This April, we’re commemorating our past and looking to the future by honoring those who have contributed their voices and leadership to the movement, celebrating the strides we’ve made along the way toward our collective liberation, and preparing for the challenges ahead with renewed energy. 

We hope you can join us!  We look forward to being together in community with you all as we mark this important milestone. Please share this Save the Date with any friends you think may be excited to join.

Friends and Supporters, 

We are thrilled to celebrate the critical efforts of Faithful Friends - Amigos Fieles, a longstanding Visitation Group in the FFI network that recently played an important role in the termination of the immigration detention contract in Yuba County, California! 

In 2012, Faithful Friends initially began visiting and supporting people in immigration detention at Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove, California, where they raised awareness about conditions such as high levels of lead in the drinking water and spoke out publicly against the ICE contract, which was terminated due to community pressure in 2018!
Faithful Friends then focused all of their efforts on supporting the people in ICE detention at Yuba County Jail, another local jail situated about an hour away in Marysville. Faithful Friends supported dozens of individuals detained at Yuba who went on hunger strikes in 2019 and 2020, coordinating information-sharing between pods and raising funds for commissary deposits.

in ICE detention at Yuba and end the ICE contract. Soon after joining the Yuba Liberation Coalition, Faithful Friends experienced retaliation from the jail in the form of a temporary visitation ban; however, they remained steadfast in their commitment to abolition over their access, and after a collective statement of support signed by FFI and other organizations, were able to resume visiting. Within six months of formation, the Yuba Liberation Coalition achieved their first goal — there were no people left in ICE detention at Yuba! — but then, the Biden administration heartlessly transferred more individuals to Yuba later that year.

However, the Yuba Liberation Coalition did not give up and subsequently published a damning report in 2022, outlining the need to urgently end the ICE contract. Six months after the release of that report, the Biden administration announced that it was terminating the ICE contract at Yuba!

FFI looks forward to celebrating the end of immigration detention in Yuba County with Faithful Friends and the rest of the Yuba Liberation Coalition outside the jail at an in-person gathering in March. We especially want to express our gratitude and appreciation for the tireless coordinator of Faithful Friends, Susan Lange, who has been with Faithful Friends since day one (an entire decade!), as well as for all of the powerful previously and currently detained advocates and organizers who have fought to ensure that there is now no immigration detention in all of northern California.