United States - Advocates are demanding the Biden Administration take action to shut down the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey after the administration filed an amicus brief this week supporting private prison operator CoreCivic's attempt to keep the prison open.
The Elizabeth Detention Center, a converted warehouse with nearly 30 years of documented abuse, is approaching its contract expiration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on August 31, 2023, and is barred from renewing its contract under a 2021 state law. However, by filing this amicus brief, the Biden administration and ICE have explicitly expressed their plans and intent to undermine New Jersey’s anti-detention legislation and renew the Elizabeth Detention Center contract for an additional twelve months.
Elizabeth Detention Center exemplifies the systemic abuse of the immigration detention system at large. Community organizations nationwide are demanding the Biden Administration shut down all detention centers, including the Elizabeth Detention Center, retract its amicus brief, support the needs of people in New Jersey, and allow communities to end their reliance on carceral economies.
“CoreCivic is notorious for its perverse profit model. In 2021, the year that New Jersey’s anti-detention bill became law, CoreCivic generated $1.9 billion in revenue. We rebuke the Biden Administration’s decision to side with a corporation that both figuratively and literally ‘makes a killing’ off of immigration detention, forced prison labor, e-surveillance, and have been called out for numerous abuses and scandal cover-ups in their time as a private prison owner and operator,” said Amy Torres with New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. “New Jersey fought for this bill to become law and we will fight to defend it. Corporations, especially ones like CoreCivic, shouldn’t be allowed to bend and break the rules simply because they can’t profit from them. We stand in full support of the Governor and Office of the Attorney General as they fight to defend the law and call for further protections to keep our communities together.”
Across the country, the movement to end detention is growing: New Jersey is one of seven states that have passed state legislation that would end ICE detention contracts, with at least four other states having attempted to pass anti-detention legislation. This letter of solidarity has garnered 68 organizational signatures.
Immigrant rights advocates from across the country offered the following messages of support:
“We stand in community with our allies in New Jersey and nationwide. With their passage of AB5207 and ongoing defense, and their fight to create a reality without detention, New Jersey advocates unequivocally stand on the right side of history. The Biden administration should be ashamed of aligning itself with private prison profits, instead of with the community. From coast to coast, the swell of public awareness of the abuses in these detention centers and the advocacy to close them, is growing. We demand that the Biden administration join community to shut down these unnecessary detention centers once and for all,” said Grisel Ruiz, Supervising Attorney at Immigrant Legal Resource Center
“We stand in solidarity with communities in New Jersey that have fought hard to end ICE detention in their state. From New Mexico to New Jersey, we have witnessed deaths in detention caused by medical neglect, impermissible use of solitary confinement, as well as egregious conditions such as rat and bug infestations, crumbling infrastructure, sewage spills, and inedible food. We urge the Biden Administration to shut down immigration detention centers and reverse its actions undermining state legislation to end detention at the local level,” said Sophia Genovese, Managing Attorney at the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.
“We are enraged by the Biden Administration’s decision to side with private prison company CoreCivic rather than with the people of New Jersey who have campaigned hard to end detention in their state. Public or private, detention is unnecessary and rife with systemic abuse and neglect. We demand the Biden Administration fulfill its campaign promise and shut down detention centers, including the Elizabeth Detention Center,” said Stacy Suh, Program Director at Detention Watch Network.
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