Abolish ICE
Since the establishment of ICE in 2003, the agency has been responsible for the targeting, detainment, and family separation of hundreds of thousands of people. From egregious conditions in ICE detention centers, some resulting in death, to the lack of accountability in their policing practices – ICE is an agency that caused immense harm to our communities. ICE has a well-earned reputation as a “rogue agency” in interior immigration enforcement, characterized by a dramatic decrease in public trust and the rise of the Sanctuary Movement. The agency has been under particular scrutiny for the rampant COVID-19 outbreaks in immigration detention centers, primarily due to mismanagement and medical neglect. The long-term and documented pattern of human rights abuses, deaths, fear tactics, and racial profiling have led CASA and advocated across the country, and the world, to call for the abolishment of this nefarious agency altogether.
Pedro shared his story with CASA’s fight for Maryland bill Dignity not Detention, which would kick ICE out of Maryland.
CASA Member Voices
Pedro first came to the United States in 1998, when he was only 7 years old. Because he didn’t have legal representation, he was deported when he was 16 years old. Many years later, when he was back in the United States, he was forced to serve 14 months in federal prison for the “crime” of returning to the country after being deported. After finishing that 14-month sentence, he was immediately transferred to Jessup where he spent an additional 8 months in the immigrant detention center fighting his case to avoid being sent back to Honduras out of fear of survival there. Pedro, like many held for months and sometimes years, ultimately won his immigration case and obtained status in the US.
