Would you like to jump straight into a teach-in about migrant child detention? This video is a good starting place:
Masjid Al-Rabia Teach-In, February 2020
In Chicago, Heartland Alliance and the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese operate 5 (possibly 6) migrant child detention facilities, which they claim are “shelters” that provide “care” for migrant children who would otherwise be in facilities run by law enforcement. But detaining migrant children against their will and enabling the federal government to criminalize migration should not be considered care or a humane alternative to other types of detention. The system of child detention facilities, including the ones Heartland operates, is a key part of the federal government’s policy of incarcerating and brutalizing migrants. Until recently, this system has been mostly hidden and unchallenged.
The incarceration of unaccompanied migrant children must be challenged. Most “unaccompanied alien children” arrive in the US with names and contact info of parents or other loved ones who are already here. The ones old enough to talk have them memorized; the younger ones have them written down on notes attached to the inside of their clothing. These are children whose parents or guardians couldn’t travel here with them because of US border policy and the dangerous conditions it creates. The US government detains these children to investigate them and their families. What happens in these child detention centers is recast by Heartland Alliance and many media outlets as “care,” as a system of “shelters” that are “essentially summer camps.” In reality, hundreds of thousands of children, including more than 2,500 children separated under Trump, have been for ransom while the government extracts information on their family, extracts profit from them, and processes them for deportation. This is incarceration, not "care." These are jails, not "shelters." These are prisoners, not "program participants." These children are ripped away from families, not "unaccompanied."
Download our one-page Explainer on Migrant Child Detention :
Masjid Al-Rabia Teach-In, February 2020
In Chicago, Heartland Alliance and the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese operate 5 (possibly 6) migrant child detention facilities, which they claim are “shelters” that provide “care” for migrant children who would otherwise be in facilities run by law enforcement. But detaining migrant children against their will and enabling the federal government to criminalize migration should not be considered care or a humane alternative to other types of detention. The system of child detention facilities, including the ones Heartland operates, is a key part of the federal government’s policy of incarcerating and brutalizing migrants. Until recently, this system has been mostly hidden and unchallenged.
The incarceration of unaccompanied migrant children must be challenged. Most “unaccompanied alien children” arrive in the US with names and contact info of parents or other loved ones who are already here. The ones old enough to talk have them memorized; the younger ones have them written down on notes attached to the inside of their clothing. These are children whose parents or guardians couldn’t travel here with them because of US border policy and the dangerous conditions it creates. The US government detains these children to investigate them and their families. What happens in these child detention centers is recast by Heartland Alliance and many media outlets as “care,” as a system of “shelters” that are “essentially summer camps.” In reality, hundreds of thousands of children, including more than 2,500 children separated under Trump, have been for ransom while the government extracts information on their family, extracts profit from them, and processes them for deportation. This is incarceration, not "care." These are jails, not "shelters." These are prisoners, not "program participants." These children are ripped away from families, not "unaccompanied."
Download our one-page Explainer on Migrant Child Detention :
| brief_explainer.pdf |
how migrant child detention works
Q: Who are the children in these detention centers?
A: These children are people. They are people with complex stories, with loved ones and communities, with traumas, with aspirations. We emphasize this because all of the language that follows is dehumanizing; the process of incarcerating them is inhuman. And so we must being by centering the human beings whose lives are deeply impacted by state violence. The US government labels them "Unaccompanied Alien Children." The government considers a child "unaccompanied" if they are apprehended at the border without their legal guardian. They are considered "unaccompanied" even if they are traveling with a blood relative, adult spouse (in the case of some teenage couples where one partner is 18+), hired coyote, or family friend. In other words, they are considered "unaccompanied" even if they are with an adult they are supposed to be with, if that adult is not technically their legal guardian. According to Congressional documents, 90% of “unaccompanied” children have family members already in the United States. They are not lost children wandering alone in the desert. Most are on a trajectory to reunify with family who have gone ahead. Instead of being reunited immediately, the US government conducts mandatory mass detention of these children and investigates their families.
Q: What is the Unaccompanied Alien Children program and how does it operate?
A: The Unaccompanied Alien Children program is a system of mandatory mass detention of all migrant children deemed to be "unaccompanied."
STEP 1 – Law enforcement (ICE or CBP) labels a child as “unaccompanied” at the border/port of entry. Supposedly the child is to be held by law enforcement for no more than 72 hours, but this is not enforced. The huge influx facilities at the border, such as Tornillo in Texas and Homestead in Florida, are examples of this – children being held in law enforcement custody for long periods of time before being transferred to the UAC system.
