Dignity Not Detention - Preserving Human Rights & Restoring Justice

What: Press Conference, Public Testimony, & Prayer Service

Who: St. Michael Catholic Church, Georgia Detention Watch, and Detention Watch Network

When: 25 February 2010 at 12 P.M.

Where: In front of the for-profit North Georgia Detention Center located at 622 Main Street, Gainesville, GA 30501

25 February 2010 – Over 50 people are expected to participate in a public ceremony in front of the North Georgia Detention Center to raise awareness and mobilize action against the inhumane treatment of people held in immigration detention centers in Georgia and to stand in solidarity with activists across the country in launch the national campaign “Dignity, Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights And Restoring Justice” which calls for an end to detention expansion nationally.

The event, organized by St. Michael Catholic Church and Georgia Detention Watch, will include participation by clergy, local community members, and other Georgians advocating for the restoration of justice within the U.S. immigration systems and respect for basic human dignity. Activists are calling on President Obama to take immediate action to prevent human rights abuses in U.S. detention facilities and to put an end to the arbitrary detention of more than 300,000 immigrants each year. Likewise, the involved organizations call on the Georgia municipalities to stop contributing to the growth of a broken immigration detention system when there are less costly and more humane alternatives. The event is open to the public.

The action follows two previous vigils, several humanitarian visitations, and the release of a Georgia Detention Watch report that documented violations of immigration detention standards at the Stewart Detention Center, a facility in Lumpkin, Georgia operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest private prison corporation. Corrections Corporations of America also operates the recently-opened North Georgia Detention Center that has a capacity of 500.

Last year, ICE affirmed that the “majority of the [detained immigrant] population is characterized as low custody, or having a low propensity for violence” and that the current immigration detention standards “impose more restrictions and carry more costs than are necessary to effectively manage the majority of the detained population.” Accordingly, ICE announced plans to reform the immigration detention system. Yet, to date, there is little evidence of change.

Currently, immigrants in the U.S. are detained in a secretive web of over 350 private, federal, state, and local jails and prisons, at an annual cost of $1.7 billion to taxpayers. Over eighty percent of detained immigrants go through the immigration system with no lawyer. Many are denied their fair day in court owing to mandatory and arbitrary detention laws and policies that severely limit judicial discretion. While detained, immigrants face horrific conditions of confinement, including mistreatment by guards, solitary confinement, the denial of medical attention, and limited or no access to their families, lawyers, and the outside world. In many cases, these conditions have proven fatal: since 2003, a reported 107 people have died in immigration custody. On March 11, 2009, Roberto Martinez Medina, a 39-year-old immigrant from Mexico detained at Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center, died of a heart infection. To date, many questions about the circumstances surrounding his death remain unanswered.

Coordinated actions in support of the “Dignity, Not Detention” campaign will take place on February 25th across the country in cities including Atlanta, Phoenix, San Antonio, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. For more information visit www.dignitynotdetention.org (coming soon).

St. Michael’s Catholic Church stands upon Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching to encourage prayer, promote facts about immigration, dispel myths, and advocate for comprehensive federal immigration reform that protects all workers, reunites families, supports national security, and creates an earned path to citizenship. For more information visit www.justiceforimmigrants.org.

Georgia Detention Watch is a coalition of organizations and individuals that advocates alongside immigrants to end the inhumane and unjust detention and law enforcement policies and practices directed against immigrant communities in our state. For more information visit www.georgiadetentionwatch.com.

The Detention Watch Network is a national coalition of organizations and individuals working to educate the public and policy makers about the U.S. immigration detention and deportation system. For more information visit www.detentionwatchnetwork.org.