NGOs urge ICE to reinstate free calls program for detainees claiming 'disregard for basic humanity'

Over 200 organizations have signed a letter directed at Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, urging him to reinstate the free calls program that ICE detainees nationwide used to communicate with family members, attorneys, and even journalists to detail conditions inside the facilities.

The letter, sent by Detention Watch Network, criticized the abrupt end of the program back in June, claiming it disregards the basic humanity of detainees navigating their immigration cases:

"We have heard directly from indigent individuals in detention who say they can no longer call their attorneys for free, limiting their access to legal services. Depriving detained people of this service with little advance notice and without meaningful engagement with organizations directly representing those in detention underscores a disregard for the basic humanity of those navigating their immigration cases while held in detention and further isolates and punishes them."

The letter also condemned the increased use of immigration detention under the Biden administration, including requests for more detention space amid deteriorating conditions at the facilities. It highlighted that 11 people have died in ICE custody so far this fiscal year, compared to four in 2023, according to the agency's records:

"Since the start of the Fiscal Year, eleven people have died in ICE detention–more
than double the number of deaths in the prior year. The most recent death occurred just last month, yet another example of ICE's failure to provide adequate medical and mental health care to detained people. As the ACLU, American Oversight, and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) recently found, 95% of deaths in immigration detention were preventable or possibly preventable if ICE had provided clinically appropriate medical care"

According to a piece by New Mexico Political Report, the end of the free calls program has also intensified the legal battle over whether detainees can be paid as little as $1 per day for working inside the facilities, a practice attorneys argue violates minimum wage and forced labor laws.

Lawsuits claim that if detainees are deprived of basic needs unless they join work programs, then these programs should not be considered voluntary.

In California, detainees in Bakersfield and McFarland began a labor strike in early July, demanding the restoration of the free calls program, an end to solitary confinement, adequate food and medical care, fair review of their immigration cases, and the termination of contracts for the two facilities.