Best Western has opened its doors to ICE.

Tell the hotel’s executives to stop participating in a shadowy system for
secretly detaining migrant children.

[ [link removed] ] Sign the petition 

   
John,

Since the beginning of the year, over 100 migrants — many believed to be
children — have been detained at the Best Western Plus Dragon Gate Inn by
MVM, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor.

There has been no way for these kids to report neglect or abuse. No way
for them to request legal help. And no way for their parents to even know
where they are.

Being held in a hotel instead of a migrant detention center means that the
systems put in place to protect and keep track of these children are gone.
Once they walked through the doors of the Best Western Plus Dragon Gate
Inn, they essentially disappeared.

[ [link removed] ]Sign the petition to demand that Best Western executives stop allowing
ICE and its private contractors to detain migrants in their hotels.

MVM has received hundreds of millions of dollars from ICE to transport
migrant children and families under a shroud of secrecy, and detain them
in hotels. While MVM claims that its workers are trained in how to respond
to reports of physical or sexual abuse, they are not contractually
obligated to do anything about the reports.

Best Western Plus Dragon Gate Inn staff are the only other people who have
been in a position to sound the alarm if they’ve seen children being
abused while in MVM care. But they aren’t required to say anything either.
And in fact, it seems like they have been willing participants in this
unregulated shadow detention system.

[ [link removed] ]Tell Best Western to stop ignoring the unregulated detainment of
children at their hotels.

Best Western is not the only major hotel chain that ICE and MVM have used
to detain migrant children and families. But Choice Hotels and Hilton
executives have all made public statements that they didn’t know their
hotels were being used for this purpose, that it goes against company
policy, and that their franchisees have been told to stop.

Best Western still has not made a public statement saying that they won’t
allow migrants to be detained in their hotels. And even when SumOfUs staff
reached out directly to the Best Western corporate office for a response,
we never received word back.

By remaining silent on the potential abuse that has happened at its Dragon
Gate Inn, Best Western is signaling that its doors will always be open to
MVM and ICE. And as long as hotels are willing participants in a system
that loses children and ignores abuse, the horror will never stop.

[ [link removed] ]Act now to demand that Best Western publicly end its relationship with
MVM and ICE.



[ [link removed] ] Sign the petition 



Thanks for all that you do,
Lacey and the team at SumOfUs


More information:

[ [link removed] ]A Private Security Company Is Detaining Migrant Children at Hotels, The
New York Times, August 16, 2020.
[ [link removed] ]Migrant kids held in US hotels, then expelled, Associated Press, July
22, 2020.

 

 

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