ICE：把人鎖在盒子裡賺錢

ICE 即 U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement 的缩写。上個月我提到了美國的移民政策亟待改革，其中提到了下面這個片子。為什麼片名叫作Locked in a Box呢？因為探訪他們的人從一個小窗口，看見他們好像在一個小盒子裡--而且他們在那裡的確是不見天日的。

美國對待中美洲難民的辦法是拒絶他們成為美國公民--即使在這裡住了好多年，兒孫一堆，仍然不給他們身份，讓他們的生活困難重重。ICE動不動就把他們關起來或遞解出境。

Locked in a Box: Immigration Detention from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance on Vimeo.

After a group of people in our church watched it, question raised regarding immigration detention quota, because it sounds so incredible. The quota first appeared in FY2010 for budget of ICE, under DHS. In FY2018 ICE makes available 39,322 detention beds everyday, our federal tax money at work. Google it you will find tons of information, here is one by a Quaker organization: https://www.afsc.org/resource/about-immigration-detention-quotas.

We discussed who might profit from these detentions. Besides those private prisons, surrounding communities who provide services, investors may do well by investing in these businesses unknowingly. Lawyers and immigration judges are not profiting here, because no much legal assistance available to detainees, detainees are lack of "due process", they have no much chance of telling their stories. In fact there is a network of lawyers volunteer their time to help immigrant detainees: https://www.immigrationadvocates.org/probono/

Regarding what we can do about it, one thing is to make this situation known. Another thing might be writing to Congress person regarding ICE budget. For possibility of visiting Richmond detention center, we can contact "Freedom for Immigrants", a California organization to help immigrant detainees. Their website: Freedom for Immigrants.org/.