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Heidi Altman Profile picture
Heidi Altman
@heidiraltman
Policy Director @NIJC, mom and aunt to some amazing kids, trying to be glass half full. Views are mine alone.
Sep 25, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
THREAD: Today the House @OversightDems published shocking findings of its investigation into ICE jails run by private contractors. @RepRaskin: "An epidemic of medical neglect & mistreatment at detention centers has caused undue suffering & even death.” 1/ oversight.house.gov/news/press-rel… This report is hard to read. It gives example on example of abuses committed by ICE, CoreCivic & GEO w/ intentional cruelty, and reminds us how many previous reports uncovering the same abuses have gone completely unaddressed by ICE and its contractors. 2/ oversight.house.gov/news/press-rel…
Mar 24, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
New: On the @NIJC website we've compiled what our legal teams are hearing from their clients in ICE jails during the time of COVID-19. Trends: no soap, no hand sanitizer, reckless transfers; people are scared, learning about the pandemic from TV news. 1/ immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/ice… Across the board our clients are reporting practices by ICE that directly contradict the warnings and guidance of public health experts. @NIJC clients report they are given no cleaning supplies and must pay money for soap through commissary. 2/ thehill.com/opinion/crimin…
Mar 19, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
ICE has run its detention system with cruelty and abuse for so long we shouldn't be surprised, but this is abhorrent. Public health experts are unanimous: ICE should be releasing as many people as possible. They're not. thedailybeast.com/ice-says-it-ha… Thank you @attackerman for lifting up voices from behind bars. A man in an ICE family jail: "Most of the people here are women & children, many of whom are already sick or not eating well. We are all worried that if the virus reaches this detention center, many people could die."
Jan 21, 2020 • 7 tweets • 10 min read
Today @NIJC @TransLatina_C & 80+ human rights orgs are demanding that @ICEgov release all transgender immigrants from its jails. Our letter follows one sent last week by @RepMikeQuigley and 40+ reps. This demand is urgent. This THREAD explains why. 1/
immigrantjustice.org/press-releases… @NIJC @TransLatina_C @ICEgov @RepMikeQuigley First: Release is required by congressional directive. The report accompanying the 2020 spending bill tells ICE it can only detain trans immigrants if it complies w/ its own 2015 directive. ICE is not in compliance (willfully indifferent to the safety of those it detains). 2/
Oct 25, 2019 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
New ICE data: >15,000 of the ~50,000 people in ICE jails are people the gov't already found to have a credible claim or persecution or torture. That's 15,000 people ICE should be releasing to be w/ loved ones during their cases, per ICE's own guidance. 1/ ice.gov/detention-mana… My @NIJC colleagues are blogging about the human cost of ICE's abandonment of discretion over who it jails and for how long. Read here about Margaret, only 18 and stuck in jail for months despite a family longing for her and a winning asylum claim. 2/ immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/get…
Oct 3, 2019 • 14 tweets • 8 min read
Thread: It’s day 3 of the U.S. gov’t running under a Continuing Resolution (CR). ICE is expanding its system of immigration jails. People are dying from medical neglect and 1000s are held in remote jails w/out lawyers. It's all connected and Congress has to act. #DefundHate 1/ A CR is supposed to continue ICE at *flat* funding carried over from its 2019 spending bill. In 2019, Congress funded ICE to jail approximately 45,274 people daily. ICE reports they have 51,302 people in jail as of the end of FY2019. 2/
Sep 24, 2019 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Now: Thank you ⁦@RepJasonCrow⁩ for joining ⁦@NIJC⁩ ⁦@ACLU⁩ ⁦@DetentionWatch⁩ ⁦@MigrantFreedom⁩ to talk about how critical it is for members of Congress to step in where the administration is failing and inspect ICE jails & prisons in their districts. Image @RepJasonCrow: “The government works better when there’s transparency... And so we started to show up.”
