NIJC, Sept. 20, 2024 "The U.S. government spends over three billion a year on the largest immigration detention apparatus in the world to detain and deport people who have lived in the U.S. for...
Heritage Foundation v. DHS "In this Freedom of Information Act case, Plaintiffs seek the disclosure by the Department of Homeland Security of certain immigration records relating to the Duke of...
In pending litigation in federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, USCIS Asylum Division Chief John L. Lafferty provided this sworn declaration dated July 26, 2024.
IRHTP, PLS, Sept. 2024 "Consistent complaints over the last twenty-five years reveal a disturbing pattern of systemic abuse and mistreatment of ICE detainees at Plymouth County Correctional Facility...
DHS, Sept. 24, 2024 "Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, in consultation with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, designated Qatar into the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)....
ACLU, Sept. 23, 2024
"The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain records regarding the agency’s potential plans to expand immigration detention across the country. The ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in August 2024 in response to ICE’s contract solicitations to “identify possible detention facilities” in areas covered by the Chicago, Harlington, Newark, and Salt Lake City Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Offices, signaling an intent to contract for additional detention beds in these regions.
“ICE has repeatedly failed to provide transparency into its immigration detention system, including its plans to expand detention in states where no facilities currently exist,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The mass immigration detention machine wastes billions of taxpayer dollars to lock people up in inhumane and life-threatening conditions – and these documents are a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding what prisons and jails ICE may seek to further expand this abusive system.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, demands that ICE comply with the Freedom of Information Act and immediately turn over the requested records to the ACLU. The filing also comes on the heels of advocacy from immigrants’ rights groups and medical experts who have repeatedly called out ICE’s history of abuse, pervasive medical neglect, and disregard for the dignity of people in its custody. In recent months, members of Congress have written multiple letters to the Department of Homeland Security raising concern about expansion of immigration detention and urging DHS and ICE to reject contracts with for-profit prison corporations. Advocates warn that additional contracts will undoubtedly lead to further abuses in immigration detention.
Already, ICE is exceeding its FY24 budget and congressionally approved detention levels, detaining approximately 37,000 people each day. Efforts to expand the mass detention machine would lay the groundwork for future administrations to detain more immigrants, and under a potential Trump administration, could help to facilitate plans for mass detention and deportation.
This filing is available here.
The ACLU’s FOIA request is available here. A second FOIA request for information for new West Coast immigration detention facilities is available here."