Tell President Biden: ICE Detention Policies Need a Radical Change

A June 2022 Supreme Court ruling denied relief to immigrants challenging their long-term confinement in U.S. immigration jails without a bond hearing. This means that more people than ever before could be confined indefinitely in prison-like conditions—just for seeking safety, family reunification, and a better life.

Even with the courts refusing to protect immigrants’ rights, the executive branch could act on their own to release more immigrants and asylum-seekers from detention. Yet many of the trend lines in the first stage of the Biden administration went in the opposite direction. Even after President Biden moved to end Department of Justice contracts with private prisons, for instance, many of the corporations that profit from jailing people simply switched over to immigration detention.

President Biden has also taken some important positive steps, however, such as ending family detention and shutting down some of the country’s most notorious and abusive detention sites. Plainly, our advocacy—in coalition with our allies and partners—is having an impact. But we must build on this momentum to ensure that even more people aren’t arbitrarily deprived of their freedom.

UUSC is in solidarity with our long-standing allies in the Detention Watch Network in a coalition effort to close down at least seven more of the country’s worst immigration jails. This is just our first step toward the ultimate goal of abolishing immigration detention entirely.

No one should be deprived of their freedom for seeking safety and dignity. Join us by sending a message to President Biden today.

Image Credit: UUA