FREEDOM FOR IMMIGRANTS

Freedom for Immigrants is the only nonprofit monitoring human rights abuses in immigration detention through a national hotline and network of 4,500 watchdog community members who visit 69 immigrant prisons weekly. Through these windows into the system, we gather data and stories to combat injustice at the individual level and push systemic change. For example, we drafted, co-sponsored and passed the first statewide moratorium on detention, the Dignity Not Detention Act (SB 29) in California, and the first statewide bill to give power and resources to a state attorney general to monitor immigration detention conditions, AB 103 in California. We then worked with coalition partners to pass the first statewide ban on private prisons, and we introduced a federal moratorium on detention expansion through the DONE Act in Congress. We also pilot community accompaniment programs, through which relatives and local organizations take responsibility for making sure immigrants and asylum seekers can have their day in court, with due process, instead of being caged in a system that is deliberately set up to prevent them from accessing legal counsel or other support.

We document, categorize, and verify to the extent possible human and civil rights abuses in immigrant prisons and jails across the country on a daily basis. We are in direct contact with people in immigration detention through visits, tours, and our national hotline. We use the data and stories we gather to engage in advocacy to address rights violations. We provide this information to Congress, the media, and allied organizations when appropriate.

In the first year and a half of our pilot community accompaniment program, volunteers secured the safe release of approximately 300 asylum seekers, and we are now expanding on the scope of its demonstration model by engaging local and federal governments in supporting a community-based alternative to detention that replaces immigration detention beds with holistic community support for all immigrants, eventually capping (and then eliminating) the number of people in immigration detention. With careful data tracking, we are proving that this new model is less expensive than immigration detention, and also leads to more successful outcomes.

For nearly a decade, Freedom for Immigrants has been the only consistent community presence inside immigration detention monitoring abuse, such as medical neglect that has led to death. Right now, there are over 50,000 immigrants detained. But this wasn’t always the case. Prior to the 1980s there were only 30 people detained daily. Then, two private prison companies formed and lobbied for laws to expand immigrant incarceration. Now 70 percent of detained immigrants are caged in a private prison profiting from their abuse. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Freedom for Immigrants is leading an effort to build a country where no person is imprisoned for crossing a border. And here’s how. First, we have built a network of 4,500 volunteers that is a consistent watchdog inside this system. We started by building the first visitation program in California. Now our volunteers visit people in 69 immigrant prisons in 30 states on a weekly basis offering a lifeline to the outside world and exposing abuse. Second, we have launched a community-based alternative to free hundreds of people by paying their immigration bonds and providing them with post-release support. With your support, we will build on our work to address abuse, while showing the public and elected officials that there is no need for our tax dollars to fund the perpetration of more abuse.

Our greatest strength is our ability to simultaneously provide direct service, while also creating structural change. This is largely possible because of VIANEY, our database that we designed to build capacity to respond to complex case management needs and document national patterns of detention conditions. We then use the data and stories collected to work with our allies to address trends through a combination of reports, lawsuits, media and policy advocacy.

We believe we have reached a tipping point, now that we have a visitation program in one-third of all immigrant prisons. We have an ambitious plan to expand to an additional 40 to 50 prisons in the next 3 years, while also working to stop detention expansion. In addition, since 2013, we have experienced a litany of retaliation from ICE due to our advocacy, culminating in the termination of our national detention hotline after it was featured on Orange Is the New Black. We sued ICE and won a preliminary injunction that required the immediate reinstatement of our hotline! We believe this will allow us to expand to our fullest potential without the fear of retaliation that has clouded our hotline work since its inception.