Dear John,
This week we got word that the Biden administration is planning to reopen a detention center for migrant children in Homestead, Florida—essentially imprisoning children who have come to the U.S. seeking refuge. Many are fleeing violence and poverty and seeking asylum in the United States.
Take action: Tell President Biden to keep Homestead detention center closed—and stop detaining immigrant children today! [link removed]
AFSC worked with partners and community members in Florida and across the country to shut down the detention center in 2019, when it held around 2,000 children under President Trump. Now we’re mobilizing to stop the Biden administration from reopening the center—and urging them to instead prioritize uniting migrant children with family members or sponsors and promote community-based alternatives to detention that are in compliance with the rights of children.
President Biden must keep his promise to reunite children separated from their families and treat immigrants with the respect and dignity we all deserve. Reopening Homestead—or any child detention center—places young people in greater danger, especially in this pandemic. Detention centers are places where social distancing is impossible, health care is inadequate, and abuses are rampant. And studies have shown that detaining children causes lasting trauma. The cost of that to children, families, and our communities is incalculable.
Environmental conditions at this detention center also pose potentially serious health and safety threats to the children who would be housed there, including possible exposure to toxic chemicals from a neighboring Superfund site. (Read our report.) [link removed]
We need your voice today. Please join us in pushing to keep families and communities together and saying no to locking up migrant children.
Tell President Biden: Keep Homestead detention center closed—and end the detention of migrant children today! [link removed]
In peace,
Lis-Marie Alvarado, AFSC Florida
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American Friends Service Committee
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
United States
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