Madonna, Pedro Pascal and More sign letter to close ICE facility
Pedro Pascal, Madonna, Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo, America Ferrera, Elliot Page and Jane Fonda are among the dozens of Hollywood names who signed an open letter is calling on the federal government to close the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, where ICE is detaining children and their parents. The open letter begins with the statement: “No child should be held in an immigration detention center.”
The Hollywood celebrities join children’s entertainment figure Ms. Rachel, who made headlines earlier this month for meeting with incarcerated children via video chat, as she vowed to fight to close Dilley. Other signatories to the new open letter include John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Hannah Einbinder, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Wunmi Mosaku, Billy Porter, Keke Palmer, Hasan Minhaj, Katie Couric, Susan Sarandon and dozens of others.
Per NBC News: “Children have complained about limited education, lights that never go out and moldy food” at Dilley. Amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, “more than 2,300 children” have been taken into custody with their parents, “with the overwhelming majority held in Dilley, according to figures from court-appointed monitors. Many have been held for several weeks or months.”
“Children held in immigration detention face trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights,” the open letter reads. “The claims of abuse against children in court include refusals to provide clean water, spoiled food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal advice, separation of children from their families and retaliation against families who protest inhumane conditions. Children belong in schools and playgrounds, not in detention centers.”
The letter continues: “We urge the federal government and CoreCivic to immediately close the Dilley facility, return children and families to the homes and communities from which they were taken, and end child custody now. Our commitment does not end with closure. We demand transparency, accountability, and systemic reforms to prevent these abuses from happening across the United States.”
Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, first heard about Dilley after federal agents arrested the father of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Minneapolis and sent them both to Dilley. She recently had a video call with 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez, who was detained with his parents in Dilley in early March. It was her second video call with a detained child, the first was with a five-year-old child named Gael.
Speak with NBC NewsAccurso said, “It was incredibly surreal to see this sweet little face and feel like I was on the phone with someone who is in prison. It broke me, and it was something I never thought I would encounter in my life… We’re trying to get a kid out of jail to do a spelling bee. I just never thought those words would go together.”
