Pramila Jayapal is the Distinguished Taconic Fellow at Center for Community Change and the Co-Chair of the We Belong Together Campaign. Follow her on Twitter: @pramilaj.
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet are reintroducing legislation to halt transfer of immigrant detainees between detention facilities during the coronavirus pandemic after a recent spike in cases at an Aurora facility.
The Colorado Democrats on Monday said the End Transfer of Detained Immigrants Act will help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus and other diseases that have led to outbreaks at more than 125 immigrant detention facilities since the pandemic began.
The privately run Aurora Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, owned and operated by operated by GEO Group Inc., reported nearly 100 COVID-19 cases last month in the facility s largest outbreak to date, following the transfer of more than 200 detainees from detention facilities along the southern border.
As a volunteer at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, I applaud your spotlight on the plight of the boys and urge the Biden administration to give.
Roadmap for Urgent Change in Immigration Detention | Opinion Denise Bell and Clara Long On 5/13/21 at 8:30 AM EDT
More than 100 days into his term, President Joe Biden has yet to take significant steps to change course on immigration detention. With Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) still holding over 16,000 immigrants and asylum seekers, he needs to end the suffering flowing from this system. He should act now to make liberty not arbitrary detention the default approach and dismantle the U.S. system of mass detention of immigrants in abusive conditions.
President Biden told activists in Georgia in late April that, Private detention centers should not exist and we are working to close all of them. Later the same day, he told reporters he had been teasing and suggested he couldn t make changes without passing legislation. We ve documentedlong-standing problems in the immigration detention system, just as we ve reported on how these abuses were exacer
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The Bergen County Jail in Hackensack on Thursday was housing 97 detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A few miles away at the Hudson County jail in Kearny, there were 48 federal immigration detainees
The numbers are far fewer than the hundreds each jail housed during the height of the Trump administration, which took a hard-line approach on illegal immigration, leading to increased arrests and detentions and bringing millions into county coffers. On Thursday, officials in both counties said they are not accepting any more immigration detainees, raising questions about whether they will join Essex County in ending the long-standing practice of housing ICE detainees.