Dignity Not Detention

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Dignity Not Detention

October 10, 2010 Elizabeth, NJ

IRATE & First Friends was joined by over 25 religious, community and civic organizations at its 12^th annual Columbus Weekend vigil at the Elizabeth Detention Center. The participants called for the use of alternatives to immigration detention, humane conditions in the 5 county jails and the Elizabeth Detention Center that are holding immigrants in NJ and ultimately an end to the mass detention of immigrants. IRATE & First Friends is joining groups and individuals around the country as part of nationwide demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s (ICE) 2009 detention reform announcement.

Geri & Charlie Mulligan, founders of IRATE & First Friends, Ramon Collazo, pastor of Santa Marcos Lutheran Church, Elizabeth, and recently released immigration detainees from the Elizabeth Detention Center and the Hudson County Correctional Facility spoke to the crowd.

Last year, ICE announced a series of changes to the immigration detention system. As part of its reform efforts, ICE promised to move toward a less punitive model and take concrete steps to improve conditions of confinement for the nearly 400,000 people detained each year.

Although advocates in NJ admit there have been some positive changes for asylum seekers, who are now more often than not, being released after a “credible fear” hearing, and detainees in general with the establishment of immigrant visitors programs at Bergen and Hudson County Jails, overall conditions remain relatively unchanged and the use of enforcement policies that lead to detention and deportation are on the rise.

Currently in NJ there are 1500 immigrants being held for suspected immigration violations at the Elizabeth Detention Center and in five county jails (Bergen, Essex, Husdon, Monmouth, and Sussex), a significant increase from the approximately 1000 immigrants who were being detained 2 years ago.

"Recent improvements in our detention system, particularly in the treatment of asylum seekers, do not alter the fact that ICE under Obama has continued the Bush Administration’s ‘enforcement only’ policy, initiated in 2007,” said Greg Sullivan, Program Director at IRATE & First Friends. “ICE needs an effective risk assessment system that limits incarceration to the very small minority of immigrants who are truly a risk to the community. We must continue to demand that the administration make its detention and deportation polices uniformly humane and end enforcement practices that not only increase the use of a costly detention system, but also misuse scarce resources that should be spent protecting public safety.”

IRATE & First Friends