💻WEBINAR 10/7: From El Salvador to the US: Resisting mass detention and right-wing authoritarianism. The transfers of immigrants to offshore detention in El Salvador brought increased awareness of the torture and abuse in El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison. Now what? 🔗REGISTER: bit.ly/cncoct7

On Tuesday, Oct. 7, @detentionwatchnetwork.org is hosting a virtual event to help folks in the U.S. learn how movements in El Salvador are fighting against authoritarianism and dictatorship. Registration link and more details can be found here: detentionwatchnetwork.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/d...

📢 Take action! 📢 As the House and Senate continue to work on 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2026 both chambers are planning to increase funding for ICE adding onto the $45 billion ICE just received in the reconciliation bill. NO MORE money for Trump's cruel plans. Act now: bit.ly/noicefunding

In a time of increasing repression, the fight for justice, peace, and dignity for all is crucial. On October 9, @detentionwatchnetwork.org is excited to accept the @ips-dc.org Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. 🎟️ Join us in celebrating! Get tickets now: ips-dc.org/event/lm49/

📘BOOK LAUNCH📘 Authors @nancyhiemstra.bsky.social and @drdconlon.bsky.social discuss their book, Immigration Detention Inc. with Setareh Gandehari of the @detentionwatchnetwork.org 🗓️Fri, Oct 3 ⏰6 pm 📍@peoplesbooktakoma.com peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/immigr...

📘BOOK LAUNCH📘 Authors @nancyhiemstra.bsky.social and @drdconlon.bsky.social discuss their book, Immigration Detention Inc. with Setareh Gandehari of the @detentionwatchnetwork.org 🗓️Fri, Oct 3 ⏰6 pm 📍@peoplesbooktakoma.com peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/immigr...

Trump’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda has reached a previously unimaginable deadly scope and scale. The human toll and cost to all Americans continues to be shocking.

“We have the largest jail infrastructure in the world, and it’s an easy thing for ICE to fall back on,” said @silkys13.bsky.social, the executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, to @nytimes.com. “The jail is a really central component of the deportation machine.”

Another life lost to immigration detention: Last month Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, 32, died while in ICE custody on August 31 in AZ. ICE had detained Mr. Batrez Vargas at Central Arizona Correctional Complex in Florence, AZ and has reported that the cause of his death is currently known.

In ONE MONTH, join us in celebrating resistance to repression at the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards! Celebrate this year's awardees: 🏅 @detentionwatchnetwork.org & Jeanette Vizguerra 🏅 The National Coordinating Roundtable of Organizations of Retirees and Pensioners of Argentina 🎟️ TICKETS:

📣We need all hands-on deck to protect our communities! Calling all content creators who want to use their platform to support and uplift immigrant communities, join us! 9/18 at 3pm PT @the-ilrc.bsky.social @conmijente.bsky.social @immjustice.bsky.social 🔗RSVP here: Bit.ly/content-creator-meetup

The SECOND trend, is that prisons that were closed because of criminal justice reforms, are now being raised from the dead. Some of these "zombie" facilities were closed because of long-standing problems, but now they will hold immigrants www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/29/m... (8/)

FIRST: State governments are getting involved in running their own detention facilities. They've never been involved in detention on this scale before. Many places, like Louisiana, are using space in their state prisons for this detention.... (2/) www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/22/f...

It's now official, ICE is opening a detention center in the notorious Angola prison. This is part of a larger trend: The U.S. carceral system becoming increasingly entangled with immigration detention. Here are two big things I am tracking about this trend, and why it matters.... (1/)

Setareh Ghandehari of @detentionwatchnetwork.org said zombie facilities show why you need to close facilities, not just to remove certain populations. Facilities once used for people convicted of crimes are now being used for immigrants. And they could be repurposed, again, for other populations.

The ACLU's @eunicehcho.bsky.social said said private companies & local economies have financial incentives to keep filling cells they already spent money creating. We see that in how empty prisons are being reused by ICE: “How can we imagine ways to actually shutter these facilities for good?”

ICE wants more detention space and it’s faster to re-open old facilities to hold immigrants than to build new ones. Enter: ZOMBIE PRISONS www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/29/m...

Trump’s unprecedented agenda is unmistakably authoritarian. The deployment of the National Guard in Washington DC and in 20 states, including Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Texas and Louisiana, is an alarming unilateral move that is supercharging the already massive police presence in communities.

Join and support @detentionwatchnetwork.org's #CommunitiesNotCages campaign, which amplifies local community organizing, demands the closure of ICE detention facilities, and fights to shrink the detention system.

The story of Alexa, a trans immigrant woman who was sexually assaulted at Butler County Jail in OH then later transferred to North Lake Correctional Facility in MI (both new ICE facilities), illustrates the systemic abuses that transgender people face while detained in immigration detention.

“This ruling affirms what we argued in court - that the government can’t just build something in the middle of the Everglades and the Big Cypress preserve with no environmental review, and no public input. This is why we have environmental laws.” -Tania Galloni, Earthjustice Managing Attorney

This is a major victory for our client: @foreverglades.bsky.social, which has been fighting for environmental justice and conservation since 1969 to protect the very same site from further development.

BIG WIN! A federal judge has ordered the state of Florida and the Trump administration to halt construction, stop bringing new detainees and begin winding down operations at the Everglades Detention Center.

