Tlaib Introduces Bill to Stop ICE’s Warehouse Detention Prisons

WATCH: full press conference here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) introduced the Ban Warehouse Detention Act, which would prohibit the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), from establishing, operating, expanding, converting, or renovating any warehouse or similar building or structure for the purposes of detaining people. The bill would also prevent the administration from establishing any new immigrant detention models.

“From Romulus to cities across the country, we do not want ICE cages in our communities. ICE and CBP are murdering people in the streets, tearing families apart, abducting our neighbors, and locking them in cages. Now they are attempting to buy and convert warehouses across our country into massive prison camps to expand their operations, despite strong local opposition in communities like mine,” said Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. “This will only increase the serious human rights abuses and trauma on immigrant families including medical neglect, inhumane conditions, and rising deaths. The Ban Warehouse Detention Act would stop this expansion by prohibiting the use of warehouses for immigration detention.”

“For the profiteers and private interests, detention is just another money-making venture. Even while posting record profits, Trump and his greedy private prison campaign donors want more. Trump’s mass deportation campaign and the private detention, camps, and warehouses Republicans are using their power to establish are just another way to profit from our pain,” said Congresswoman Delia Ramirez. “Since its inception, immigration detention has been DEHUMANIZING and DEADLY. With more than 47 deaths in immigration detention in the last 15 months, we say NOT ONE MORE. We must reclaim our dignity, restore due process, and end detention in all its forms. That is why I introduced the Melt ICE Act, and why I am proud to stand with Congresswoman Tlaib and Detention Watch Network in the introduction of the Ban Warehouse Detention Act.”

“We are all painfully aware of the brutality, and frankly criminality, of DHS’s detention practices. The only conversation we should be having is how to dismantle DHS’s cruel and immoral detention-industrial complex,” said Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García. “Human beings do not belong in warehouses. Local communities do not want these torture factories in their backyards. From Arizona to New Hampshire, even Republican local elected officials oppose these warehouses. Not one penny of our tax dollars should be going towards these massive detention centers.”

ICE is actively scouting, purchasing, and planning to convert approximately 23 warehouses nationwide into new immigration detention and processing facilities. If enacted, ICE’s warehouse plan would rapidly increase detention capacity to 92,600, signaling a massive expansion of detention capacity and the normalization of large-scale confinement. At some sites, ICE is reportedly planning on detaining people as soon as this month.

Confining people in large-scale, makeshift warehouse detention will exponentially increase the likelihood for abuse and death in ICE custody, as ICE cuts people off from their loved ones and support networks, and subjects them to conditions that are meant for storing products, not people. Given the already widespread due process and human rights violations occurring at the hands of ICE, it is certain that this historic expansion will result in an increase in unlawful arrests, violations of people’s due process rights, widespread family separations, disease outbreaks in facilities, and preventable deaths due to medical negligence.

Like communities across the country, Michiganders are fighting to prevent DHS from converting a warehouse in Romulus into a mass detention facility. Local residents, alongside the Coalition to Shut the Camps and No Detention Centers in Michigan, have vocally opposed the opening of such a site, and the State of Michigan and the City of Romulus have filed a lawsuit to block the facility, particularly noting the immense harm it would bring to surrounding communities.

The Ban Warehouse Detention Act is cosponsored by Reps. Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Yvette Clarke (NY-09), Danny Davis (IL-07), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Sylvia Garcia (TX-29), Dan Goldman (NY-10), Al Green (TX-09), Adelita Grijalva (AZ-07), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), April McClain Delaney (MD-06), Kelly Morrison (MN-03), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Andrea Salinas (OR-06), and Shri Thanedar (MI-13).

