WASHINGTON D.C. – The International Detention Coalition (IDC), together with 162 co-petitioners presented concerns about the use and practice of immigration detention in a regional thematic hearing at the 153rd Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on “Immigration Detention and Alternative Measures in the Americas.”

The thematic hearing included interventions from IDC members and partners from across the region, including the personal testimony of Mr. Dave Pierre, a man who was formerly detained for 1,144 days in 7 immigration detention facilities across the United States.  Mr. Pierre shared the troubling and dehumanizing impacts of immigration detention on himself and his fellow detainees:

 

“I’ve been humiliated so much in my life, that I just had to take it in my stride and keep striving.

When we are detained we have no help. The only help we get is being deported.

I have 6 kids here. 2 of them is in the military. I’ve been in this country for 42 years.

Why was it only when one of my fellow inmates committed suicide that I was released.

It’s time for a change”

 

The thematic hearing highlighted a number of prevalent issues with immigration detention across the region, including a lack of transparency and access to immigration detention facilities, a lack of due process or access to judicial review of immigration detention, criminal-like conditions of detention, and the particularly profound and negative impacts that immigration detention has on vulnerable individuals such as children and families, trafficking victims, asylum seekers, refugees, or stateless persons.

 

Read the regional report based on findings presented at the hearing: ¿Qué esperamos del futuro?: Detención migratoria y alternativas a la detención en las Américas (Executive Summary in English)

Full media release:
https://idcoalition.org/news/idc-outlines-immigration-detention-alternatives-inter-american-commission-human-rights/

Full hearing (in Spanish)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDLRtTdZslY&app=desktop

For more information on the IDC’s regional advocacy initiatives, please contact [email protected].