Sasha writes, "Since 2010, the detention bed quota – a Congressional mandate that requires the incarceration of 34,000 immigrants in jails and detention centers in the U.S. at any given time – has stolen countless months, days and hours from immigrants and their families and communities; this website is a powerful interactive visual representation of this system, combined with stories of detainees and steps to #EndTheQuota."
What's wrong with the Quota? With a guaranteed need for detention "beds" or jail cells, the detention bed quota essentially forces the use of facilities that have poor track records in which innumerable human rights abuses and dozens of deaths have occurred. These facilities have issues ranging from no access to the outdoor space, maggot- and worm-infested food, and wholly inadequate medical and mental health care. For more info: http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/ExposeAndClose
What's more, the cost to maintain this unmanageable system is excessive. In 2012, ICE detained an estimated 478,000 immigrants and the ICE's current detention budget is just short of $2 billion. During a time of fiscal crisis, it is unacceptable to be spending billions in taxpayer dollars each year to needlessly detain immigrants to fill a quota. Having a quota on how many people must be locked up every day puts a price tag on immigrant lives. The policy leads to Congress and ICE treating immigrants as numbers filling a quota and products to be bought and sold, not as real people with children and loved ones depending on them.
(Thanks, Sasha!)
