Washington, DC – This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released its latest data on the number of people in its custody, which reported 35,589 people are currently in ICE detention, an eight percent increase from 32,743 people that was reported on August 31.
In response to the alarming growth of people in ICE detention, Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network issued the following statement:
“The number of people in detention is at the highest level under the Biden administration at over 35K – more than double what it was when he first took office. Despite Biden’s stance against private prisons roughly 90 percent of detention capacity is operated by private prison corporations. This is unacceptable. Simply put, people navigating their immigration case should be able to do so with their families and in community – not behind bars in immigration detention. Immigration detention as a whole is unnecessary, rife with systemic abuses and completely arbitrary. The Biden administration has the power to shut down detention centers now, like the Farmville detention center in Virginia whose contract extension expires this weekend.”
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.