Make the Road New Jersey & Make the Road New York Urge Hudson County, NJ to Vote to End ICE Contract
Make the Road New Jersey & Make the Road New York Urge Hudson County, NJ to Vote to End ICE Contract
New Jersey (November 24, 2020) — In advance of the Hudson County Freeholders’ vote on the potential renewal of the contract between the Hudson County Correctional Center and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Make the Road New York and Make the Road New Jersey issued the following joint statement on behalf of the organizations’ tens of thousands of members:
“Over the years, we have witnessed the extreme toll that detention at Hudson County Correctional Center has taken on our community members and their families. Deep-rooted problems such as medical neglect and punitive segregation remain pervasive. These problems have been underscored by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, where inadequate medical care and testing, lack of PPE and cleaning supplies, and prolonged isolation at Hudson have prompted numerous hunger strikes by detainees since the beginning of the pandemic. The only way to truly address these problems at the jail is to end Hudson’s contract with ICE and to invest in communities, not cages.
“As organizations that are fighting to end immigration detention and the carceral state, we know that this work to stop this harmful practice must begin in our own backyards. With this in mind, we urge Hudson County officials to honor their commitment to not continue the ICE contract beyond December 31, 2020 and to work with legal representatives and community-based organizations to responsibly end this contract in order to ensure access to counsel and minimize out of state transfers.”
