On July 17^th Center for Disability Rights (CDR) joined Amnesty International USA and over 100 organizations in a letter to The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) calling on them to free detained families together.

June 26^th Judge Dolly Gee gave an order directing ICE to release all children detained at its three family detention centers. In the midst of a worldwide Pandemic – COVID19 the detention centers have a large number of positive cases and severely lack the protective measures or equipment to keep the families safe within the centers. These facilities hold children as young as one-year old. Despite this DHS and ICE have ignored this order and continue to allow these dangerous conditions to remain for the families and employees of the centers.

CDR has joined a large coalition led by Families Belong Together to advocate for the removal of all families within these detention centers. Amnesty International USA created this sign on letter and sent this to DHS and ICE today. The letter also urges DHS and ICE to release these families together and today the deadline date given by the Judge. CDR believes in the freedom of all people and also knows that many in the families are people with disabilities. As part of our mission: we promote the independence of people with all types of disabilities, enabling choice in living setting, full access to the community, and control of their life.
CDR works for national, state, and local systemic change to advance the rights of people with disabilities by supporting direct action, coalition building, community organizing, policy analysis, litigation, training for advocates, and community education.

The release of people from all facilities during this COVID19 Pandemic is one of our key goals this year. We have worked on multiple coalitions – local, state and national to encourage legislatures, government officials and others to release people from these horrific conditions. We signed the Amnesty International USA letter today in solidarity with the over 100 organizations to protect the lives of all of the people in these detention centers and to support the request that DHS and ICE #FREEOURPEOPLE – by releasing the families today! #FreeTheFamilies

To join in support of this work – Sign this petition: Tell ICE: #FreeTheFamilies

To follow this work go to: @fams2gether on both Twitter and InstaGram

@amnestyusa

Hashtags: #FreeTheFamilies #ShutDownBerks

For more information on CDR’s work on this contact: Dara Baldwin, Director of National Policy – dara.baldwin@ncdr.us