Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America

Priests, Pastors, Rabbis, lawyers, advocates, and community members gathered on Monday, December 12^th at 11 am to call for an end to unjust conditions and the expansion of the inhumane system of immigration detention in a press conference at the Chicago Temple, 77 W Washington.  A new report on the state of immigration detention in the Midwest will be released by the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights.  Leadership of the Interfaith Committee on Detained Immigrants called for an end to the human rights abuses that occur in Illinois and beyond.
Click here to download the report

Speakers included Charles Bayo, an immigrant whose life was destroyed while he was detained for 10 months in Illinois for an administrative mistake; and clergy such as Rabbi Maralee Gordon and Father Ed Shea, who visit with detained immigrants to provide pastoral care shared the travesties they have witnessed behind the bars of the Illinois jails.  (See below to downoad reflection by Rabbi Gordon) Lake County Sheriff Curran spoke against the proposed new privately owned immigrant detention facility being considered for construction just south of Chicago in Crete, Illinois.  Jane Zurnamer, the Policy Director of the National Immigrant Justice Center, presented the findings in the new report, Not Too Late for Reform (co-authored by the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights), which outlines the current conditions of Midwest immigrant detention facilities and demonstrates the deplorable lack of progress towards President Obama’s 2009 announcement to reform the nation’s immigrant detention system.

On an average day, over 1,000 immigrant detainees are held in 26 Midwest county jails, the majority of whom have not been accused of any criminal charges.  While in detention they are forced to endure inhumane conditions and are denied basic human rights, such as medical care and adequate food.  Meanwhile, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is negotiating with a private prison company and the small town of Crete, IL to construct a new 750-bed detention center just 30 miles south of Chicago.  The company, Corrections Corporation of America, has an extensive history of human rights violations in their immigrant and criminal detention centers around the country, as stated in Not Too Late for Reform.

Immigrant detainees are held for the purpose of ensuring that they will appear for legal proceedings on their immigration status, which is a civil, rather than criminal, matter.  Despite this, many factors including the length of detention and the treatment they receive while in detention make this an inherently penal system. Immigration detention is an expensive practice, costing the US Government an average of over $130 a day for each detainee, and over $2 billion a year to maintain.  Recent national media, such as the PBS Frontline documentary “Lost in Detention” and the recent New York Times op-ed, “A Broken, Dangerous System” have brought the public eye on the widespread problems within the US’s immigrant detention system.  Not Too Late for Reform focuses on the ways that these themes are carried out in locally.  The report and supporting organizations are calling for 1) the implementation of alternatives to detention, 2) closure of the three worst facilities in IL, 3) canceling the construction of new, privately owned facilities, 4) enforcing human rights standards, and 5) releasing low-risk individuals from detention.

 

In the news:

Chicago Tribune Dec 12, 2011

Chicago Sun-Times Dec 12, 2011

Fox News Latino Dec 12, 2011

Huffington Post Dec 12, 2011

New York Times Dec 4, 2011

Southtown Star Nov 28, 2011 

 

The Interfaith Committee on Detained Immigrants Member groups include - Chicago New Sanctuary Coalition, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, 8^th Day Center for Justice, Diocese of Joliet Peace & Justice Office, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs,  Office for Immigrant Affairs & Immigration Education – Archdiocese of Chicago, Priests for Justice for Immigrants, Sisters and Brothers of Immigrants, Sisters of Mercy, Southwest Organizing Project, Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, West Suburban Action Project “PASO.” 

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