Broad Front Coalition fights to Free Them All in Virginia

The Free them All campaign was kickstarted by RAICES, a Texas based Immigrant justice organization, in response to the threat COVID19 poses in detention centers.

In Virginia, this movement has become synonymous with car rallies in one localized jail in Richmond, although these efforts are certainly applauded and supported, we must be sure that we do not act according to the mentality of scarcity that capitalist colonialism has ingrained in us. There is time, energy, money and enough attention to make sure that when we say Free them all we do mean ALL and remember on behalf of whom this campaign was started as well as talking about a broader movement that seeks to see No People in cages.

This week The Virginia Poor People’s Campaign, A National Call for Moral Revival, Santos en Virginia, Fuera de FXBG, Pride FXBG (formerly known as SONG F'burg group) ICE out of Virginia, Never Again Mid Atlantic, Rompiendo el Hielo en Henrico, Fight the Muslim Ban and Trans Latinx DMV partnered to launch a digital week of planned actions.

The ALL means ALL campaign seeks to bring light to the issues people in Farmville and Caroline County immigrant detention centers and their families are facing today and to demand action.

These organizations and organizers seek to re-center the most marginalized, unheard from voices in this fascist regime: the people in concentration camps, most of whom are Indigenous people actively illigalized in occupied indigenous Lands.

“Through partner organization SANTOS en Virginia we are hearing of horrific conditions in the concentration camps known as the Immigration Centers of America-- Farmville Detention Center and Caroline Detention Facility in Farmville and Caroline County respectively. These crimes against humanity in our own backyard must stop!”
-VA PPC.

As on-the-ground organizers we have heard first person accounts of unsanitary living conditions even prior to this global pandemic, Farmville for example had a measles outbreak not too long ago which sent the entire prison on lockdown for weeks. Right now there is no equipment (like masks, gloves and sanitizer) given to folks and sick people are living in close quarters with others with no precautions. We know of people who were sick before quarantine and the pandemic and were receiving no care at all. We have heard of people being moved around centers in the SouthEast region even though the centers say they are in lock down, which prevents lawyers from accessing their clients in person and moves families to have to take in video visits or calls, which cost hundreds of dollars a month. Some folks have just plain disappeared, we aren’t sure if they were released, moved, deported, or worse.

On Monday, the aforementioned organizations and dozens more send letters calling on Kimberly Zanotti the ICE Washington and VA Field Office Director with specific demands.

In Virginia, a Broad Front of social justice organizations and community leaders demand that Governor Northam meet our impacted leaders, hear these demands and urgently begin working on a comprehensive way to not only free ALL of our people from cages but also from the shackles of poverty and the immoral practice of illegalizing human beings whom deserve to live.

The Poor People’s Campaign demands an online Poor People’s Audience with the Governor of Virginia and Attorney General, so that they can hear directly from affected community leaders and broad front organizations of the abuse within Farmville and Caroline County concentration camps as well as local Virginia’s prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers. We demand that they explore potential ways to help #FreeThemAll in addition to considering options for inclusive actions to rebuild trust with immigrant communities and prevent more suffering and death. These measures will not only help avert an already badly-handled crisis in immigrant communities but also help curb the pandemic.

There are many serious challenges and potential solutions for immigrant health during this pandemic, it is imperative that our Governor makes equity a key part of his preventative measures moving forward but these measures CANNOT be made without first hearing the stories, demands and input of the community affected, we know that the Old Virginia Way is to allow coalitions and tables of engagement composed of nonprofits (who oftentimes engage in gate keeping and abuse those that they claim to speak for) to make decisions for undocumented people and incarcerated people, we want a New way Forward.

Read more on Poverty Amidst Pandemic: A Moral Response to COVID-19

On a grand scheme, our legislators must pass the COVID19 Immigrant Protection Act to ensure that anyone regardless of status is included in COVID19 relief efforts, you can tweet at your member of congress through this demand Via RAICES.

On the note of pressuring Congress ACLU’s Demands for Congress to pass the Emergency Community Supervision Act in the next COVID-19 relief package.

Ask Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to open the online bond payment portal for families and community organizations to pay bond for immigrants in detention. This would allow local bail funds to liberate as many people as their coffers allow. You can sign the petition and click through the link to share!

Signing and sharing these petitions is one small way to help from home.

Let’s flex our digital People Power together and demand that they Free our People and that we when say Free them All we truly mean ALL.