category: Immigration Detention
Published February 17, 2010 @ 02:53PM PT
Walking around town today, you might have noticed gray smudges on certain foreheads. Yes, it's Ash Wednesday, a time when many Christians repent personal and societal sins. This year, some are marking the start of Lent not just with a symbol on their skin, but also with a march to protest against a flawed immigration system.
Marchers organized by the Pax Christi Summit began at Ellis Island earlier today, as a reminder that "Ellis Island is Closed" to all your tired, poor, and huddled masses; they will arrive at the Elizabeth, NJ, detention center by 6pm. As immigrant rights activist Shivali Shah writes in the Faster Times, observers -- both lay people and nuns and priests -- on the march have chosen to use this day to "repent for the sins of their generation for how we treat immigrant detainees in the US."
The protesters are particularly focused on inhumane treatment in detention centers, where conditions often rival third world jails -- for actual criminals. The majority of these detainees have not committed a crime -- they only violated immigration laws, and illegal presence in the country is a civil/administrative, not a criminal, offense. Shah reports that the Elizabeth Detention Center is infamous for brutal treatment of detainees, including physical assault, lack of health care, and denial of access to legal representation or even to make a phone call. Five reported deaths at the center are dogged by cover-ups and mistreatment, as revealed by an ACLU/New York Times Freedom of Information Request.
"Our immigration laws and policies must be aligned with our humanitarian values," says Kathy O'Leary, NJ Coordinator for Pax Christi. At the moment, that's clearly not the case -- if our current immigration and detention system reflects our humanitarian values, then our society has certainly lost its way.
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