STEP 2 – the child is transferred to the UAC system, which is not operated by law enforcement, but by other agencies in the federal government: the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a subdivision of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS contracts with private providers, such as Heartland Alliance in Chicago, to operate what it calls “permanent shelters.” At this point, the federal government takes full custody of the child, stripping the legal guardian of their custody rights for the duration of the child’s detention.
STEP 3 – the goal of detention in the UAC “permanent shelters” is to investigate the child and the family. This information is extracted in order to (1) place the child under deportation proceedings and build their immigration case (2) release the child to a government-approved "sponsor" while they await their immigration trial.
Q: Are the children detained because they are "illegal?"
A: No human being is illegal and there is no good reason to jail kids. But detaining them benefits the State and the private companies/NGOs who profit from government contracts to hold them. Detaining these children provides the US government an opportunity to extract valuable information about them and their communities and weaponize this information in deportation machinery. The children are NOT detained because they have been found guilty of violating immigration law. They are detained to be investigated and then released to a government-approved sponsor while they await their trial to determine immigration status. All of the children are put under deportation proceedings (the default of immigration cases), but most of the children come from countries that qualify them to apply for asylum (such as El Salvador, Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc). But once again, these children are detained BEFORE their immigration status is determined - they are detained while the US government investigates them and their families.
Q: How old are these children, on average?
A: Most of the children are teenagers. Some are younger. Some are babies with teenage parents. Some are teenagers who are currently pregnant.
Q: Are these the kids that Trump separated from their families?
A: In 2018, there was a population of children who were traveling with their legal guardians, but who were still separated from their families by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy. These “separated” children were funneled into the pre-existing UAC detention system. The family separation policy garnered much media attention and liberal outrage and has since been rescinded, but the outrage did not extend to the pre-existing UAC system, which we also consider to be a mechanism of family separation.
Q: What happens to the children while they are detained?
A: Within 72 hours of a child's arrival, the detention staff is supposed call the family members using the phone numbers that the kids arrive with and say: "we have your child, but you can’t come get them, and can’t visit them, see them, or even talk to them until we investigate you"—that means the family member and their entire household has to hand over records, documents, and biometrics (i.e. fingerprints). ORR shares this information with ICE and CPB, who may use it to deport family members. Meanwhile, the child is placed under deportation proceedings (the default assumption of every immigration case) and receive "legal counsel" as a date is set for their trial. While inside, the children’s lives are strictly controlled. They are forced to talk with case workers who must extract information (all of which influences their deportation case and their release to a sponsor) in a way that is therapeutically inappropriate way for children who have often undergone significant trauma. Children who cry or become uncooperative are often medicated without their consent or the consent of the parent. Older ones try to refuse consent verbally and are told that if they refuse, their processing for release will be delayed. They are disappeared from their families, with no visitation and 20 minutes of phone access per week. They perform unpaid labor to maintain the centers. Some children resist inside. They frequently refuse food and demand to see a parent; they don't have the language to say so, but these are hunger strikes. They refuse to cooperate in activities or refuse to leave their rooms. Some try to run away. All incidents of non-cooperation are recorded in the child's case file and impact the deportation proceedings. Once a "sponsor" is approved for release, this sponsor is called and told they can retrieve the child. "Sponsors" are forced to pay all expenses for the transportation for the child. This includes last-minute flights including round-trip tickets for Heartland Alliance’s required “escort"--prices that often exceed $1,000 depending on where the child is flying to and if there are multiple children in the family.
Q: How long do children usually stay in detention?
A: A child's length of detention is widely variable. When an "unaccompanied" child is first apprehended by ICE/CPB, the Flores Agreement of 1997 states that the child can only be detained in ICE/CPB custody for 72 hours before being transferred to an ORR-run facility such as Heartland's, although this is often not enforced. At Heartland, children can be detained anywhere from weeks to years depending on how long the government decides to spend investigating their case before placing them with a sponsor. Some teenagers "age out" upon turning 18 and are transferred to adult ICE facilities. The length of stay also varies in response to political pressure. During moments of heightened media attention or overcrowding, many children's cases are suddenly expedited, undermining the myth that detention is necessary and done solely for the safety of the children.
Q: What happens to the children after they are released?
A: When the children are released to a "sponsor" they still are not free. They still face their asylum trial. Some win their cases for asylum. Some do not and are deported. And during the time that they await trial, they are not necessarily unified with their community. Many times the "sponsor" they are released to is the legal guardian they were trying to reunite with in the first place. Sometimes not. Sometimes it's a different family member or family friend, if their legal guardian was deemed unacceptable (or even deported) by the US government. Some children are even placed into the US foster care system and may never reunite with their family again. The "family reunification" is at the discretion of the US government, which continues its colonizing pattern of breaking families and kidnapping the children of communities of color, often under the disguise of "rescuing" them, in order to serve its own needs. Families go through enormous trauma and terror trying to reclaim their children from the US government, and some never succeed.
