***MEDIA ADVISORY***
MONDAY, August 20th at 1pm ET
Interfaith Vigil in Support of Immigrants Detained At CoreCivic/Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (Youngstown)
Youngstown, OH – Radial Church, InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia, America’s Voice Ohio, and allies of all faiths will stand in support of immigrants detained at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, a for-profit prison owned by CoreCivic. The vigil will take place outside of the jail at 1pm eastern on Monday, August 20, 2018.
WHO: Ohioans of diverse faiths; Radial Church, InterReligious Task Force on Central America and Colombia, and America’s Voice Ohio
WHEN: MONDAY, August 20th at 1pm ET
WHERE: Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, 2240 Hubbard Road, Youngstown
WHY: As people of faith, we seek to raise awareness about the fact that international corporations are profiting off of so-called “civil” detention of our immigrant brothers and sisters in Ohio. Our hearts cry out at the forced family separations taking place in our own communities due to workplace raids and deportations. We have been called to raise funds for bail/bond, for legal support, for home and utility support, for school supplies and food for families. We’ve been called to pray. And, we’ve been called to act.
We have tried to visit detainees to provide religious support, to pray, to bring folks eucharist, communion, or other religious elements, but have been deterred from doing so. Join us on Monday to bear witness to incarceration and human suffering and stand in solidarity with Ohio’s immigrants and their families. For more information and updates, see the Facebook Event page here.
Background
In June, two large, military-style ICE raids devastated Ohio’s farm worker communities at the Corso’s and Fresh Mark agricultural facilities in the Sandusky/Norwalk/Willard and Salem/Massillon/Canton areas. 114 and 146 families were affected by these raids respectively. The brutality of the raids and its after-effects will be felt for years to come—hundreds of children in Ohio now face the prospect of the deportation of one or both parents, many of whom remain in detention to this day. These families are also suffering job loss and loss of income. The relief effort will be long-term, involving many resources and volunteers of various skill sets.
From the Fresh Mark raid, forty people were released from detention by the following day. Law enforcement cited “humanitarian reasons” necessitating release, but we later learned that a number of those individuals had legal work papers or were citizens, making their arrests illegal. At least four female-identified folks are still detained in Michigan, while seventy male-identified folks are still detained in Youngstown at the NEOCC run by CoreCivic, formerly called Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Even those who were released from detention, however, are still facing lengthy court battles and financial distress. A number of people have already been deported.
CoreCivic and Geo group are two institutions directly profiting off of the incarceration of individuals who should be treated as refugees. The vast majority of migrants coming to the US are fleeing socio-political violence or civil-economic injustices like extreme poverty. Other companies, like Revlon, are profiting indirectly off of the cheap, slave labor of those incarcerated. Detainees make between $1/day-$3/hour in various forms of paid employment and can only spend their earnings in an overpriced commissary. Though assembly and manufacturing jobs pay the highest wages in detention, detainees give for-profit institutions huge amounts of surplus value without their consent and do so, ironically, after being detained for allegedly not having proper work permits.
America’s Voice Ohio – Harnessing the power of Ohio voices and Ohio values to win common sense immigration reform
@tramontela @mhildreth @AmericasVoice
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