This legislation was drafted in partnership with Detention Watch Network and is endorsed by Acacia Center for Justice, Adhikaar for Human Rights & Social Justice, Alianza Nacional de Campesinos, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Angelica Village, Arab American Heritage Council (AAHC), Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Asian Americans Advancing Justice- Atlanta, Ayuda, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Borderlands Resource Initiative, Californians United for a Responsible Budget, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Center for Law and Social Policy, Center for Progressive Reform, Center for Victims of Torture, Church World Service, Climate Refugees, Climate Sanctuary, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Coalition on Human Needs, the Coming Clean Network, Communities United for Status & Protection, Congregation B’nai Israel Tikkun Olam/Repair the World Committee, Democratic Socialist of America , El Refugio, Esperanza Cuautle, Families for Freedom, Flint Alliance for Immigrant Rights (FAIR), Florida Immigrant Coalition, Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution, Freedom for Immigrants, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR), Grassroots Leadership, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Hindus for Human Rights Action, Human Rights First, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Immigrant Resource Center, Immigration Equality Action Fund, Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance, Indivisible, Indivisible Mass Coalition-Immigration Justice Action Team, Innovation Law Lab, Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice, Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice of Western Mass, Just Detention International, Latin American Working Group, Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, Metro Detroit DSA, Miami Valley Immigration Coalition, Migrant Support Collective, Minnesota Interfaith Coalition on Immigration, MN8, MoveOn, Muslim Advocates, Muslims for Just Futures, National Immigrant Justice Center, National Immigration Law Center, National Network for Arab American Communities, National Partnership for New Americans, Never Again Action, New Disabled South, New Mexico Dream Team, NM Comunidades En Accion Y de Fe (NM CAFe), No Concentration Camps US, No Detention Centers in Michigan, NorCal Resist, Oasis Legal Services, Organized Communities Against Deportations, Popular Democracy, Rise Up Western Mass Indivisible, SHUT DOWN ETOWAH, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), Southern NH Indivisible, State Wide Indivisible Michigan, The Sikh Coalition, Tsuru for Solidarity, UndocuBlack Network, United We Dream Network, Verta Institute of Justice, Voices for Utah Children, Voto Latino, We are CASA, Western Massachusetts Immigration Legislative Action Network (WMILAN), Wind of the Spirit, and Witness at the Border.

“All immigration detention is inherently inhumane and rife with abuse, and yet the warehouse model currently being pursued by ICE is particularly horrifying. People are not commodities to be shipped, discarded, and profited off of. Local communities are making it clear from coast to coast – they don’t want detention centers or warehouse detention, and they will fight tooth and nail to block ICE. Communities want elected leaders to champion projects that bring investment to support all families like education, healthcare and housing for everyone to thrive, not immigration detention,” said Marisol Hernandez, Senior Advocacy Manager from Detention Watch Network.

“The people of Romulus could not have made it any more apparent that a warehouse prison is not welcome in their city, and we know that ICE detention is causing enormous suffering in Michigan as we speak. Just this week, hundreds of immigrants unjustly held at the GEO Group’s North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin have organized a hunger strike across multiple units in response to medical neglect, a lack of basic resources, and the cruel policies and arbitrary judicial decisions that have kept many of them stuck there for months. Their strike is a courageous act of resistance against the abuses that are endemic to immigration detention. The memory of Nenko Gantchev, who died at North Lake in December, and the stories of all those who have lost their lives to ICE and those who continue to struggle in captivity, compel us to defend our communities against the expansion of this abhorrent system,” said JR Martin, a member of No Detention Centers in Michigan.

“Warehouse facilities are built for storing products, not people. Converting them into detention centers exposes our neighbors to unsafe, degrading, and inhumane conditions, harms surrounding communities, and locks states into long-term infrastructure without public input. Communities across the country are making it clear: they don’t want these atrocious venues for human rights abuses in their backyards. Leaders need to cancel these warehouse detention plans, reject any funding or permits that enable expansion, and guarantee full transparency and real community consent. Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s Ban Warehouse Detention Act is the right step forward — and it’s needed now,” said Leah Greenberg, Indivisible’s Co-Executive Director.

“Warehouses are made to house packages and machines. Shoving humans inside one indefinitely is not only abhorrent, it’s inhumane. These structures lack basic necessities to be a home to people, and are located in areas where residents would prefer to see that investment put into their communities. We in Washington County do not want our immigrant neighbors tossed into such horrific conditions where we know they will receive inadequate food, healthcare, legal representation and suffer from a lack of basic human rights. We are grateful for the Ban Warehouse Detention Act, and urge Congress to join us in this fight against ICE concentration camps before our county and our country enter a very dark period in our history,” said Laura Spivak, Core Leader at Washington County Indivisible.

“People are dying in detention, and the response from the Trump administration has been to build more detention – faster and cheaper. Our community is outraged, and we refuse to accept it. We will not allow a system built on harm, neglect, and dehumanization to grow even larger. We call on our leaders to uphold human dignity, not abandon it. We Are CASA thanks Congresswoman Tlaib for her leadership and looks forward to mobilizing to stop the expansion of government-funded camps,” said Eduardo Zelaya, Director of Organizing at CASA in Action.

“This legislation is absolutely imperative to prevent any more public funds from going towards the unprecedented expansion of the deadly and corrupt immigration detention system,” said Jesse Franzblau, Associate Policy Director of the National Immigrant Justice Center. “NIJC provides legal services to thousands of people a year, fighting for their freedom from detention where people face inhumane conditions and systemic human rights violations. We commend the champions in Congress taking action to stop funding for modern day immigrant internment camps in the form of industrial warehouses, and fighting for justice for our immigrant communities,” said Jesse Franzblau, Associate Director of Policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center.

The full text of the legislation is available here.

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