ACTION ALERT: President Obama End Family Detention
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Justice for Immigrants Campaign has asked for Catholic immigration advocates across the country to call on the White House to comply with the July 24th Federal Court ruling to release families in immigration detention centers and end the government’s practice of family detention of immigrants.
Please call the White House today at 1-855-589-5698 and give this message:
“Please do not appeal the July 24th federal district court ruling to release families in detention and please end the government’s practice of family detention of immigrants.”
BACKGROUND
On July 24, 2015, Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California ruled that current U.S. family detention policies violate a 1997 legal settlement known as the Flores Settlement. The Flores Settlement set the standards to be used by the U.S. government regarding the detention, release, and treatment of all children in immigration detention. To comply with Judge Gee’s order, the government must reverse the family detention policies and dismantle the facilities it instituted last year, and release from detention accompanied children together with their parents.
In a USCCB statement released on July 27, 2015, Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, welcomed the ruling and “(urged) the administration to comply with expeditiously” and not appeal the decision. Moreover, Bishop Elizondo said, “Hopefully, the court’s decision will end the suffering and further traumatization of these families. The detention of families is unnecessary, inhumane, and unworthy of our nation.”
