Action Items

This report demonstrates that detention at Karnes produces inconsistent, inadequate, and discriminatory outcomes. ICE is either unwilling or unable to provide the minimum level of care required by its own standards. ICE is not equipped to provide meaningful access to counsel, even in the setting of Expedited Removal proceedings in which an attorney’s role is limited. These issues extend beyond the time period covered in this report and become evident in different ways with each change in the population that ICE detains at Karnes.

ICE must altogether end its use of Karnes as an immigrant detention facility, end the practice of imprisoning migrant families, and end the use of Expedited Removal.

ICE’s deficiencies are not due to a lack of funding or available expertise, but rather they are fundamental to the way in which the U.S. government approaches immigration policy.71 The conditions ICE subjects people to at detention facilities generally, and at Karnes in particular, cause life-altering harm, further compounded by the arbitrariness with which DHS decides who to imprison and who to leave free, even among people with the same type of case. The immigrant prison system is utterly unnecessary. Community-based alternatives to detention already exist and have been utilized for years, at far less human and financial cost. RAICES believes in the abolition of ICE, CBP, and, ultimately, DHS. In the interim, the government must end the practice of Expedited Removal and Title 42 and end ALL detained immigration proceedings. Further, DHS must end contracts with private prison companies, such as the GEO Group.

RAICES recognizes that the fights to abolish ICE and the police are inherently intertwined. “...as we begin to turn our attention to immigrant populations, we find that the same racist policing that incarcerates Black people in America also affects Black immigrants, as well as immigrants of other ethnic backgrounds.”72

71. Hassan Kanu, Courts Are Beginning To Admit That Some Immigration Laws Are Racist, Reuters, Aug. 23, 2021, https://www. reuters.com/legal/litigation/courts-are-beginning-admit-that-some-immigration-laws-are-racist-2021-08-23/. See also Kavitha Surana, How Racial Profiling Goes Unchecked in Immigration Enforcement, Pro Publica, June 8, 2018. https://www.propublica. org/article/racial-profiling-ice-immigration-enforcement-pennsylvania 72. Tsion Gurmu, Rinku Sen & Sejal Zota, The Convergence of Movements to Abolish ICE and Defund the Police, Duke Law (2020).

Advocates must fight for changes toward the end goal of abolition of these systems altogether, instead of compromising for reforms that in effect perpetuate these systems.73 Migrant detention is an extension of a larger carceral system that disappears people from society because of a perceived disposability, whether based on criminal records or immigration status, and so long as the system at large exists, families will be detained and separated. Furthermore, migrant liberation can only be achieved if there is also collective liberation-- like all humans, migrants live at the intersection of multiple identities. No one is disposable in this struggle-including those with criminal records. RAICES also recommends that readers consider the ways the U.S. government can repair the harm caused by immigration prisons and the deportation complex beyond changing policy, while centering those impacted and their diverse visions of reparations. RAICES recognizes that changing policy, while preventing more people from being subjected to the same harm, does not repair the irreparable damage already wrought.

Regardless of background, there are a variety of ways one can plug into the movement to end the imprisonment of migrants. People can volunteer, donate, spread the word, and more. The fight for abolition is not and should not be limited to those in the legal field.

RAICES recommends readers plug into their local community, as grassroots efforts for abolition already exist across the country. In order to find existing local efforts, social media can be a great place to start using search terms of local detention centers and/or cities and words like “shut down ___,” “abolition,” “close ___,” and “___ resistance” (___ = the name of a local detention center). To find nearby detention centers, see Freedom for Immigrants’ Detention Map. Additionally, one can look to search engines such as Immigration Law Help to find a list of immigration legal services organizations nearby based on either zip code or detention center. While not all legal services organizations engage in abolitionist advocacy, many do, especially those that offer removal defense services. For communities without existing spaces to link into, there are also larger coalitions that can inform the creation of a local chapter (such as Detention Watch Network). As always, it is critical to listen to and follow the lead of those most directly affected by the systems one aims to dismantle.

Particularly impactful financial contributions might go to mutual aid groups (such as Sueños Sin Fronteras) that help to invest in communities and provide support directly to incarcerated people through assistance like commissary funds or phone minutes. Bond and bail funds that directly contribute to getting people out of detention centers and prisons are another great place to direct financial capital. Any little bit helps, and that little bit can be amplified hugely when shared with one’s family, social connections, and larger community. It is also advisable to make financial contributions a regular practice, integrated with one’s budget.