Q: When did the Unaccompanied Alien Children program start?
A: This system as we know it was set up by the Flores Settlement of 1997 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Since 2003, the Unaccompanied Alien Children program has resulted in the detention of approximately 340,000 children. This raises some important points. One -- this particular system is relatively recent and part of the wave to criminalize immigration since the 1990s. Two -- this system is not unique to the Trump administration, nor to Republicans. The administrations of Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump have all jailed kids. The Trump administration's policy of family separation and push to repeal the Flores Settlement are stand-outs, but this is by no means the first administration to detain migrant children. Three -- the US government has been stealing children and separating families for as long as it has existed, and the Unaccompanied Alien Children program is only the most recent guise of this same behavior found in hundreds of years of colonization, genocide, and slavery on this continent.
A: These children are people. They are people with complex stories, with loved ones and communities, with traumas, with aspirations. We emphasize this because all of the language that follows is dehumanizing; the process of incarcerating them is inhuman. And so we must being by centering the human beings whose lives are deeply impacted by state violence. The US government labels them "Unaccompanied Alien Children." The government considers a child "unaccompanied" if they are apprehended at the border without their legal guardian. They are considered "unaccompanied" even if they are traveling with a blood relative, adult spouse (in the case of some teenage couples where one partner is 18+), hired coyote, or family friend. In other words, they are considered "unaccompanied" even if they are with an adult they are supposed to be with, if that adult is not technically their legal guardian. According to Congressional documents, 90% of “unaccompanied” children have family members already in the United States. They are not lost children wandering alone in the desert. Most are on a trajectory to reunify with family who have gone ahead. Instead of being reunited immediately, the US government conducts mandatory mass detention of these children and investigates their families.
Q: What is the Unaccompanied Alien Children program and how does it operate?
A: The Unaccompanied Alien Children program is a system of mandatory mass detention of all migrant children deemed to be "unaccompanied."
STEP 1 – Law enforcement (ICE or CBP) labels a child as “unaccompanied” at the border/port of entry. Supposedly the child is to be held by law enforcement for no more than 72 hours, but this is not enforced. The huge influx facilities at the border, such as Tornillo in Texas and Homestead in Florida, are examples of this – children being held in law enforcement custody for long periods of time before being transferred to the UAC system.
STEP 2 – the child is transferred to the UAC system, which is not operated by law enforcement, but by other agencies in the federal government: the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a subdivision of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS contracts with private providers, such as Heartland Alliance in Chicago, to operate what it calls “permanent shelters.” At this point, the federal government takes full custody of the child, stripping the legal guardian of their custody rights for the duration of the child’s detention.
STEP 3 – the goal of detention in the UAC “permanent shelters” is to investigate the child and the family. This information is extracted in order to (1) place the child under deportation proceedings and build their immigration case (2) release the child to a government-approved "sponsor" while they await their immigration trial.
Q: Are the children detained because they are "illegal?"
A: No human being is illegal and there is no good reason to jail kids. But detaining them benefits the State and the private companies/NGOs who profit from government contracts to hold them. Detaining these children provides the US government an opportunity to extract valuable information about them and their communities and weaponize this information in deportation machinery. The children are NOT detained because they have been found guilty of violating immigration law. They are detained to be investigated and then released to a government-approved sponsor while they await their trial to determine immigration status. All of the children are put under deportation proceedings (the default of immigration cases), but most of the children come from countries that qualify them to apply for asylum (such as El Salvador, Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc). But once again, these children are detained BEFORE their immigration status is determined - they are detained while the US government investigates them and their families.
Q: How old are these children, on average?
A: Most of the children are teenagers. Some are younger. Some are babies with teenage parents. Some are teenagers who are currently pregnant.
Q: Are these the kids that Trump separated from their families?
A: In 2018, there was a population of children who were traveling with their legal guardians, but who were still separated from their families by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy. These “separated” children were funneled into the pre-existing UAC detention system. The family separation policy garnered much media attention and liberal outrage and has since been rescinded, but the outrage did not extend to the pre-existing UAC system, which we also consider to be a mechanism of family separation.
Q: What happens to the children while they are detained?
