Friends and Supporters, 

Our advocacy is strengthened by the courage of those who experience the harsh reality of immigration detention every day. Freedom for Immigrants works to center directly impacted individuals and their stories to lead the way to policy wins and advances at the federal and state levels. Their leadership is crucial to reaching our shared goal of divesting from immigration detention and instead investing in systems of care that strengthen our communities. We will continue to center the voices of those most affected by these inhumane immigration detention policies in our fight to abolish detention.

This year, immigrants rights activists achieved a significant policy win in DC. In its suggested budget for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Senate proposed a pilot program that would transfer funds away from ICE and into the Department of Health and Human Services.

This program would shift funding from enforcement and toward supporting people seeking asylum as they arrive in the United States. With this step, we are finally seeing the fruits of our labor. FFI worked on  these efforts over the last three years, and this year it finally made it into the Senate budget!

Briefing The Hill on Detention Abuses 

This past June, we launched our new quarterly Detention Snapshot, which documents abuses in detention and highlights the advocacy and resistance of detained individuals. The Snapshot reports are widely distributed to our partners and legislative offices on the Hill, and they will soon be sent to people in detention, too.

Through this publication, the Policy Department also highlights much of the important work done by our partners across the country. Finally, the quarterly Snapshots help us emphasize the critical role that individuals in detention play in advocating for their rights. Detained advocates’ resistance manifests in their willingness to speak out about the injustices they face, even though people in detention often face swift retaliation for doing so. 

In late July, ICE suddenly and violently transferred about 70 detained people from Orange County Jail (OCJ) in Goshen, New York, to Adams County Detention Center in Adams, Mississippi, more than one thousand miles away. ICE’s transfer process is inherently cruel and traumatic, and this case was no different. For the duration of the mass transfer, detained people were denied proper access to water. Upon arriving at Adams, they continued to be subject to severe medical neglect.

This needless transfer further separated families, most of which do not have the means to travel outside of the state to visit their loved ones. Seemingly confirming retaliatory intent, the OCJ Sheriff stated that they requested the transfers due to “the amount of time the county legal department has spent addressing complaints filed by advocates over the treatment of [detained people].” Conditions at OCJ have since worsened, and the number of detained individuals has steadily increased during Fall 2022.