Thursday, February 25,
SAN ANTONIO 12:00-1:00 pm, San Antonio ICE offices
Join Grassroots Leadership and our allies for the Texas launch of the national Dignity Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights and Restoring Justice campaign. We will be holding two events on February 25th calling for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to close two enormous south Texas detention centers – the privately-run “Tent City” detention center in Raymondville and the Port Isabel Detention Center, where immigrant detainees have been holding ongoing hunger strikes to highlight human rights abuses.
While ICE recently announced that it plans to institute major reforms in the detention system, there has been little evidence of change, and immigrants continue to suffer. Over 10% of detained immigrants in the U.S. are held in these two detention centers in Texas. The more than 4,000 immigrants detained at these facilities are held in conditions considered to be substandard by numerous human rights organizations. Join us to take action to close these detention centers once and for all:
Grassroots Leadership will join with members of the faith community, former detainees, and human rights organizers from across Texas in a protest, press conference, and letter delivery to the ICE offices in San Antonio. Protesters will call on ICE to make good on its commitment to fix the immigrant detention system by closing Tent City and Port Isabel and implementing alternatives to detention policies. We will also deliver a petition signed by immigrant detainees across Texas. The ICE offices are located at 8940 Fourwinds Dr., San Antonio, TX, 78239. For information on an Austin caravan, please email Bob Libal or call (512) 499-8111.
Panel Discussion on Immigrant Detention
Thursday, February 25, 7:00 pm, Resistencia Bookstore, Austin, Texas
Join us for a panel discussion on organizing against the immigrant detention system. Panelists will include Rama Carty, former Port Isabel detainee and immigrant rights leader whose hunger strike drew national attention, Silky Shah, national coordinator of the Detention Watch Network’s Dignity Not Detention campaign, Anayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers Union, and Lauren Martin of Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families