Trump’s spending and anti-immigration bill slashes tens of billions of dollars from health care, food assistance, education programs, and other vital services to provide a staggering $150 billion for immigration enforcement and makes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the largest law enforcement agency in the United States.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amid another series of preventable deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, a record-high daily detention population number, and Trump and Congress’ push to drastically increase ICE’s detention budget by $45 billion, or 13 times the current funding level, Laura Hernández, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, issued the following statement.

LOS ANGELES — Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) today launched Project Keep Away, an initiative devoted to preventing prison-to-immigration detention transfers by empowering  community members both inside and outside of prisons with educational resources and programming as well as a live, free helpline available to people inside two California prisons. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As advocates across the country take to the streets today for the Communities Not Cages National Day of Action, anchored by Detention Watch Network, Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) joins those detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in demanding the immediate release of community members and an end to the Trump administration's reckless expansion of mass detention and deportations. Nearly 48,000 people are now in ICE custody, the highest number since 2019. 

NEW YORK — Following Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and legal permanent resident at Columbia, Freedom for Immigrants executive director Laura Hernández released the following statement.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to President Trump’s anticipated signing of the Laken Riley Act into law today, and a slew of recent executive orders that seek to scapegoat, detain, and deport immigrants through extremist criminalizing policies and immigration detention expansion, Laura Hernández, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, issued the following statement. 

LOS ANGELES — In response to the private prison industry’s celebration of the incoming Trump administration, Laura Hernández, executive director at Freedom for Immigrants, released the following statement: 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Freedom for Immigrants executive director Laura Hernández released the following statement in response to the reelection of Donald Trump.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put into place this week its final rule of the asylum ban initially rolled out in June, toughening the asylum restrictions and making them harder to be lifted.The following statement is from Laura Hernández, executive director of Freedom for Immigrants.

LOS ANGELES — Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) today announced its new mission statement and theory of change, setting forth a new direction for the abolitionist organization centered around its plans to organize alongside community members detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), follow the direction of directly impacted leaders, and more meaningfully support the movement for Black liberation as the group pursues intersectional strategies to tackle the immigration enforcement and criminal prison systems as one. 

LOS ANGELES — Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) began its chrysalis period today, pausing much of its external work in order to develop its renewed vision, theory of change and strategic plan to abolish immigrant detention nationwide. The chrysalis will last until April. 

PINE PRAIRIE, LA — The Southeast Dignity Not Detention (SDND) coalition, a group of local and national organizations committed to immigrants’ rights, today applauds the impending closure of the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center (Pine Prairie), a remote immigrant detention center in Louisiana with a long history of human rights abuses and inhumane conditions. The coalition is also calling on the Biden administration to immediately release the more than 100 community members who have been cruelly transferred to Winn Correctional Center (Winn), another privately-run, understaffed, and long-troubled immigration detention center in Louisiana. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — News reports suggest the Biden administration is ready to accept the following extremist anti-immigration policies in exchange for Congress passing the White House’s supplemental funding package: halting U.S. asylum law and reviving a version of the inhumane and illegal Title 42 policy; expanding expedited removal nationwide; and implementing mandatory detention for all newly arrived migrants, despite the continued human rights violations and premature deaths detention causes. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In their efforts to expand military aid to Ukraine and Israel with its supplemental funding request, the Biden administration and Democrats are reportedly caving to Republican demands to impose cruel, Trump-like immigration restrictions. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amid record high immigration detention levels under the Biden administration and bipartisan efforts in the Senate to permanently gut the U.S. asylum system in exchange for the White House’s funding request for Israel and Ukraine, Freedom for Immigrants urges the Senate to safeguard critical asylum protections and reject more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and foreign wars. According to recent reports, the deal in discussion would implement an asylum ban, create near impossible barriers to apply for asylum, and undermine humanitarian and other forms of parole. 

NEW ORLEANS — Private prison company GEO Group is reportedly ending its operations of the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center (Pine Prairie), a remote immigration detention center in Pine Prairie, Louisiana, with a heinous record of abuse and torture. The company will lay off 119 employees. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has stated its intent to continue using the detention facility through its agreement with Evangeline Parish. The Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition, including those formerly detained at Pine Prairie, are calling for the full closure of the prison and for the release of all who remain detained. 

LUMPKIN, Ga. — More than 120 individuals detained at the Stewart Detention Center (SDC) in Lumpkin, Georgia, submitted a petition today to local officials and the Biden administration demanding action in response to inhumane conditions and mistreatment at the detention facility, including mold leading to eye conditions, spoiled food causing food poisoning, denial of hot water and medical care neglect. Privately operated by mega prison corporation CoreCivic, Stewart is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Governor Newsom vetoed a popular criminal justice and immigration reform bill late Friday evening, for now upholding California’s practice of double punishing immigrant community members.

ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY — U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch today granted an injunction in favor of CoreCivic and the Biden administration in the private prison corporation’s legal challenge to New Jersey’s AB 5207 law, allowing for the Elizabeth Detention Center’s (EDC) lease to be extended. 

NEW ORLEANS – The Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition announced a nationwide Day of Action (12 hours) in response to the continued premature and avoidable deaths of community members held in immigration cages. Events will take place July 22-24.

LOS ANGELES — Visionary immigrant rights leader and prison abolitionist Laura Hernandez has been named executive director of Freedom for Immigrants (FFI), a national nonprofit organization devoted to abolishing immigration detention.

NEW ORLEANS – The Shut Down NOLA ICE Coalition issued the following statement about the death of Ernesto Rocha-Cuadra, a 42-year-old Nicaraguan man who endured over a year in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (“Jena”), a privately-operated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center run by the GEO Group, Inc., in Jena, Louisiana. The facility has a disturbing track record of death and abuse.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ahead of the anticipated end of the Title 42 policy tomorrow and in response to the Biden administration’s newly announced immigration measures, Andrea Carcamo, policy director of Freedom for Immigrants, released the following statement. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, 233 organizations sent an open statement to President Biden demanding the administration make good on its commitments to never detain families, to end privatized immigration detention, and ensure that people seeking safety can pursue their cases while living in communities in the United States rather than being subjected to inhumane detention and surveillance. The statement comes ahead of Thursday’s deadline to lift Title 42, an unlawful and cruel expulsion policy. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden administration is deploying 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in anticipation of the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era asylum ban. The following statement is from Andrea Carcamo, policy director of Freedom for Immigrants. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden administration is reportedly considering the reinstatement of the detention of migrant families, a practice it had previously ended. The following statement is from Andrea Carcamo, policy director with Freedom for Immigrants.

LAS VEGAS — Five individuals currently or previously detained in federal immigration detention at the Nye County Jail and Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, Nevada, have come forward to report a troubling pattern of retaliatory transfers and medical abuse detailed in a new federal civil rights complaint filed today by a coalition of legal and advocacy organizations. 

OAKLAND, Calif. — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) weaponizes inter-detention transfers of people in its custody as a harsh form of retaliation, torture and labor trafficking, and as a means to pad the agency’s budget, according to a new report released today by Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) that visualizes thousands of ICE Air flight routes. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Joe Biden failed to mention his administration’s growing reliance on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention and doubled down on failed migration deterrence policies in his State of the Union address tonight.