Exciting news came this week from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After a great deal of advocacy by LIRS and other NGOs on the vital importance of visits for detainees, ICE has established a policy for requesting facility tours and visitation. This new policy will provide more consistent access to facilities across the country. Most importantly it allows for requests without identifying detainees. This means that any person in an immigration detention facility could have the opportunity to receive a visit—not just the people the requestors know about in advance.
The months, sometimes years, spent in immigration detention awaiting asylum or other resolution can be extremely lonely and full of fear. Visits from compassionate volunteers bring powerful healing, hope, and often lead to more positive outcomes for people’s immigration cases. LIRS rejoices in this new level of access, prays it will be a blessing to people in immigration detention as well as the ministries seeking to care for them. More info and tools from LIRS coming soon.
For videos and more information on detention visit lirs.org/dignity. Be sure to review the LIRS Access Toolkit to learn How to Use the New Access Procedures for ICE Detention Facilities.