Immigration Detention

Feb 8, 2015
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truthout

"Operation Streamline": The New Prison Boom

"'The war on immigrants is surpassing efforts to reform the war on drugs,' said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, a criminal justice advocacy group. 'We will not be able to reduce the federal prison population unless we stop prosecuting so many people for immigration violations.'

Things are looking grim for immigrants due to provisions in immigration legislation passed by the Senate in June, and more stringent measures being considered by the House that would increase arrests and prosecutions of those crossing the border. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate immigration legislation estimated that increased funding for enforcement and prosecution of undocumented immigrants in the bill would result in an additional 14,000 inmates per year in the federal prison system, at a cost of $1.6 billion over the next decade." [node:read-more:link]

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On World Refugee Day, Obama administration announces return of immigrant family detention

(Austin, Texas) - Texas groups reacted with alarm today to an announcement by the Department of Homeland Security that Immigration and Customs Enforcement would return to detaining families en masse.  The groups called on the administration not to return to a system of mass family detention that was largely stopped with the end of family detention at the troubled T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas.    [node:read-more:link]

Immigration Detention Visitation Programs are Spreading Around Texas!

October 17, 2013 by Kymberlie Quong Charles

Guest Blogger, Elaine Cohen, attended a Hutto Visitation Program (HVP) orientation in October of 2011 and began visiting immigration detention centers in Texas almost immediately.  Since then she has visited with over a dozen women from Central America and Africa and provided invaluable support and coordination for Grassroots Leadership's collaboration with CIVIC (Community Initiatives to Visit Immigrants in Confinement) to visit three Texas cities to talk about immigration detention visitation.  Her degree in Religion and Women's Studies comes together in this work at the juncture of Human Rights and Social Justice.   

Grassroots Leadership's Executive Director, Bob Libal and CIVIC's Co-Executive Director, Christina Mansfield, planned and carried out a three city tour to Houston, Austin and San Antonio on October 10, 11 and 12th.  The purpose of the tour was to generate interest in starting visitation programs in the Houston and San Antonio areas.  Bob and Christina's combined knowledge covered an ample spectrum on the private prison industry's involvement in immigrant detention centers and the actual conditions within these facilities across the country.

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