do everything they can to block this bill. Tell Congress: No more Trump internment camps. Block legislation that would expand family prisons. Click here to sign the petition. Sen. Johnson introduced this cruel bill just as news broke that the Trump administration lost track of nearly 1,500 immigrant children it placed in detention facilities and foster care this year.2 This latest horrifying development is yet another example of how Trump's extreme anti-immigrant policies are made worse by his administration's incompetence. The ineptitude of Trump's ICE, CBP and DOJ was on full display this week. At a Senate hearing on Trump's latest proposal to nullify the Flores decree, a settlement that puts time limits on imprisoning children, Trump officials dodged fundamental questions and failed to defend the administration's push to expand family and child detention. ICE officials said that they didn't even bother to read warnings from agency doctors about the trauma detention inflicts on children.3 ICE's chief of arrests and deportations compared family prisons to "summer camps," again.4 Jeff Sessions' acting deputy assistant attorney general refused to comment on whether child abuse at detention centers would count as federal crime.5 These officials are either willfully ignorant Trump loyalists or completely incompetent. Either way, Congress should be putting checks on ICE and CBP, not empowering them to do more harm. Sen. Johnson's bill would allow Trump and Republicans to build more family prisons, make family detention mandatory and waive the polygraph requirement for many border patrol applicants, opening the door for more corruption and abuse. We must join together now to keep the pressure on Congress and demand that it reject any bill that would give Trump the power to imprison more immigrant families indefinitely. Will you add your name now? Tell Congress: No more Trump internment camps. Block legislation that would expand family prisons. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/stop_family_detention?t=7&akid=30124%2E3130208%2EM3KW1u - Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Sen. Ron Johnson, "S.3478," introduced Sept. 18, 2018. Ron Nixon, "U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children, Investigators Find," The New York Times, Sept. 18, 2018. Amanda Michelle Gomez, "Trump officials claim they are unaware of health risks associated with child detention," ThinkProgress, Sept. 18, 2018. Tal Kopan, "ICE official stands by comparing detention centers to 'summer camp,' won't say if he'd send his kids to one," CNN, Sept. 18, 2018. Ibid.

Tell Congress: Stop Trump's mass incarceration agenda. Pass the Detention Oversight Not Expansion Act

The petition to Congress reads: "Don't let the Trump administration make the country's mass incarceration crisis even worse. Pass the Detention Oversight Not Expansion Act (S. 2849/H.R. 5820) to block the construction of more immigrant detention centers and increase ICE's oversight and accountability."

No more Trump internment camps. The Trump regime already jails up to 40,000 immigrants a day – including children – in inhumane detention facilities across the country.1 With Trump's DOJ criminally prosecuting all undocumented immigrants, that number will skyrocket. We cannot sit by while Trump's racist regime throws more Brown and Black people behind bars. One way Congress can block Trump's mass incarceration agenda is to stop him from expanding and building more immigrant detention centers. Sen. Kamala Harris' Detention Oversight Not Expansion Act (DONE Act) does exactly that. Speak out now to demand that Congress pass this important bill. Tell Congress: Stop Trump's mass incarceration agenda. Pass the Detention Oversight Not Expansion Act now. Click her to sign the petition. ICE’s mismanagement of the immigration detention system has resulted in a network of hundreds of jails riddled with reports of abuse and human rights violations. Immigrant detainees have filed complaints about excessive solitary confinement, physical abuse, medical neglect that has led to death, and sexual assault in ICE run prisons.2,3 In the vast majority of cases, immigration officers carry out these abuses with relative impunity. More than 95 percent of all cases of alleged misconduct have resulted in “no action taken” by the federal government.4 That is unacceptable. Immigrant detention facilities are also cesspools of corruption. The ACLU is suing a detention center in Georgia for forcing immigrant detainees to work for basic necessities like food and soap.5 No member of Congress should help Trump sanction or expand these horrific immigrant internment camps.6 It's important to remember that before Trump, some undocumented immigrants were free until their day in court, staying with family members or sponsors. Now, Trump has given ICE agents a mandate to jail every undocumented immigrant at the border and the DOJ a directive to criminally prosecute them in mass trials. That's why Trump wants to expand and build more prisons. The DONE Act would obstruct Trump's racist immigration policies by blocking the expansion and construction of new immigrant detention facilities and increasing ICE's oversight and accountability.7 Speak out now to demand that Congress backs this bill. Tell Congress: Stop Trump's mass incarceration agenda. Pass the Detention Oversight Not Expansion Act now. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/done_act?t=7&akid=29399%2E3130208%2EBY-72Q - Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Democracy Now, "Investigation: Substandard Medical Care in ICE Detention Is Killing Immigrants, Endangering Lives," June 22, 2018. Alice Speri, "Detained, Then Violated," The Intercept, April 11, 2018. Anna Núñez, "Inhumane Human Rights Violations Found at U.S. Immigration Detention Centers," America's Voice, Dec. 19, 2017. Marie Solis, "New Border Patrol report shows 'no action' in more than 95% of misconduct cases," Mic, Aug. 5, 2017. Catherine E. Shoichet, "Lawsuit alleges 'forced labor' in immigrant detention," CNN, April 17, 2018. Laila Lalami, "How the Trump Administration Is Normalizing Immigrant Internment Camps," The Nation, July 20, 2018. Gabe Ortiz, "Democratic Lawmakers Want Moratorium on New Ice Facilities and Better Oversight of Existing Ones," Alternet, May 17, 2018.