NO MORE RAIDS! NO MORE DEPORATIONS! No Human Being Is Illegal!

Community,

Please take a look at this fact sheet of human rights violations against our immigrants occurring in our Commonwealth.


THIS SUMMARY BORROWS FROM AN ACLU-MASSACHUSETTS REPORT ON ICE
DETENTIONS: http://www.aclum.org/ice/

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO HELP STOP THE RAIDS, DETENTIONS AND DEPORTATIONS, CONTACT:
MA Raid & Deportation Resistance Network: ma.stop.raids.detentions@gmail.com or 617-448-0993

The MA Raid & Deportation Resistance Network is a coalition of concerned community members, activists and organizers dedicated to bringing an end to the inhuman treatment of immigrants and communities of color in our Commonwealth


ICE DETENTIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS

800! Every day in Massachusetts, approximately 800 immigrants and asylum-seekers are in detention in
county jails around the state waiting to be deported or fighting a legal battle to stay in the country. None of
those persons are serving sentences for having committed a crime. They have not been judged by a jury of their peers.
350,000! This is part of a national deportation plan formulated by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement authorities. In 2008, this resulted in a record number of deportations — 349,041 people for forcibly removed from the United States.ICE created a network of approximately 400 jails and detention facilities around the country where it now holds over 30,000 persons on any given day. In Massachusetts, the ALCU interviewed 40 detainees who were detained for an average length of 11 months with one having been incarcerated for 5 years!

IMPRISONED! The deportations have reinforced already-existing prison machinery: in Massachusetts. These facilities, which already are overcrowded at up to two and a half times their capacity, receive funding from the federal government at a rate of between $80 and $90 a day plus guard hours, but little or no guidance or oversight to protect detainees' and their rights.

MOVED! ICE raids and detentions result in shell game involving people and an abuse of their due process rights: ICE has almost unlimited power to detain them in any facility in the country and to move them from one facility to another without justification or advance notice. ICE takes full advantage of this power, transferring detainees on a daily basis all over the country. In 2007, ICE spent more than $10 million to transfer nearly 19,400 detained persons. In New England, ICE arrests twice as many people as the region holds; this means that half of those arrested are taken quickly to detention centers in places as far away as Texas and Louisiana.

LOST! Despite its multi-million dollar budget for daily transfers, ICE has no real-time tracking system to monitor the location of its detainees. In the New England region, relatives or lawyers of detained persons call the ICE-New England headquarters for information on the location of their loved one or client and can wait for days for an answer because ICE computers do not have an up-to-date location.

THREATENED! Detainees report that ICE agents used threats, coercion and physical force... Some reported threats of forced sedation, others of forced removal from their cells and transfer to vans and planes.

OVERCROWDING! In some facilities, detained immigrants sleep side by side with inmates in cells meant to hold one person that currently hold two or three.

PUNITIVE! The detainees reported being held in the same unit or the same cell with violent criminals; having to submit to strip searches and cell searches; unhealthy food and dirty water; a lack of access to bathrooms; difficulties in receiving visits from lawyers and family members; a phone system that makes it excessively expensive to call loved ones; no access to a legal library; no access to an outside recreation area; no access to educational services and no access to newspapers or reading materials.

MEDICAL CARE DENIED! The ACLU (MA) documents two cases in
which care was delayed or denied based on the belief that the ill persons would soon be
deported or released, and a third case in which care for a broken finger was refused because the fracture had occurred days prior to the person's arrest, forcing him to stay in detention for months with a finger that became increasingly deformed and painful. There is no standardized process by which a detained person can ask for release based
on a medical condition.