A: Within 72 hours of a child's arrival, the detention staff is supposed call the family members using the phone numbers that the kids arrive with and say: "we have your child, but you can’t come get them, and can’t visit them, see them, or even talk to them until we investigate you"—that means the family member and their entire household has to hand over records, documents, and biometrics (i.e. fingerprints). ORR shares this information with ICE and CPB, who may use it to deport family members. Meanwhile, the child is placed under deportation proceedings (the default assumption of every immigration case) and receive "legal counsel" as a date is set for their trial. While inside, the children’s lives are strictly controlled. They are forced to talk with case workers who must extract information (all of which influences their deportation case and their release to a sponsor) in a way that is therapeutically inappropriate way for children who have often undergone significant trauma. Children who cry or become uncooperative are often medicated without their consent or the consent of the parent. Older ones try to refuse consent verbally and are told that if they refuse, their processing for release will be delayed. They are disappeared from their families, with no visitation and 20 minutes of phone access per week. They perform unpaid labor to maintain the centers. Some children resist inside. They frequently refuse food and demand to see a parent; they don't have the language to say so, but these are hunger strikes. They refuse to cooperate in activities or refuse to leave their rooms. Some try to run away. All incidents of non-cooperation are recorded in the child's case file and impact the deportation proceedings. Once a "sponsor" is approved for release, this sponsor is called and told they can retrieve the child. "Sponsors" are forced to pay all expenses for the transportation for the child. This includes last-minute flights including round-trip tickets for Heartland Alliance’s required “escort"--prices that often exceed $1,000 depending on where the child is flying to and if there are multiple children in the family.
Q: How long do children usually stay in detention?
A: A child's length of detention is widely variable. When an "unaccompanied" child is first apprehended by ICE/CPB, the Flores Agreement of 1997 states that the child can only be detained in ICE/CPB custody for 72 hours before being transferred to an ORR-run facility such as Heartland's, although this is often not enforced. At Heartland, children can be detained anywhere from weeks to years depending on how long the government decides to spend investigating their case before placing them with a sponsor. Some teenagers "age out" upon turning 18 and are transferred to adult ICE facilities. The length of stay also varies in response to political pressure. During moments of heightened media attention or overcrowding, many children's cases are suddenly expedited, undermining the myth that detention is necessary and done solely for the safety of the children.
Q: What happens to the children after they are released?
A: When the children are released to a "sponsor" they still are not free. They still face their asylum trial. Some win their cases for asylum. Some do not and are deported. And during the time that they await trial, they are not necessarily unified with their community. Many times the "sponsor" they are released to is the legal guardian they were trying to reunite with in the first place. Sometimes not. Sometimes it's a different family member or family friend, if their legal guardian was deemed unacceptable (or even deported) by the US government. Some children are even placed into the US foster care system and may never reunite with their family again. The "family reunification" is at the discretion of the US government, which continues its colonizing pattern of breaking families and kidnapping the children of communities of color, often under the disguise of "rescuing" them, in order to serve its own needs. Families go through enormous trauma and terror trying to reclaim their children from the US government, and some never succeed.
Q: When did the Unaccompanied Alien Children program start?
A: This system as we know it was set up by the Flores Settlement of 1997 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Since 2003, the Unaccompanied Alien Children program has resulted in the detention of approximately 340,000 children. This raises some important points. One -- this particular system is relatively recent and part of the wave to criminalize immigration since the 1990s. Two -- this system is not unique to the Trump administration, nor to Republicans. The administrations of Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump have all jailed kids. The Trump administration's policy of family separation and push to repeal the Flores Settlement are stand-outs, but this is by no means the first administration to detain migrant children. Three -- the US government has been stealing children and separating families for as long as it has existed, and the Unaccompanied Alien Children program is only the most recent guise of this same behavior found in hundreds of years of colonization, genocide, and slavery on this continent.
Heartland alliance & Chicago archdiocese
Q: What are the migrant child detention centers in Chicago and who runs them?
A: There are five (possibly six) detention locations in Chicago and Des Plaines run by a division of Heartland Alliance and Maryville Academy of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese. They are unmarked and often disguised from the outside as schools, nursing homes, etc. The number of migrant child detention facilities in the Chicago area used to be ten - rampant abuse and community pressure has forced Heartland Alliance to shutter five prior facilities. The Catholic Archdiocese may or may not have opened a new facility at St. Alphonsus in Lakeview - its occupation status is currently unclear and is the "possible sixth" facility in the Chicago area.
Q: How long have these facilities been operating in Chicago?
A: The Heartland Alliance website states that it has been "housing" unaccompanied migrant children for 25 years.
Q: How are these facilities funded?
