Strategies for people dealing with local detention centers in their communities
From the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee
Although there is currently an administration thrust
to build ever-larger federal/state detention facilities, we think
effective activism can still be directed at local facilities that
have contracts with ICE. The basic organizing goal should be ending
these contracts, on the principle that the fewer detention facilities
available right now, the fewer detentions. In late December, 2005,
when Passaic County (NJ) announced the end of their detention contract
with ICE, scores of detainees were actually released either directly
from Passaic County Jail or from neighboring facilities to make room
for Passaic transfers.
Moreover, the Passaic County Sheriff explicitly "blamed"
this change of policy on protests organized by activists, and more
specifically on the kind of protests that combined actions inside
AND outside the facility. We think he's right. In this case, the decision
to close the facility came after a couple of years of tireless activism
on both sides of the wall, and a couple of weeks after the detainees
themselves circulated a petition demanding that the contract with
ICE be ended.
Our experience is that such coordination starts with local protests
on the outside demanding the termination of the contract and explaining
the unconstitutional nature of these detentions, which are by definition
without charges and often without legal recourse. At the same time
it's important to reach out to detainees, visit them inside the jails,
and speak if possible to their relatives, indeed to seek them out
and get statements from them on their side of the detention experience,
which is often full of severe hardship. Such efforts can and should
be publicized by whatever means available: community meetings, rallies,
flyers, press releases, letters/ stories in the press, a newsletter
sent directly to detainees. Early on, our group brought a contingent
of speakers to a regular County meeting, where we read graphic statements
from detainees and offered a string of individual public comments
demanding the end of the local contract. This tactic met with hostility
at the time, but the long-term effect
was to put elected County officials on the defensive, along with their
policy of seeking revenue from the suffering of imprisoned immigrants.
And no one thereafter could claim they didn't know what was going
on.
Detainees understandably tend to focus on the conditions of their
detention--egregious physical and mental abuse, poor food, lack of
medical care, etc.--rather than on the unconstitutionality and illegality
of the detentions themselves. Often these complaints, especially in
the wake of notorious abuse scandals elsewhere, become press triggers,
so they can be useful. But for our purposes, we felt it was key that
complaints of poor and inhumane treatment should always highlight
detention itself as the source of the problem. We have urged detainees
themselves to speak to this larger issue, and demand an end not just
to the abusive conditions but to the local contract, encouraging them
with the promise of support on the outside (and delivering on that
promise as much as possible).
A single detainee willing to take this tack is often all you need
to start a wave. Other detainees, we found, will often summon the
courage to follow, and build a petition, or even mount a hunger strike.
But whether the petition or detainee action speaks to abuse or to
detention itself or both, we think it can and should be linked with
the same petition circulating on the outside, especially among affected
immigrant communities.
Obviously, all tactics should be cut to fit local circumstances. But
we think the demand to end the contract, not just the specific abuses,
and the coordination between detainee actions and outside supporters
are key elements. A discussion list or other information exchange
would also be useful to build morale and share experiences. We would
gladly be part of it.
--Members of the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee
- Read more about the Victory at Passaic County Jail (article by Flavia Alaya)