Beyond finances, people of any background can contribute to the struggle. The following is by no means an exhaustive list of how one can give one’s time. If impacted persons are looking for places to build community as well as take on these systems, they could reach out to groups like Detention Watch Network, or the Family Liberation and Abolitionist Network, and other organizing groups in their area but this is by no means the “only way” or the “right way” to participate. Advocates should continue to take cues from people impacted by these systems.

73. Mariama Kaba, Yes, We Literally Mean Defund the Police, New York Times, June 12, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/ opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html; N/A, Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing, Critical Resistance.

• Involvement in advocacy campaigns (calling or emailing ICE and/or Congress, showing up to protests, spreading the word on social media and within one’s own circles, etc.) • Accompaniment at ICE check ins or Immigration

Court • Assist at community events with resources and/ or set up and take down (ex: at organizing events regarding specific calls to action, community support and/or connection events, Know Your

Rights and other educational events, etc.)

• Volunteer with individual cases pro bono • Volunteer with impact litigation cases pro bono • Assist with legal research • Assist with brief writing and/or editing • also larger coalitions that can inform the creation of a local chapter (such as Detention Watch

Network). As always, it is critical to listen to and follow the lead of those most directly affected by the systems one aims to dismantle.

• Interpret telephonically or in person • Translate documents

• Provide evaluations and letters of support on individual asylum claims and/or release requests • Reach out to local groups about providing counseling to the immigrant community (if cultural competency for this) • Consult with organizers, policy experts, and legal advocates

• Like medical or mental health professionals, experts on certain issues pertinent to detention and/or asylum can also offer their expertise with individual cases, impact litigation, and broader public advocacy efforts • Topics can include country conditions, linguistics, public policy, organizing, politics, etc. • People with cultural competency regarding certain identities or experiences can also provide trainings to people working with that community

RAICES also recommends readers remain critical of how organizations represent themselves. In the non profit industrial complex, there is an inherent tension with the desire for abolition and the reality that service providers, if successful, will work themselves out of a job. Nonprofits ultimately make money off of the very communities and causes they serve. Some may have a vested interest in continuing to receive funding that they fear might disappear if abolitionists are successful. The immigration nonprofit industrial complex is also steeped in internalized white supremacy, white saviorism, and performative allyship that often coopts what it means to truly be an accomplice in this work. In order to plug into the abolitionist movement, one must remain aware and critical of this dynamic.

• The State of Black Immigrants - Black Alliance for

Just Immigration More Reports from Black Alliance for Just Immigration • Communities Not Cages-A Just Transition from

Immigrant Detention Economies - Detention

Watch Network • DWN First Ten to Communities Not Cages - Detention Watch Network • Violence and Violation: Medical Abuse of Immigrants Detained at the Irwin County Detention

Center • The U.S. Government Kidnapped My Son - RAICES • Black, Pregnant, and Detained - RAICES • Prison by Any Other Name - Southern Poverty Law

Center • Systemic Indifference: Dangerous & Substandard

Medical Care in US Immigration Detention - Human

Rights Watch • Immigrant Detention is Psychological Torture:

Strategies for Surviving in Our Fight for Freedom - Freedom for Immigrants • Detained and Disappeared: Enforced Disappearances Perpetrated in Immigration Detention by the United States • Decarceral Futures: Bridging Immigration and

Prison Justice towards an Abolitionist Future • The Convergence of Movements to Abolish ICE and

Defund the Police

FURTHER READING ON THE HARMFULNESS OF CBP • Fatal Encounters With CBP Since 2010 - Southern

Border Communities Coalition • Two Migrant Children Who Died In U.S. Custody

Could’ve Been Saved, Says Doctor - NBC News • The Crises Of Children Dying In Custody At The

Border, Explained - Vox • Inside The Cell Where a Sick 16-Year-Old Boy Died

In Border Patrol Care - ProPublica • US: FOIA Suit On Border Guards’ Rights Abuses -

Human Rights Watch • “Kick Ass, Ask Questions Later”: A Border Patrol

Whistleblower Speaks Out About Culture Of Abuse

Against Migrants - The Intercept • Whistleblowers Say CBP Knowingly Broke The Law

As It Turned Back Asylum-Seekers - KPBS

• Cameroon American Council • Detention Watch Network • Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement • Family Liberation Abolitionist Network • Haitian Bridge Alliance • Sueños Sin Fronteras • UndocuBlack Network