These deficiencies remained when the county depopulated the jail of people that the county was profiting from through the contract with ICE. The recent near fatal beating of Jayshawn Boyd as well as the stabbing death of Dan Gelin were tragically avoidable, but they are also evidence that the ICE contract was not the problem. The problem is that the county views the people in the jail as less than human. Read More

Being in the US without authorization is a civil offense, not a criminal offense. Our neighbors are being detained for the equivalent of a lawsuit over backpay, or a slip and fall. No other civil offenses allow pre-trial confinement. Why should immigration? Even if the person has been removed previously, the criminal charge they face would be a misdemeanor. Do we detain teenagers pre-trial when they’ve been caught trespassing or having a fake ID? Of course we don’t and we shouldn’t detain our neighbors for those offenses either. Read More

Every white person in the United States comes from immigrant stock. For those who maintain that their ancestors came in “the right way”, until the end of WWI, there was virtually no limitation on white immigration (criminals and those with infectious diseases were not admitted). There was no right way because there was no wrong way; if you were white, you got in. Read More

The bill is a first step in getting the counties out of the "profit by incarceration” business. The people being held in immigrant detention are not being charged with any crimes; there is no reason to keep them in jail. Read More

Instead of disparaging those who are fighting for immigrant justice, Mr. Moran should be screaming from the rafters at those who can influence policy. Read More

Many worked to end Essex County’s contract with ICE, but now the federal government is taking the draconian step of moving those ICE detainees from the Essex County Correctional Facility to detention centers in the Deep South including Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. Read More

The opportunists who control both parties need to do better and come up with a path to citizenship for all. The current system—or lack of one—is deeply inhumane. Read More

Rather than releasing these innocent people to await their fair hearings, other facilities and counties in other places are already rubbing their hands with glee, imagining how they too might profit on the backs of these people, eager to earn a little more blood money by receiving these new prisoners. Read More

Although family separation policy is not in effect anymore we incarcerate parents and force kids to fend for themselves or place them in foster care. We criminalize people who flee their countries. Countries they did not choose to be born in. NJ should stop profiting with the suffering of human beings. Read More

All those parents anticipated they would never see their children again, but their children would be alive, something not guaranteed if they’d stayed put. I don’t know that desperation. Read More

Since 2008, Essex has imprisoned immigrants for ICE; this year the contract will be worth approximately $40 million. These people are all being held in civil detention which means that they have not been charged with any crime. Read More

While some might see this merely as a bid to gain more federal funding, the decision goes beyond cost-benefit analysis. It is an expression of a bipartisan consensus that detention and deportation of immigrants promote national security. Read More

There is no justification for the implementation of cruel policies like incarcerating children and not only separating them from their parents but also losing the information to make their reunification impossible. That is criminal. Let’s embrace humanity and separate us from cruelty. Read More

Such questions reveal the motivations of the Freeholders for what they are: a desire to continue receiving blood money, filling the county coffers with millions, while innocent asylum seekers rot away. Read More

The Commissioners should stop pretending that immigrant detention is helping the immigrants. It’s not. The county should also stop collaborating with Trump and ICE. Crossing a border in hope for a better life should not be illegal. No one is illegal on stolen land. Read More

A money trail leading from Elberon to Kean University – as well as other prominent New Jersey institutions – has already been uncovered. We ask that the media stay on this story, and continue to highlight how Essex County residents, as just one example, profit directly from the imprisonment of immigrant bodies. Read More

The resolution will prove meaningless if the freeholders don’t publicly put pressure on both ICE and County Executive Joe DiVincenzo to comply with the resolution. Comply, as in release them to their families and communities, not transfer them to some other jurisdiction that complains less. And when the pandemic ends, leave them free. Read More

So why the reluctance to support a necessary and urgent humanitarian resolution, as COVID-19 continues to endanger the lives of detainees and jail inmates? Here’s one hypothesis: this is what happens to your moral compass when you fund an already-wealthy county through immigrant detention, as Essex, Hudson, and Bergen counties all do. Read More

After the pandemic, we must refuse to go back. We must commit to helping communities, supporting and funding them sooner rather than over-incarcerating residents later. We need to build community not tear it apart and incarcerate the pieces. Read More

According to ACLU NJ, New Jersey has the highest rate of prison deaths in the country, more than NY, CT, PA and MA combined. 544 prisoners, 600 correctional officers tested positive and 42 prisoners died. Read More

Last Monday Freeholder President Gill publicly stated that he will introduce a non-binding resolution to release all non-violent detainees. We are watching to see if this happens, and if it passes, or whether the Freeholders continue to abdicate their responsibilities, allowing innocent human beings to die while collecting millions from ICE to hold them against their will. Read More

We understand that Joe D cannot release anyone on his own say-so, only ICE has the authority. But there is nothing stopping him or his freeholders from publicly calling on ICE to release the detainees. Read More

It's now too late to prevent widespread infection and death in our county jails. But these are our prisoners, your prisoners, my prisoners. We must hold our officials accountable. Read More

"For everyone held captive by ICE, the threat of an outbreak of COVID-19 has been terrifying." Read More

The county could take one further step towards public safety by temporarily freeing the 800 immigrants that it currently holds in civil detention in the Newark jail. This is civilian, not criminal detention; they are not currently being held under any criminal charges. Read More

With Coronavirus threatening to devastate vulnerable populations in prisons and jails (where ICE detainees are held in Newark, despite being under technically civil detention), it is a moral imperative that Joe D and the freeholders overcome their lucrative complicity in immigrant detention and publicly demand that ICE release its detainees before catastrophe strikes. Read More

A supposedly progressive Board of Freeholders repeatedly follows the agenda of local politicians who are not accountable to the people who voted for them. Many residents and students have recently protested the zoo expansion, while calls to end the local ICE contracts have been ongoing for many years. Read More

As I enjoy these spaces, which are undoubtedly assets to our community I can’t help but think of the immigrant from Honduras who was arrested by, ICE for outstanding traffic warrants, awaiting deportation in the grimmest industrial site in Essex County. Read More

New Jersey is known for having progressive policies, but are we known for being fast to action and instigators of national policy change? Read More

Citizens must push hard for good representatives to be added to the Task Force so that it can work as intended: ensuring fair and equitable conditions for all prisoners, detainees, and staff. Read More

Nationwide, immigrant detainees are seldom represented, and they have drastically better outcomes when they are. Read More

A more humane jail is better than a jail in which inmates are sexually assaulted and served rotten food, but this should not be confused with justice. Read More

In short, they don’t need to say out loud what Biden so gracelessly said; they embody it in their actions by holding progressives captive to the Democratic Party and its machines, knowing we won’t vote Republican. Read More

Activists have raised two issues in NJ that demand immediate action from our elected officials. Read More

Essex County holds nearly 1,000 ICE detainees, but this was not forced on us by Trump; this was the county’s choice. Read More