Stacy Suh of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, on the unprecedented state/fed partnerships for immigration detention: “Are people under state custody? Are people under ICE custody? I think that ambiguity ... leads to a greater potential for abuse.” www.themarshallproject.org/2025/08/22/f...

Trump’s cruel mass detention and deportation agenda has reached a previously unimaginable scope and scale with ICE planning to double its detention capacity by the end of this year to detain nearly 110,000 people. Texas alone will have the capacity to detain at least 37,000 people.

NEW! 🎧 Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition is now an audiobook! Unbuild Walls, from @silkys13.bsky.social executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, dives into 40 years of US immigration policy & mass incarceration, exposing their intertwined systems of repression.

The plans show that the Trump administration is embracing mega-detention centers capable of housing at least 1,000 detainees. Read more here:

Breaking reporting from the @washingtonpost.com reveals what advocates have been sounding the alarm on for months: with the shocking infusion of funding from the MAGA-backed megabill, ICE plans to double its detention capacity by the end of this year to detain more than 100,00 people. Read more. ⬇️

We say NO to more cages! Stop the expansion of immigration detention camps. The proposed expansion at Camp Atterbury, and Miami Correctional Facility will exponentially increase ICE’s capacity to detain people in #Indiana ✍️ Sign the petition today to stop the expansion: bit.ly/INtakeaction

REVOLVING DOOR: David Venturella is another shameful example of the revolving door that exists between the federal agencies issuing lucrative immigration detention and prison contracts and the private prison corporations like GEO Group receiving them. #CommunitiesNotCages

📍In Tennessee? Take action! Join @tnimmigrant.bsky.social in Mason, TN, August 12th at 7pm CT to speak out against the county building and opening a private ICE detention center by Core Civic! Get details and RSVP here! ⬇️

🚨FEMA is reassigning employees to work for ICE. It’s despicable that during hurricane season and historic floods, Trump’s DHS would force FEMA employees to abandon that critical work to carry out the admin’s mass detention and deportation agenda. This moment warrants a national outcry.

Trump’s budget rewards states that collaborate with ICE and participate in federal programs like 287g, which allows local law enforcement to act as immigration agents. @the-ilrc.bsky.social's new resource documents the expansion of police/ICE collaboration www.ilrc.org/immigration-...

Trump’s budget bill included $45 BILLION for the wasteful and deadly border wall - and another $30 BILLION to hire more agents, bonuses, & operations related to detention and deportation. Here's @immigrantjustice.bsky.social breakdown of this harmful new law. immigrantjustice.org/research/exp...

At the same time, communities are fighting back and working to shut down detention centers. @detentionwatchnetwork.org's Communities Not Cages campaign supports groups on the ground organizing against immigrant detention. www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/take-action/...

Last month, Trump’s budget bill became law, which included $45 BILLION for immigration detention. Across the country, we’ve seen ICE agents kidnap people off the streets and take them hundreds of miles away from their family and legal counsel. www.npr.org/2025/07/03/g...

As immigrant communities continue to face direct attacks by ICE, members of Congress have a role to play by calling for transparency, accountability, and due process.

🧵Congressional briefing on immigration @chuygarcia.house.gov hosted a congressional briefing with @the-ilrc.bsky.social @detentionwatchnetwork.org & @immigrantjustice.bsky.social to sound the alarm on the expansion of immigration enforcement and detention.

MUST READ. Rümeysa Öztürk’s first-hand account of ICE detention. For the first time Rümeysa speaks out about her experience and how her support of Palestine made her a target for ICE detention. Free all women from detention! Free them all! #CommunitiesNotCages

In a powerful first-person account, Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk opens up for the first time about her shocking arrest and 45 days in an ICE detention center. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/r...

NEW: I spoke with a woman named Andrea about her experience being detained by ICE after calling the cops for help during a domestic violence incident. She was recently postpartum, breastfeeding & put in an all-male facility. She was detained for 2.5 months.

Tomorrow! Join us for the Abolish ICE & Beyond! webinar from 2:00-3:30pm PT / 4:00-5:30pm CT / 5:00-6:30pm ET. Our communities are resisting and coming together to demand Abolish ICE! Register now: bit.ly/beyondabolis...

“Over the past 6 months, Trump’s weaponization of immigration detention to expand his authoritarian strategies has made clear that this cruel, abusive system never should have existed in the first place." Check out our statement 6 months into Trump 2.0: www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/pressroom/re...

Today, we’re relaunching the #CommunitiesNotCages campaign and renewing the call to shut down ICE detention centers and stop the expansion and construction of new facilities.

In response DWN, said: “Millions of undocumented immigrants in the US could be denied due process rights & can be detained indefinitely. This is tragic, infuriating, & yet another example of how Trump is using immigration detention as a testing ground for authoritarianism."

Among the myriad horrors of the Republican budget bill is the otherworldly amount of money, $175 billion, slated to fund mass deportation. That exceeds the military budget of every country in the world but the US and China. fair.org/home/silky-s...

We extend our condolences to the loved ones of Johnny Noviello, 49 who died in ICE custody in Florida on June 23 and Isidro Pérez, 75, who died in ICE custody on June 26. People’s lives are in jeopardy in ICE custody – full stop.

Join Detention Watch Network TODAY from 4pm-6pm PT/ 6pm-8pm CT/ 7pm-9pm ET for a training on Navigating Detention & Supporting Liberation and Deportation Defense Campaigns. 🔗Register here: bit.ly/DEPORTATIONDEFENSE