A Visitation Movement in Immigrant Detention

Everyday immigrants disappear and are detained by the U.S. government. For example, Ana is a human trafficking victim who was detained for over ayear, locked in solitary confinement, and forced by a guard to sleep onthe cement floor of her cell until CIVIC ended this isolation and abuse. Over 32,000 immigrants like Ana remain isolated in these remote detentionfacilities today because no law protects a right to visitation, phonecalls can cost up to $5.00 per minute, and 46% of detained migrants aretransferred at least twice–often out of state and away from theirfamilies.

CIVIC is changing this reality by building and strengthening communityvisitation programs that are dedicated to ending the isolation and abuseof men and women in immigration detention. Visitation programs connectpersons in civil immigration detention with community members. Thesevolunteer visitors provide immigrants in detention with a link to theoutside world, while also preventing human rights abuses by creating acommunity presence in otherwise invisible detention facilities.

CIVIC recently released A Guide to Touring U.S. Immigration DetentionFacilities & Building Alliances, designed for communities across thecountry hoping to start a visitation program using ICE’s new VisitationDirective. The benefit of this resource is that the general guidelinesare tailored to the unique request of using the Visitation Directive as atool to establish contact and set up a permanent visitation program. Inaddition, this manual provides an overview of some of the successes androadblocks visitation programs have encountered in the first year of theVisitation Directive’s existence.

CIVIC is setting in motion a national movement to combat the isolatingexperience of immigration detention.  

KJ