Dear John, This week, NIJC released “Snapshot of ICE Detention: Inhumane Conditions and Alarming Expansion,” which highlights the numbers behind the immigration detention system, providing a glimpse of the depths of inhumanity experienced on a daily basis by those in detention and the significant public costs, as more taxpayer dollars go towards private prison companies profiting each year off detention contracts. The concerning numbers reiterate the urgent need to halt efforts to expand the immigration detention system and end immigration detention.
More than 37,000 people are currently detained in facilities across the country, an alarming 140% increase since President Biden took office. This includes people who have lived in the United States for decades, parents of U.S. citizens, parents separated from their children, and people who arrived recently seeking asylum or a better life. Instead of finding safety, they are sent to detention centers, facing uncertain futures and inhumane conditions. | |
Since the start of the Biden administration, 23 people have died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, many of which could have been prevented with adequate medical care. ICE has failed to improve conditions that have led to tragic and largely preventable deaths. In fact, as we were creating our snapshot report, another person died in detention.
Rather than using its $3.4 billion of funding–yes, $3.4 billion in taxpayer dollars–for the care of people suffering severe abuses in its facilities, ICE is soliciting for contracts to open new detention facilities across the country to detain even more people. | |
Meanwhile, NIJC is challenging ICE and Clay County, Indiana’s misallocation of federal funds in Xirum et al. v. ICE et al. NIJC and Sidley Austin LLP sued ICE on behalf of people detained at the Clay County Jail, arguing that ICE is turning a blind eye to the jail’s blatant violations of federal detention standards and ignoring the county’s misuse of federal funds. "For years, ICE has looked the other way as Clay County brazenly misappropriates funds earmarked for the care and custody of people detained by ICE at Clay County Jail, while those housed at the jail suffer in egregiously substandard conditions," said Mark Feldman, a senior litigation attorney at NIJC. | |
NIJC’s snapshot highlights even more inhumane aspects about the U.S. detention system such as the excessive use of solitary confinement, lack of basic due process, and an oversight system that allows for impunity. The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to expand an abusive system that brings harm to tens of thousands of immigrant families and communities. On Monday, NIJC joined a delegation of Detention Watch Network members for a day of advocacy to urge members of Congress to address the alarming abuses in immigration detention and ask that the Biden administration: - Immediately stop any plans to open new detention centers or to expand existing detention facilities
- Close immigration detention centers, including (but not limited to) the detention centers represented by the delegation
- Release people from detention and allow them to navigate their immigration cases in community
Ready to take action to end detention?
→See our full snapshot of ICE detention here
→Share our snapshot on social media
→Join the campaign to end detention for good | |
