FAQs
Immigration is the act of leaving one's country and moving to another country, to settle or reside there, especially as permanent residents or naturalized citizens, or to take-up employment as a migrant worker or temporarily as a foreign worker.
People leave one country for another -- as immigrants, refugees, or asylum seekers -- for many reasons, some of which include economic or political reasons, family reunification, natural disasters, or the desire to change one's surroundings.
Immigration detention is the inhumane practice of incarcerating immigrants while they await a determination of their immigration status or potential deportation. There are over 200 ICE detention centers across the country.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) subcontracts the majority of detention space to county jails and private prison corporations like the notorious GEO Group and CoreCivic.
The United States locks up survivors of torture, people seeking asylum, people who have been granted the right to live in the United States, visa holders, people who have lived here for years and may have American citizen spouses and children, individuals with mental health and medical conditions and other vulnerable groups including pregnant women and families with children—even babies.
In detention, immigrants are subjected to life-jeopardizing conditions of confinement and denied access to adequate medical care, legal counsel and family contact.
Instead, people navigating their immigration case should be able to do so with their families and in community not behind bars in immigration detention and for those that need support, they can access it through community-based groups.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targets, detains, and deports immigrants. ICE was created as part of a racist and Islamophobic response to the September 11th attacks. The racist roots of ICE grew to target Black and brown immigrant communities, combining demonizing rhetoric, racial profiling and criminalizing practices that spread xenophobia and galvanize white supremacists.
Number of ICE facilities as of July 2020:
There are more than 200 ICE detention centers. These include family detention centers and some juvenile facilities. This figure does not include BOP or ORR facilities.
Number of families separated:
On Oct. 24, 2019, ACLU reported that more than 5,400 children have been separated from their parents at the Mexico border since July 2017.
Number of those currently held in ICE detention:
25,421 people are incarcerated in immigrant detention as of May 30, 2020.
In response to the growing public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the United States government’s inadequate response, thousands of advocates have been sounding the alarm since March that all people in immigration detention must be released from detention immediately. ICE’s detention system is notorious for its fatally flawed medical care and abysmal conditions that only worsen in times of crisis. The government can and should release all people from detention immediately. All levels of government actors have a responsibility to demand Free Them All.
This moment highlights why cages are a public health nuisance: people can’t heal, recuperate, or avoid infection in jails and prisons.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement exists to target, imprison, and deport immigrants. Locking up and exiling people are their only reason for being. Immigration enforcement officers are now the largest federal police force. Their budget is more than that of all other federal law enforcement agencies combined. They are accountable to no one, and take their marching orders directly from Trump. We need to defund ICE, and we need legislation that dismantles the agency. They have only been around for 15 years, and their continued existence is far from inevitable. There’s already movement: at least 21 Democratic congressional primary candidates have come out in favor of abolishing the agency. Trump’s deportation squad should cease to exist. Immigration enforcement as we know it must end.
For too long, our elected officials have said they care about our communities while simultaneously funding deadly immigration jails, the militarization of our Southern border, and abusive ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents. The federal government wastes more than $25 billion each year on ICE and CBP. That money needs to be redirected from dangerous, deadly immigration enforcement and border militarization to programs that benefit all of us. We want our tax dollars used to strengthen our communities by investing in education, housing, and health care programs that increase well-being, not bankroll xenophobic policies. The Defund Hate campaign calls to defund ICE and CBP, while investing in communities.
Detained immigrants, including people arrested in ICE raids and mothers separated from their children at the border sometimes have the opportunity to be released on cash bond - which is like bail - while fighting for immigration cases. Many families cannot afford the bond amounts set by ICE of immigration judges. Bonds range from $1,500 to $250,000. Without the ability to pay a bond, longtime lawful permanent residents, asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants who may be eligible for relief from deportation are forced to languish in immigration detention. Please donate to free immigrants from jail while we work towards a human solution that allows families to stay together and lets individuals focus their efforts on winning their immigration cases.
You can learn more here.
Using several Carbon Footprint Calculators, we have estimated that each one-half hour skywriting flight can be offset by planting 5 trees. In Plain Sight artist Sam Van Aken has generously offered to plant the equivalent trees to offset In Plain Sight CO2. The Tree of 40 Fruit is one of a series of fruit trees created by Aken using the technique of grafting. Each tree produces forty types of stone fruit, of the genus Prunus, ripening sequentially from July to October in the United States. These trees will be placed in close proximity to detention facilities and sights of incarceration.