A: Heartland Alliance and the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese receive money for their detention facilities through contracts with the federal government. This funding comes specifically from the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Homeland Security's "Office of Refugee Resettlement," which took responsibility for the Unaccompanied Alien Children program after the Homeland Security Act of 2002. This funding has increased exponentially in recent years: Heartland received $1.6 million from ORR in 2013 and $47.8 million in 2020. Heartland's executive salaries have increased too -- the president of Heartland Alliance, Evelyn Diaz, made over $400,000 in 2020. Heartland renewed its contract in 2020 and has continued receiving federal funding in 2021 and 2022.
Q: Where are the detention centers in Chicago? How do we know?
A: The following addresses were undisclosed until they were leaked by an unknown source and released to the press by a whistleblower Catholic priest in the fall of 2018.
BRONZEVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD
Heartland Alliance - International Children's Reception Center (ICRC) -- Capacity 250
3500 S. Giles, Chicago, Il 60653 (312)-326-2000.
ROGERS PARK NEIGHBORHOOD
Heartland Alliance - International Children Center (ICC) -- Capacity 78
1620 W. Chase, Chicago, IL 60626 (773)-764-0216
*An additional facility on Morse Ave. was shut down due to sexual abuse.*
ENGLEWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD
*Heartland Alliance’s prior facility for babies, toddlers, and pregnant/parenting teens was just closed in 2022*
BEVERLY NEIGHBORHOOD
Heartland Alliance - International Children's Center-Beverly (ICC-B) -- Capacity 42
1209 W. 98th Street, Chicago, IL 60643 (773)-238-3380
LAKEVIEW NEIGHBORHOOD – **PROPOSED FACILITY**
Chicago Archdiocese – building behind St. Alphonsus Church
1429 W Wellington Ave, Chicago, IL 60657 (773)-525-0709
(Status unclear; needs confirmation about whether children are being held here)
DES PLAINES, ILLINOIS
*Heartland Alliance’s facilities in Des Plaines were shut down due to rampant abuse.*
Chicago Catholic Archdiocese - Maryville Academy - Casa San Francisco
250 N. Halpin Rd, Des Plaines, IL 60016
Chicago Catholic Archdiocese - Maryville Academy - Casa Esperazana
951 W. Barlett Rd, Barlett, IL 60103
(combined capacity of Maryville facilities is 55)
Q: Doesn't Heartland reunite these unaccompanied children with their families?
A: These children crossed the border to reunite with their loved ones in the US who are waiting to receive them. By holding them, Heartland enables the anti-immigrant federal government to investigate their families, gather information on them,
and process them for deportation. Heartland gets to play the hero for reuniting families only because the government separates families in the first place -- which Heartland profits off of.
Q: Aren't these Heartland facilities shelters where children are cared for?
A: These buildings are prisons. Children are brought here against their will, without the consent of their families. Children’s lives are strictly controlled, some are abused, and many struggle with trauma even years after being released. These children should be at home with their families, reunited immediately, without being held hostage first. The children's incarceration and trauma is just a way for our racist and xenophobic government to gain profits and information used to harass and control vulnerable immigrant groups.
Q: Aren't facilities like Heartland's the best solution for children who would otherwise be in law enforcement custody?
A: In a recent statement, Heartland Alliance said that the only alternative to its facilities is “true detention centers” run with a “criminal justice approach.” This claim glosses over the abuses and cruelty that occur in its facilities, but also shows that Heartland is not willing to imagine a world where immigration is no reason to put people in cages. After all, imprisoning children is good for business—Heartland receives millions of dollars from the federal government to run its detention centers. Heartland and organizations like it are acting in their own interests to be complicit in the US government’s cruel immigration policies.We need a major shift in our thinking. We should not accept that the only two options are blatantly abusive kid jails or secretly abusive kid jails masquerading as shelters. Immigration shouldn’t be criminalized in the first place, and no one should be facing prosecution for it. If Heartland truly wants to help migrant children, they’ll put their vast resources into fighting against this form of incarceration instead of profiting from it. There was a time before these child jails existed at all and we must see that as the only acceptable solution. Our goal is the total decarceration and decriminalization of migrant children, families, and communities.
A: There are five (possibly six) detention locations in Chicago and Des Plaines run by a division of Heartland Alliance and Maryville Academy of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese. They are unmarked and often disguised from the outside as schools, nursing homes, etc. The number of migrant child detention facilities in the Chicago area used to be ten - rampant abuse and community pressure has forced Heartland Alliance to shutter five prior facilities. The Catholic Archdiocese may or may not have opened a new facility at St. Alphonsus in Lakeview - its occupation status is currently unclear and is the "possible sixth" facility in the Chicago area.
Q: How long have these facilities been operating in Chicago?
A: The Heartland Alliance website states that it has been "housing" unaccompanied migrant children for 25 years.
Q: How are these facilities funded?
