Washington, DC – Last week reports began emerging of a troubling trend in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. People detained in 16 facilities from across the country reported losing free phone access – a critical lifeline for the mental health of a person in detention to stay connected with their loved ones and prepare for their immigration case. In a haphazard rollout and without notice, ICE has confirmed it will be ending this program at all facilities. Advocates say that people in detention have come to depend on free phone access while navigating the isolation and deprivation behind bars.
“This is another injustice perpetrated by an oppressive system that continues to chip away at our due process rights, this time by cutting vital communication with our loved ones and attorneys,” said Ever Starling Oropeza Paz, currently detained at Golden State Annex in McFarland, California. “$25,000,000 of taxpayer funds were allotted to Golden State Annex for unused beds that can easily be used to reinstate the free phone calls to a population of detained people here that is already at a huge financial disadvantage. Sadly, we here are forced to work for one dollar a day just to be able to purchase hygiene items from the commissary.”
“Here at Golden State Annex the population is really upset with our 520 monthly free minutes being taken away. A lot of us call our family back in our home country and we count on these free phone calls,” said Oscar Ernesto Lopez Santos, currently detained at the Golden State Annex in McFarland in California. “International calls are charged 35 cents a minute. Most of the population here does not have family that can afford to pay these high prices. This is a call for help to reinstate the free calls program due to the severe impact it has caused in our being able to call our families or even our attorneys.”
The loss of free phone access, a policy enacted in 2020, and other deteriorating conditions inside ICE detention has triggered at least five hunger strikes, including at the Moshannon Valley Detention Center, Elizabeth Detention Center, Batavia Service Processing Center, Orange County Jail, and Desert View Annex. At the Moshannon detention center, hundreds of people on hunger strike were met with retaliation by ICE officers. Approximately 50 people were pepper sprayed and shot with non-lethal bullets before being handcuffed. Currently, four people in detention are in solitary confinement.
At the Batavia Service Processing Center approximately 40 people announced their hunger strike on June 7 with seven people remaining on strike for more than 24 hours while ending their strike on June 8. There are reports of one person being beaten by ICE guards.
A person, pseudonym Chepito, who went on hunger strike at Batavia, said: "We did a hunger strike, going to the extreme of putting our lives at risk to be heard. But what we received in return was punishment for refusing to eat, which is our decision. We have that right...but what we have seen is that the people stopped hunger striking when faced with the threats of immigration officials and the facility supervisors...Approximately 40 of us went on hunger strike. The day of the strike...one person was beaten. They took him out of his cell, I'm not sure what happened. They beat him badly and they tied him up. They tied him up like an animal as he shouted that he could not breathe. At the end, he wasn't shouting anymore. They took him away and I don't know what happened to him."
Facilities where advocates have noted the loss of the free phone access, include:
- Moshannon Valley Detention Center, Pennsylvania
- Orange County Jail, New York
- Batavia Service Processing Center, New York
- Elizabeth Detention Center, New Jersey
- Stewart Detention Center, Georgia
- Golden State Annex, California
- Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center, California
- Otay Mesa Detention Center, California
- El Valle Detention Facility, Texas
- Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, Washington
- Torrance Detention Center, New Mexico
- Eloy Detention Center, Arizona
- Winn Correctional Center, Louisiana
- Richwood Correctional Center, Louisiana
- Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, Louisiana
- River Correctional Center, Louisiana
The loss of free phone access comes in coordination with a broader anti-immigrant strategy and affirms how Biden continues to execute an extreme agenda – including his executive order that will temporarily shut down the Southern border to people seeking asylum, the Department of Justice’s plan to increase immigration-related prosecutions at the border, ICE’s desire to massively increase immigration detention both at the border and throughout the country with a “Multi-State Detention Facility Support” Request for Information, and plans to ramp up deportations.
Immigrant justice advocates issued the following comments:
Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director of Detention Watch Network, said: “The ability to stay connected with loved ones, community and legal support is a critical lifeline for the mental health of a person in detention and for their ability to prepare for their immigration case. Cutting off free phone access, reducing the amount of time that people can obtain legal support before initial asylum screenings, and efforts to expand detention capacity illustrate the broad scale changes the agency is making to make an irreparably cruel system more unbearable and to deport as many people as quickly as possible. The continued focus on punishing people who migrate for the simple act of moving for a new, better, or safer life is not only cruel, it is ineffective and fuels our country’s reliance on mass incarceration.”
