About two dozen people protested Thursday in downtown Tucson seeking the immediate release of children and women being held in immigration detention centers in Texas.
“There are thousands of children and mothers in several prisons called detention centers. They are imprisoned refugee kids and it’s important to highlight it because they are human beings,” said Steffanny Cott, member of the local grassroots pro-immigrant group United Struggle of Parents and Students.
Tucson’s event was part of national week of action.
The administration expanded family detention centers in response to nearly 70,000 Central American families coming across last year, many of them seeking asylum. About 40,000 were apprehended in the southwest border in fiscal 2015, which ended Sept. 30
But the detention of families has come under increasing scrutiny. A California federal judge ruled in August that the facilities violate a long-standing agreement that says immigrant children cannot be detained in centers not licensed to care for them and gave the government until October to release them.
The administration appealed the ruling. This summer, DHS announced changes to the detention of families including releasing those who establish eligibility for asylum or other immigration relief, and continuous monitoring of the overall conditions at centers housing families.