A: Heartland Alliance and the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese receive money for their detention facilities through contracts with the federal government. This funding comes specifically from the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Homeland Security's "Office of Refugee Resettlement," which took responsibility for the Unaccompanied Alien Children program after the Homeland Security Act of 2002. This funding has increased exponentially in recent years: Heartland received $1.6 million from ORR in 2013 and $47.8 million in 2020. Heartland's executive salaries have increased too -- the president of Heartland Alliance, Evelyn Diaz, made over $400,000 in 2020. Heartland renewed its contract in 2020 and has continued receiving federal funding in 2021 and 2022.
Q: Where are the detention centers in Chicago? How do we know?
A: The following addresses were undisclosed until they were leaked by an unknown source and released to the press by a whistleblower Catholic priest in the fall of 2018.
BRONZEVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD
Heartland Alliance - International Children's Reception Center (ICRC) -- Capacity 250
3500 S. Giles, Chicago, Il 60653 (312)-326-2000.
ROGERS PARK NEIGHBORHOOD
Heartland Alliance - International Children Center (ICC) -- Capacity 78
1620 W. Chase, Chicago, IL 60626 (773)-764-0216
*An additional facility on Morse Ave. was shut down due to sexual abuse.*
ENGLEWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD
*Heartland Alliance’s prior facility for babies, toddlers, and pregnant/parenting teens was just closed in 2022*
BEVERLY NEIGHBORHOOD
Heartland Alliance - International Children's Center-Beverly (ICC-B) -- Capacity 42
1209 W. 98th Street, Chicago, IL 60643 (773)-238-3380
LAKEVIEW NEIGHBORHOOD – **PROPOSED FACILITY**
Chicago Archdiocese – building behind St. Alphonsus Church
1429 W Wellington Ave, Chicago, IL 60657 (773)-525-0709
(Status unclear; needs confirmation about whether children are being held here)
DES PLAINES, ILLINOIS
*Heartland Alliance’s facilities in Des Plaines were shut down due to rampant abuse.*
Chicago Catholic Archdiocese - Maryville Academy - Casa San Francisco
250 N. Halpin Rd, Des Plaines, IL 60016
Chicago Catholic Archdiocese - Maryville Academy - Casa Esperazana
951 W. Barlett Rd, Barlett, IL 60103
(combined capacity of Maryville facilities is 55)
Q: Doesn't Heartland reunite these unaccompanied children with their families?
A: These children crossed the border to reunite with their loved ones in the US who are waiting to receive them. By holding them, Heartland enables the anti-immigrant federal government to investigate their families, gather information on them,
and process them for deportation. Heartland gets to play the hero for reuniting families only because the government separates families in the first place -- which Heartland profits off of.
Q: Aren't these Heartland facilities shelters where children are cared for?
A: These buildings are prisons. Children are brought here against their will, without the consent of their families. Children’s lives are strictly controlled, some are abused, and many struggle with trauma even years after being released. These children should be at home with their families, reunited immediately, without being held hostage first. The children's incarceration and trauma is just a way for our racist and xenophobic government to gain profits and information used to harass and control vulnerable immigrant groups.
Q: Aren't facilities like Heartland's the best solution for children who would otherwise be in law enforcement custody?
A: In a recent statement, Heartland Alliance said that the only alternative to its facilities is “true detention centers” run with a “criminal justice approach.” This claim glosses over the abuses and cruelty that occur in its facilities, but also shows that Heartland is not willing to imagine a world where immigration is no reason to put people in cages. After all, imprisoning children is good for business—Heartland receives millions of dollars from the federal government to run its detention centers. Heartland and organizations like it are acting in their own interests to be complicit in the US government’s cruel immigration policies.We need a major shift in our thinking. We should not accept that the only two options are blatantly abusive kid jails or secretly abusive kid jails masquerading as shelters. Immigration shouldn’t be criminalized in the first place, and no one should be facing prosecution for it. If Heartland truly wants to help migrant children, they’ll put their vast resources into fighting against this form of incarceration instead of profiting from it. There was a time before these child jails existed at all and we must see that as the only acceptable solution. Our goal is the total decarceration and decriminalization of migrant children, families, and communities.
community resistance
Q: How did LVSN become involved in the struggle against the detention of migrant children?
A: Members of LVSN have been involved in struggles against all forms of incarceration for decades. A few years ago, LVSN was approached by community members with loved ones who had experience being incarcerated in these facilities, and shortly after, by former employees and volunteers at Heartland who wanted to expose the system. After multiple years of research and gathering of testimony, LVSN began publicly challenging Heartland, the Archdiocese, and the whole system of migrant child detention in Chicago.
Q: What has been the timeline of community resistance to these detention centers in Chicago?
