Rally Outside Karnes Detention Facility in Karnes City, Texas
KARNES CITY, TEXAS — On Saturday, October 11th hundreds of concerned citizens and activists from around the country joined local Texans in a vigil outside the GEO-owned Karnes Detention Facility protesting the Administration’s use of family detention for refugee women and children in the United States. The protest, which was organized by Grassroots Leadership, Texans United for Families, Austin Immigrants Rights Coalition featured nearly 100 people from around the state – including Austin, Waco, Dallas and San Antonio.
VIEW PHOTOS OF THE VIGIL HERE: https://www.facebook.com/TexansUnitedForFamilies
Activists also rallied outside the CCA-owned Houston Processing Center in Houston Texas in solidarity with the protesters holding the vigil at the Karnes Detention Center.
“The return of family detention has mobilized people across the country but especially in Texas,” said Cristina Parker, Projects Coordinator for Grassroots Leadership. “We aren’t going to have the mass detention of refugee women and children happen in our backyard without a fight. We want Karnes and Artesia both closed now and the contract for Dilley canceled.”
The Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition added that they will “continue to oppose the detention of our immigrant community members, this means raising our voices to protest the Karnes detention center and it’s horrible practices; demanding that no new detention centers be opened to incarcerate our community members; and ending mass incarceration.”
“We fought to free families from the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center 5 years ago, and we’re here again. This is shameful what our government is doing and we will not allow immigrant detention to be so normalized in our country that imprisoning women and children refugees is something people make millions of dollars on,” said Elaine Cohen, a member of Texans United for Families.
“DWN members and allies are uniting together to end the arbitrary and inhumane locking up of mothers and children today,” said Silky Shah, Co-Director of Detention Watch Network. “Family detention is a psychologically damaging practice and today we stand resolutely to end family detention and restore American values of fairness and justice for all.”
“My family was not whole for seven years and after enduring such a traumatic separation the last thing we could have imagined is being stripped of our freedom and thrown into detention. Family detention and human rights are irreconcilable.” said Rubi Espiricueta, president of University Leadership Initiative at the University of Texas.
For more information, or for interviews with activists attending the vigil, please contact Cristina Parker at 915-497-2747 or by email at cparker@grassrootsleadership.org.
KJ