Aug 28, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
The Trump administration’s money grab away from FEMA and toward detention and the Return-to-Mexico program is unethical, wrong, and will result in more human rights abuses. But it’s also illegal. This thread will explain why. 1/ rollcall.com/news/whitehous… The transfer notification DHS sent to Congress moves $155 million from FEMA to immigration hearing facilities for the “Migrant Protection Protocol,” a horrific program that forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico in unimaginable danger: humanrightsfirst.org/resource/deliv…. 2/
Jun 6, 2019 • 15 tweets • 8 min read
TODAY a gov't watchdog agency @DHSOIG released a NEW REPORT showing - again - that @ICEgov violates human rights of the 50,000+ people in immigration jails. This thread pulls out that report's most appalling findings. oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/… 1/ Context: @DHSOIG & NGOs have REPEATEDLY raised red flags about unsafe conditions & impunity in @ICEgov jails. There’s no doubt @DHSgov leadership is aware of and intentionally furthering abuses in immigration jails. Round up of recent reports here: immigrantjustice.org/sites/default/… 2/
Feb 15, 2019 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
Hey Congress, yesterday you passed a bill giving @ICEgov more money for immigration detention. Today @DHSOIG (DHS’s own watchdog) issued this horrifying report on a New Jersey ICE jail. Please read it. It explains where the money is going. 1/ oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/… Image The money is going to needlessly incarcerate immigrants in jails that, according to @DHSOIG, violate ICE’s own standards and “represent significant threats to detainee health and safety.” Here’s what the OIG found at the Essex County Jail in NJ, which jails about 800 people: 2/
Feb 10, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Thread: Conversation about ICE detention beds has gotten so far removed from reality. Anyone who’s spent time in immigration jails knows that this isn’t a public safety issue. The people behind bars are asylum seekers and community members picked up in homes and workplaces. 1/ Even ICE knows their rhetoric is false. Last year ICE’s own data showed that they classify more than 50% of the people in their jails as posing zero community safety risk. 2/ immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/ice…
Nov 16, 2018 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Now: Joining advocates from across the country demanding lawmakers invest taxpayer $$$ in education and services our communities need, not more militarization of the border and targeting immigrant communities. @NIJC @SBCCoalition @DetentionWatch @UNITEDWEDREAM. #DefundHate ImageImage Patrice @UndocuBlack speaking powerfully to elected officials who speak for immigrants in their speeches but vote for billions in funds to terrorize their communities. We’re demanding accountability. #DefundHate
Oct 2, 2018 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
NEW: Today DHS’s Inspector General released an alert on a CA immigration jail, finding conditions pose “threats to the safety, rights, and health of detainees.” > 40,000 immigrants suffer daily in jails like this. I'll break the report down here (THREAD) 1/oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/… Keep in mind as you read: ICE inspected this facility in October 2017 AND IT PASSED INSPECTION. This despite numerous deaths at the facility, persistent suicide attempts, and credible reports of dangerously unsafe conditions. 2/ latimes.com/local/lanow/la…
Jul 31, 2018 • 32 tweets • 13 min read
Happening now: Long line waiting to get into the Senate Judiciary hearing on family separation. Hundreds of families remain separated and accountability is overdue. I will tweet out news from the hearing on this thread. #familiesbelongtogether .@ChuckGrassley has opened the hearing. The room is overflowing, with many advocate mamas here with their children in their arms, protesting the rights abuses that continue to unfold.
Jun 22, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Heading into this massive jail in San Diego where ICE incarcerates immigrants and asylum seekers. Met last night with three moms who’ve been held here going on two months, their children torn from them at the border. We cried together. Their bravery astounds. Image One mom has only been able to talk to her 12 year old son once since he was taken from her. She has a number to call for the government shelter where he’s held but she calls over and over and there’s no answer. She puts slips of paper in a complaint box for ICE and hears nothing.
Jun 15, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Feels like we're living in an alternative reality. Or it's opposite day. A few things:
1) The immigration bill Trump would veto is not a "compromise" - it's a deadly attack on immigrants and asylum seekers that would, among other things … ...give DHS the power to jail asylum seeking families indefinitely; promote racial profiling by giving DHS sweeping authority to arrest and deport young people for being brown; and further dismantle our asylum system by setting impossibly heightened evidentiary standards. 2.
Apr 18, 2018 • 21 tweets • 11 min read
The admin is rolling out policies to weaponize the immigration court system, and in a few minutes the Senate Judiciary Cmmtte will be asking questions of the court system’s director. I’ll be live tweeting throughout. A few things to know at the outset: judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/stren… (1) Last week, DOJ announced it will be terminating two programs that give basic legal orientations to immigrants facing deportation without representation. #SaveDueProcess #SaveLOP
washingtonpost.com/local/immigrat…
Jan 16, 2018 • 32 tweets • 13 min read
Watching as DHS Secretary Nielsen testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee. Thank you @SenFeinstein for leading with a call to Nielsen to clarify that DHS will not separate families at the border, a policy that is "callous and stunningly un-American." judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/overs… Secretary Nielsen is completing her opening now, referring - as she has consistently done - to laws and policies that protect asylum seekers and refugees as "loopholes" in the law. humanrightsfirst.org/press-release/…
Nov 1, 2017 • 18 tweets • 27 min read
Will be tweeting live at 2 EST from @HouseJudiciary #Immigration Subcttee Hearing on Oversight of immigration courts. Stay tuned... @HouseJudiciary .@NIJC concerned by @TheJusticeDept policies that attack judicial independence & #immigration court's credibility. immigrantjustice.org/sites/default/…