Dear friends, volunteers, partners & supporters:

Happy Valentine's Day.  I hope you are well and with your loved ones today.

I’m writing to share our toolkit for the #ReinstateVisitation campaign — please share on your socials and help promote our Instagram posts in English and Spanish and on Twitter in English and Spanish.

Visitation is a critical tool for how Freedom for Immigrants builds relationships with people in immigration detention.  It is also the primary form of communication immigrants in detention have with their families, communities and loved ones.  Yet visitation has unjustifiably been shut down since the pandemic began, despite the fact that visitation resumed in jails and prisons over a year ago.  This discrepancy leaves immigrants further isolated and only hinders their ability to advocate for themselves and fight their deportation charge.

Today, there are over 20,000 people imprisoned in immigration detention centers across the country.  Each one has a story and people who love them.  Please feel free to use our toolkit to support the campaign on your social media platforms or share our posts to help share their stories, in their own words.

We continue to monitor conditions inside detention through our national hotline and partnership with local groups around the country, and have renewed our calls for the administration to release people from detention.  Last month, I published a piece in the San Diego Union Tribune highlighting the devastating impact of ICE’s negligence and reckless disregard for human life amid the ongoing pandemic.  You can learn more here and follow us @migrantfreedom to continue getting updates from inside detention.

Please share from our toolkit and join us in the fight to #reinstatevisitation today.