Eye-opening piece by Ian Urbina and Catherine Renz in the New York Times this weekend, about immigrants who are put into detention and then—for various reasons—are held in solitary confinement. The United Nations has likened long-term solitary confinement to torture, and has called for a ban on the practice...
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At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on ICE’s recent release of hundreds of immigrants from detention, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R – AL) asked Director Morton a question that immigrant rights advocates have been asking for years: “Is it possible that you are detaining more people than you need to?…...
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Further evidence of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system was on display this week, when ICE–in anticipation of the upcoming sequester–released several hundred immigrants from their detention facilities. It’s unclear where this policy came from, but immigrants–who have been the focus of decades of political battles–are now being used as...
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Dec 27, 2012
Two weeks ago, Detention Watch Network launched their new “Expose and Close” campaign, identifying ten of the worst immigrant detention centers in the nation and calling for them to be closed. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Joey Kennedy at the Birmingham News visited one of these detention centers in Gadsden,...
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The immigration detention system in the United States has grown drastically over the last 15 years and the appalling conditions in the detention centers that house immigrants have reached a tipping point. Today, national and local leaders responded by saying, “enough is enough!” On a press call today, Rep....
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Aug 3, 2012
I met Marco almost four years ago. At the time, I was working at Sojourners Magazine and he was one of our interns. Nobody knew that he was undocumented. For as long as I have known Marco, he has inspired everyone around him. The guy can quote Dr. King...
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Cross-Posted at Mom’s Rising: I’d like to believe that most Americans, perhaps with the exception of the hard-core nativists, like Rep. Steve King and Romney advisor Kris Kobach, knows our nation’s immigration policies need to be fixed. But behind these failed policies are real human beings: those who make...
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