Rosa Santana, interim co-Executive Director at Envision Freedom Fund, said: “We received numerous, distressed phone calls over the weekend from people inside Orange County Correctional facility who are fearful of the isolation and financial strain that this inhumane decision will cause. We cannot underestimate the negative impact this will have on the mental health of detained migrants and their families. Everyone deserves to be in contact with their loved ones — without paying a price to ICE and profiteering telecom companies.”
Rosa Cohen-Cruz, Director of Immigration Policy at The Bronx Defenders, said: “The decision to revoke free phone access for people in ICE detention at several facilities nationwide, including for people we represent at Orange County Correctional Facility, Buffalo Federal Detention Facility, and Monshannon is a gross injustice. This policy exacerbates the legal, psychological, and social hardships for people inside. It creates significant barriers to accessing legal counsel; undermines the ability to gather crucial evidence; increases stress, anxiety, and a sense of isolation; and disrupts family bonds and removes essential emotional support. All of which is critical to not just ensure the most just outcomes in court but the safety and mental well-being of people who must already endure unimaginably inhumane conditions. The compounded effect of these harms is unconscionable and demands immediate rectification to uphold the basic human rights and dignity of people in ICE detention.”
Amilcar Valencia, Executive Director at El Refugio, said: “It's alarming to know the free phone calls for people detained are being taken away. With the increased cost of phone calls arbitrarily set by private companies profiting from incarceration, people detained will have more challenges keeping in touch with their loved ones. Phone calls are the lifeline for them. Taking away free calls will have a devastating impact on their mental health, particularly those who have limited or no family connections in the U.S. and people seeking asylum who have no one who can pay for their calls.”
Krista Kyrka, Attorney at Law of Higuera and VanDerhoef PLCC, said: “I work as appointed counsel for detained individuals who are deemed mentally incompetent by an Immigration Judge. For individuals who struggle with serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and major depression, detention often exacerbates their mental health problems and makes prolonged detention incredibly difficult to endure. For many of these detainees, being able to regularly speak with family is a lifeline. Their families provide crucial emotional support and often help them make difficult or complex case-related decisions that they would struggle to make on their own. Many of their families are low income and lack the means to regularly deposit money for these phone calls, and so receiving a certain number of free minutes is the only way these individuals can consistently communicate with their loved ones.”
Catherine Barnett, Co-Director at Freedom To Thrive, said: “As an abolitionist organization fighting against the criminalization of Black and Brown immigrants, Freedom To Thrive supports the people locked away in ICE detention facilities who are advocating for themselves against this policy. We all have the right to be treated in a humane and decent manner. The conditions in ICE detention centers are deplorable: Overcrowding, which has and will create conditions for the spread of COVID and other diseases; Poor food often with limited to no availability for dietary constraints, which leads to a reliance on expensive commissary; Price gouging phone access, which provides a lifeline to family and community beyond prison walls. One in three families with an incarcerated loved one falls into debt trying to stay connected. The system is broken .”
Zach Ahmad, Senior Policy Counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said: “Eliminating free phone access for people inside ICE detention facilities is brutal, unnecessary, and only exacerbates the endless cruelties of immigration detention. Whether it’s checking on their kids, navigating legal counsel, or just catching up with a friend, a phone call can mean everything to someone in detention — especially if they’ve been forced into a cell for months on end. ICE’s decision to take that lifeline away is nothing short of vicious and inhumane. Everyone deserves to talk to their loved ones, no matter the size of their wallet.”
Laila Ayub, Attorney and Co-Director at Project ANAR said: “As an Afghan community-based immigration organization, we are often the only connection our detained community members have to culturally and linguistically competent support from within ICE prisons. Eliminating free phone calls erodes access to critical legal services and support for people in our community, especially those in the most remote detention centers. This policy change is cruel. Access to communication for those in detention is essential to their wellbeing, and denying it in this sudden, egregious, and unnecessary way is yet another way that ICE conceals the conditions in its prisons, and seeks to disconnect our community members from their networks of support.”
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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.
Envision Freedom Fund (formerly Brooklyn Community Bail Fund) works alongside impacted communities to dismantle the oppressive and interconnected criminal legal and immigration systems.
Freedom To Thrive is a national organization working to combat crimmigration– the intersection of criminal-legal and immigration enforcement– using a Pro Black, gender-affirming lens.