Join us on Friday, July 12 at Market Square to call for an end to immigrant detention and family separation and to defund ICE.

8:00pm: Gather at Market Square (across from the West Side Market)
8:15: Rally with speakers (to be announced soon!)
8:45: Procession and vigil

In coordination with events across the country, Cleveland Jobs with Justice, Indivisible CLE, the Immigration Working Group of Cleveland, Action Together Lakewood Area, Women’s March Northeast Ohio, Stand Up to Trump CLE, the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus, Cuyahoga Democratic Women’s Caucus and the InterReligious TaskForce on Central America will call for an immediate end to immigrant detention and family separation and to defund ICE.

Immigrant detention is an immoral system of mass incarceration that breeds cruelty while squandering taxpayer money, shattering families, and traumatizing children. Through a vast network of county jails and private prisons, immigrants seeking a better life are punished disproportionately for the misdemeanor offense of crossing the border without documentation. In 2018, ICE incarcerated a record-breaking average of 39,322 people every day. Detention does not just take place at the border. Immigrants are being held in facilities throughout Ohio, including the Geauga County Jail and the Northeast Ohio Correction Center (NEOCC) in Youngstown.

Detention is a central component of the Trump administration’s policy of separating families. When parents are detained, their children suffer while in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Thousands of children are held in unsafe, unsanitary facilities where they are forced to sleep on cement and denied sufficient food. Without access to soap and showers, many spend days or weeks in clothing soiled by bodily fluids. In detention camps, these conditions are not exceptional; cruelty is the point.

This deliberate mistreatment and negligence proves that DHS and ICE do not deserve the money or trust of the American people. We call on Congress to defund ICE and no longer spend billions of taxpayer dollars each year on a system that denies due process of law while enabling the inhumane detention of immigrants and the separation of families.

Reforms are not enough. We demand an immigration system that reflects our values, and immigrant detention, family separation, and ICE are incompatible with democracy and human rights.

FROM THE NATIONAL LIGHTS FOR LIBERTY PAGE:
Nationwide Mobilization July 12th

We are a coalition of people, many of whom are mothers, dedicated to human rights, and the fundamental principle behind democracy that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and dignity. We are partnering with national, regional and local communities and organizations who believe that these fundamental rights are not negotiable and are willing to protect them.

On Friday July 12th, 2019, Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps, will bring thousands of Americans to detention camps across the country, into the streets and into their own front yards, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.

Across this country, we have witnessed acts against people fleeing persecution many of us thought we would never see in modern times.
At Trump’s human detention camps, teen mothers and babies are held outdoors in “dog pounds.” We have witnessed the sick and elderly confined to “icebox” rooms for weeks at a time. Unbelievably, children as young as 4 months are taken from their parents, medicine is confiscated, and medical care withheld, and LGBTQ and disabled individuals are held in solitary confinement.

“The Trump administration’s immigration policies and detention camps meet the United Nations’ definition of genocide and crimes against humanity,” [2] said Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, lawyer, activist and organizer. “Congress is refusing to stop the president and his policies. We cannot allow these atrocities to be perpetrated in our name.”

Perhaps most terrifying, refugees are beginning to be moved onto military grounds, where there will be a complete lack of oversight from the media, lawyers, and human rights monitors. Many of us thought we would never see anything like this in modern times.

“Now is the time for every person to stand up and say, ‘We will not accept this!’ No more hesitating. No more denial. No more fear. We need to be bold, and loud, and unrelenting. That’s the only way we can stop this,” said Kristin Mink, activist and organizer.

Lights for Liberty seeks to create this event in solidarity and allyship with communities most impacted by the abuse of our immigration system. We seek to work in solidarity with grassroots organizations both new and historic, those who are well-funded and on a shoe-string budget. We are moved to mobilize with anyone: moms, dads, and people of moral conscience who cannot stand to see families and communities destroyed. Simply put, our country is at a tipping point.

About Lights for Liberty: Lights for Liberty is a loose coalition of grassroots activists, with support from long-standing immigrants’ rights organizations and other organizers.

More information can be found at www.lightsforliberty.org.