Freedom For Immigrants

Causes: Civil Rights

Mission: A national network of over 40 independent community organizations working to end the isolation and abuse of immigrants in the united states immigration detention system through visitation, independent monitoring, storytelling, and advocacy.

Programs: Community initiatives for visiting immigrants in confinement (civic) is a national network of over 40 independent community organizations working to end the isolation and abuse of immigrants in the united states immigration detention system through visitation, independent monitoring, storytelling, and advocacy. 141% growth in visitation programs in less than 3 years: civic focuses on establishing new visitation programs at the largest immigration detention facilities with the most vulnerable populations. With 1200% increase in family immigration detention this year, civic focused on supporting communities near these facilities that detained migrant mothers and their children. Civics visitation programs now operate in 42 immigration detention facilities in 18 states. Our network of affiliated visitation programs has a total of 1,392 volunteersnational on-line monitoring system launched & data tracking expanded: we have piloted and begun to scale our national on-line monitoring system to record abuses, screen for forms of legal and advocacy-oriented relief, capture all forms of volunteer support, track transferred detainees between visitation programs, and document best practices for community-based alternatives to detention. National detention hotline: since 2010, civic has been piloting hotlines at various immigration detention facilities, which allows people in detention to call civic at no cost to them. The hotlines allow civic to answer approximately 3,400 calls per detention facility per year with the support of an all-volunteer virtual call center. We have begun to build a national detention hotline that allows people in all 250 immigration detention facilities to connect with our network of support and report rights violations. Leveraging federal government for scale: we are developing innovative ways to work with the federal government to help us achieve scale, monitor detention facilities, and ultimately end the immigration detention system. Launched our defund detention in adelanto campaign, to monitor the largest immigration detention facility in the country. The campaign contributed to the termination of a deal between the city of adelanto and geo group to build a new prison, the rejection of a plan to house los angeles inmate population at a proposed facility to be built in adelanto by one of the founders of corrections corporation of america, creation of a new permit scheme in adelanto to protect first amendment rights of prison protesters, and the creation of a neighborhood-led oversight committee. We fought against the transfer of transgender women to the remote adelanto detention facility and prevailed. Launched detention stories: life inside california's new angel island, funded by a grant from cal humanitieslaunched drawings by themselves: portraits of america at the church center for the united nations on november 20, 2014, in honor of the international day of action to end child detention and the 25th anniversary of the united nations convention on the rights of the child. Our short film also toured with the ambulante documentary film festival in mexico. Launched words beyond walls on the huffington post, providing a platform for people in detention to author poems, short stories, and articlesworked with over 30 congressional representatives to write a congressional letter, calling on the federal government to end the practice of detaining vulnerable groups such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) immigrants. Worked with over 20 congressional representatives to write a congressional letter, asking ice to halt the expansion of the adelanto detention center. Featured in approximately 100 newspaper articles and radio shows, including the los angeles times and national public radio (npr)piloting alternative community solutions to detentionsupporting visitation programs to build their capacity to secure the release of people from detention and track best practices for community support post releasecivic successfully advocated for the release of 20 people from immigration detention last year, and raised over $10,000 to secure the release of 5 of these individuals civic successfully piloted the post release accompaniment program to provide transportation, hospitality and legal services to 120 people who were released from detention at the west county detention facility in californiawe have continued to fight for phone justice in immigration detention. We co-sponsored ab 1876 in california, submitted a comment to the federal communications commission's (fcc) encouraging the agency to pass a rule making to cap intrastate phone calls, and joined 19 other organizations in submitting an amicus brief in the u. S. Court of appeals for the d. C. Circuit supporting the fcc efforts to regulate exorbitant inmate calling service rates. Our most recent win has been the federal communications commission's (fcc) rule in 2015 that reduced the average cost of the vast majority of calls from immigration detention facilities to $1. 65 for 15 minutes, down from as much as $17 in some facilities.