FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Michele Garnett McKenzie                                            Robin Phillips

Advocacy Director                                                        Executive Director

(w) 612-341-3302, ext. 117                                            (w) 612-341-3302, ext. 109

mmckenzie@advrights.org                                             rphillips@advrights.org

 

 

“Dignity, Not Detention" Campaign Launched to Halt Expansion of the U.S. Immigration Detention System

 

Activists Demand President Obama take immediate action to stop human rights abuses occurring under the U.S. enforcement and detention regime

 

Minneapolis (February 24, 2010) – The Advocates for Human Rights announces the launch of a national campaign to end the expansion of immigrant detention in the United States. The campaign, “Dignity, Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights and Restoring Justice,” is a national effort led by the Detention Watch Network. More than 30 participating groups around the United States are demanding a reduction in government spending on detention, the use of cost-saving alternatives, and the restoration of due process in the government’s enforcement of immigration laws.

 

To mark the campaign launch, The Advocates is co-sponsoring the March 7^th Faith Action at the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center. The event, organized by the Interfaith Coalition on Immigration, is open to the public, and begins at 2:30 p.m.

 

John Morton, the head of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), recently announced plans to institute major reforms in the detention system, yet to date advocates say there is little evidence of change. “While reforms to the system are clearly needed,” said Michele Garnett McKenzie, advocacy director at The Advocates for Human Rights, “the U.S. needs to stop its reliance on detention as a cornerstone of immigration enforcement, which violates hundreds of thousands of people’s human rights to due process, freedom from arbitrary detention, family unity, and the right to seek asylum.”

 

Every year, over 400,000 people are detained in a web of 350 private, federal, state and local jails and prisons, including the Ramsey, Sherburne, Carver, and Freeborn County jails in Minnesota. Over eighty percent of detained immigrants go through the immigration system with no lawyer. Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any meaningful judicial review of whether they should be released. While detained, immigrants face horrific prison conditions, including solitary confinement, the denial of medical attention, and limited or no access to their families, lawyers and the outside world. In many cases, these conditions have proven fatal: since 2003, a reported 107 people have died in immigration custody.

 

Coordinated actions in support of the national campaign will occur across the country in cities including Gainesville, Phoenix, San Antonio, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.dignitynotdetention.org. 

 

The Advocates for Human Rights works to end arbitrary detention of non-citizens in the United States and to ensure that everyone in U.S. immigration custody is treated humanely and with dignity. The Advocates currently chairs Detention Watch Network (DWN), a coalition of community, faith-based, immigrant and human rights service and advocacy organizations and concerned individuals working to reform the immigration detention and deportation system so that all who come to our shores receive fair and humane treatment.

 

For more information on The Advocates, visit www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org. For more information on the Detention Watch Network, go to www.detentionwatchnetwork.org.

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