Freedom for Immigrants Calls on Biden Administration to
Abolish Detention
Media Contact: Rebekah Entralgo, [email protected]
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — Freedom for Immigrants Deputy Executive
Director Layla Razavi issued the following statement in response
to the 2020 presidential election results:
“The past four years have laid bare the stark reality that the
U.S. immigration detention system cannot be reformed. It must be
abolished.
The current moment requires strong and courageous
leadership to bring truth and reconciliation for immigrant
communities around the country. Immigrant communities have
always, but especially in the last four years, been the target
of relentless attacks. The next administration must take
proactive steps to address systemic and institutional forms of
racism and brutality that dehumanize people of color.
It is for these reasons and countless others that we call
on the incoming administration to abolish immigration detention.
This is a system that kidnaps people from their homes, cages
them indefinitely, and profits off of their suffering. And it is
all funded by our hard-earned taxpayer money.
The first step towards a world without cages begins with
divesting from the inhumane, profit-driven immigration detention
system and investing in community-based alternatives that
benefit all communities. Every administration since the Reagan
administration has invested in immigration detention, at the
behest of private prisons companies that formed in 1983 and
1984. This must stop now. A country that welcomes immigrants
rather than imprisoning them is viable, not just in our
lifetime, but now.
Over the next four years, Freedom for Immigrants will
continue to monitor human rights abuses in ICE prisons and
secure investments in programs that serve as models for a world
without immigration detention. In the meantime, we continue to
monitor ICE’s actions during this transition of power and will
hold the current administration accountable for any escalation
in human rights abuses or mass deportations they may seek to
inflict during the final days of their reign.”
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-- Rebekah Entralgo | She/Her/Ella Media Advocacy Strategist FREEDOM for IMMIGRANTS Cell: 786-897-4080 www.freedomforimmigrants.org Freedom for Immigrants is working to abolish immigration detention. Learn more & donate here.