A: Communities have been surviving and resisting the brutality of US immigration policy for a long time. Community resistance is decentralized, autonomous, and not a monolithic response. We can only speak to LVSN's part in this broader network of resilience. In 2018, LVSN began to disrupt Heartland fundraising events and job fairs, and after the locations released of the facilities were released, organize demos and vigils on location. Throughout this time LVSN facilitated teach-ins and workshops across the city, helping spur other groups to self-organize around this issue. While this is not an exhaustive list, we are aware that The Brown Berets, the Chicago DSA, Families Against Deportations, Never Again Action, the Coalition to Close Concentration Camps, a variety of faith leaders, and the newly-formed Rogers Park Solidarity Network have all publicly decried migrant child detention in Chicago.
Q: What are LVSN's demands?
A: We demand that the federal government stop arresting children and families entering the US fleeing poverty and violence. We demand full freedom of movement for all people. We demand an end to all forms of migrant detention, regardless of how "humanitarian" they might claim to be. We demand the closure of all detention centers for adults, families, and children, from the lockups operated by Border Patrol at the border to the so-called "shelters" operated by Heartland Alliance and Maryville Academy in Chicago. All these facilities are part of a prison/detention complex that must be abolished. We demand that Heartland Alliance and the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago (Maryville Academy) be held accountable for their lies and the harm done to migrant communities by their complicity with the federal government’s anti-immigrant programs. We demand an end to the criminalization of migration. No more charging people with immigration violations and processing them for deportation. We demand the total decarceration of migrants and full rights to self- determination. We demand the defunding all forms of migrant detention, including those specially created so-called "unaccompanied alien children.” Under the guise of offering protection and care, social service agencies have been profiting from the suffering of children by doing the dirty work of the government's anti-immigrant agenda. The federal government gives organizations $1.7 billion a year to detain children. These organizations claim to offer care, when in fact, by holding children against their will, they enable the anti- immigrant federal government to investigate families, gather information about them, and process them for deportation.
Q: Isn't publicizing the locations of these facilities endangering the children?
A: Let's consider some other questions. Under what other circumstances would you ever believe it is acceptable for the US government to hold children in secret, undisclosed locations for indeterminate amounts of time against their will and the will of their families? Keep in mind, these facilities are kept confidential even from the parents until they cooperate with the investigation, sometimes at great potential risk to themselves and their loved ones. Under what possible conditions would it ever be acceptable to do such things to children in your own community? Not even in foster care or juvie is a child who is a US citizen simply "disappeared" from their entire community and family until they cooperate with a government investigation. Some more questions. Who benefits from the secrecy? The children and the families don't, and they say so. The only ones protesting the disclosure of the locations are the people who are now, finally, being held publicly accountable for that which they used to do in secret. The secrecy of this system is a significant factor in why there has never been a widespread public reckoning about migrant child detention. It has operated in the shadows with most ordinary people fully unaware of how it operates or how it affects families around them. It is also worth noting that in the year since the locations of Heartland's/Archdiocese's facilities have been made public, there have been no known "attacks" or breaches of their security from outsiders trying to get in. There have been no MS-13 raids on these places. These facilities may look innocuous from the outside (purposefully) but there are many layers of security inside. You cannot waltz into one simply because you know the address, just like with jails and prisons all around the country. But these facilities are similar to all other jails and prisons in another important way, which we must not forget -- the locks are ultimately not intended to keep people out, they are intended to keep people in. In this case, the people are children. Children who have families. Families who want them back, desperately. This system must be exposed.
Q: Where would the children be if they weren't in facilities like Heartland's? Aren't you endangering the children?
A: One common fear is that without facilities like Heartland's, all these kids would be in places like the infamous Tornillo camp in Texas. This is exactly how this migrant child detention justifies its own growth -- allow one example to fester very publicly and use the fear to justify the quiet continuation of the practice elsewhere. There is no Tornillo without Heartland and vice versa. What most people don't consider is that this whole system could only be built (quite recently) with the cooperation of many people. The government can only fill the beds if they exist, and the capacity of the entire migrant detention industry relies largely on contracts with non-government entities. And so the system can be unbuilt with the non-cooperation of many people. The more we resist and pressure our own communities to reject these contracts, the less the government has the capacity to keep expanding migrant child detention. Community pressure already successfully shut down Tornillo, and we cannot let the fear of its return stop us from shutting down Heartland's facilities too. We have examples of other successes to guide us. Community resistance has been a driving factor in the decline in juvenile detention facilities for US citizens, too. Communities kept saying "no" to new contracts. New beds cannot be filled if they cannot be built. So let's answer this question with full honesty. Where could the children be if they weren't in facilities like Heartland's? These children could be reunited with their family immediately. They could have access to all the "services" these places claim to provide (legal counsel, social work) within their own communities without the terror of separation and incarceration. Kids belong at home, not in jail, and ultimately there's no justification for continuing to cage these kids.
