Erika Almiron, executive director of Juntos and the woman who forced the detention question into the townhall explained the rationale behind her question: “You can’t be for women and not actively working to free the mothers at Berks from detention. The Obama Administration is operating the facility without a license and we wanted to see not what Clinton promises for the future but what she’s doing now for the women inside.”
All posts tagged family detention
25
Apr
ICE’s Remedy: Self-Deportation
*Leaked Documents Posted Below
Leesport, PA, March 18, 2016 –
After her first months in the Berks Detention Center that is currently operating without a license, Gladdis Carrasco’s daughter began exhibiting concerning symptoms of illness. With complaints unanswered for three weeks, she filed a distraught grievance on December 7th of 2015 explaining that for three weeks her four year old daughter had been sick and that the medical staff and site had done nothing to help her. She goes on to explain that she would like to be released so she could care for her daughter and that she had already been detained four months. The response she received from ICE was:
“Thank you! You may dissolve your case at any time
and return to your country.”
On Monday, June 22nd, 2015, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gave a guided tour of Berks Family Detention Center to NGO Working Groups to highlight how Berks is a “leading example” in the detention of undocumented immigrants. Local and national organizations, including Juntos, GALAEI, Migrant Power Movement, Gran Varones Project, Transgender Law Center, #Not1More, and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, publicly opposed these efforts and believe that Berks Family Detention Center is not a model for detention and in fact oppose the idea of detaining our communities all together. We know from first hand accounts that families inside the Berks Detention Center are subject to inhumane conditions and this is not an isolated situation. We also know that LGBTQ Immigrant detention is heavily defined by its inhumane practices. LGBTQ immigrants are 15 times more likely to be assaulted or abused than other detainees. Queer liberation will not be actualized until there is an end to the physical and sexual abuse of LGBTQ detainees and immigrants. Queer liberation cannot be complete until the end of all detention centers and absolutely depends on the end to all deportations.