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.

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.

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.

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