Q: What can I do? How do I get involved? Where can I find resources to learn more?
A: We ask communities that are concerned with the criminalization and incarceration of migrants, people of color and poor communities to join the fight against the incarceration of migrant children. This campaign’s aim is to close down all detention facilities for migrant children and to end the policies that make these detention centers possible in the first place. In Chicago, community groups are confronting Heartland Alliance and the Catholic Archdiocese, exposing them for profiting from the detention of children and demanding an end to these programs. In Florida, Texas, and Michigan, community groups are also building campaigns to tear down local child detention facilities. These children are being detained everywhere, and therefore our fight is everywhere. Children are being held across the country in over 100 facilities, and a national movement is building to shut them all down. There are lots of ways to get involved. There is a need for local organizers in Des Plaines, Rogers Park, Bronzeville, Lakeview, Beverly, and Englewood (all the neighborhoods with known detention centers). There is a need for people to publicly challenge the myth of "care." To continue learning about this issue, check out our Research Archive. To get involved with upcoming meetings, teach-ins, and actions, visit Little Village Solidarity Network/Red de Solidaridad de La Villita on Facebook, check this website for updates, or email [email protected].
A: Members of LVSN have been involved in struggles against all forms of incarceration for decades. A few years ago, LVSN was approached by community members with loved ones who had experience being incarcerated in these facilities, and shortly after, by former employees and volunteers at Heartland who wanted to expose the system. After multiple years of research and gathering of testimony, LVSN began publicly challenging Heartland, the Archdiocese, and the whole system of migrant child detention in Chicago.
Q: What has been the timeline of community resistance to these detention centers in Chicago?
A: Communities have been surviving and resisting the brutality of US immigration policy for a long time. Community resistance is decentralized, autonomous, and not a monolithic response. We can only speak to LVSN's part in this broader network of resilience. In 2018, LVSN began to disrupt Heartland fundraising events and job fairs, and after the locations released of the facilities were released, organize demos and vigils on location. Throughout this time LVSN facilitated teach-ins and workshops across the city, helping spur other groups to self-organize around this issue. While this is not an exhaustive list, we are aware that The Brown Berets, the Chicago DSA, Families Against Deportations, Never Again Action, the Coalition to Close Concentration Camps, a variety of faith leaders, and the newly-formed Rogers Park Solidarity Network have all publicly decried migrant child detention in Chicago.
Q: What are LVSN's demands?
A: We demand that the federal government stop arresting children and families entering the US fleeing poverty and violence. We demand full freedom of movement for all people. We demand an end to all forms of migrant detention, regardless of how "humanitarian" they might claim to be. We demand the closure of all detention centers for adults, families, and children, from the lockups operated by Border Patrol at the border to the so-called "shelters" operated by Heartland Alliance and Maryville Academy in Chicago. All these facilities are part of a prison/detention complex that must be abolished. We demand that Heartland Alliance and the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago (Maryville Academy) be held accountable for their lies and the harm done to migrant communities by their complicity with the federal government’s anti-immigrant programs. We demand an end to the criminalization of migration. No more charging people with immigration violations and processing them for deportation. We demand the total decarceration of migrants and full rights to self- determination. We demand the defunding all forms of migrant detention, including those specially created so-called "unaccompanied alien children.” Under the guise of offering protection and care, social service agencies have been profiting from the suffering of children by doing the dirty work of the government's anti-immigrant agenda. The federal government gives organizations $1.7 billion a year to detain children. These organizations claim to offer care, when in fact, by holding children against their will, they enable the anti- immigrant federal government to investigate families, gather information about them, and process them for deportation.
Q: Isn't publicizing the locations of these facilities endangering the children?
A: Let's consider some other questions. Under what other circumstances would you ever believe it is acceptable for the US government to hold children in secret, undisclosed locations for indeterminate amounts of time against their will and the will of their families? Keep in mind, these facilities are kept confidential even from the parents until they cooperate with the investigation, sometimes at great potential risk to themselves and their loved ones. Under what possible conditions would it ever be acceptable to do such things to children in your own community? Not even in foster care or juvie is a child who is a US citizen simply "disappeared" from their entire community and family until they cooperate with a government investigation. Some more questions. Who benefits from the secrecy? The children and the families don't, and they say so. The only ones protesting the disclosure of the locations are the people who are now, finally, being held publicly accountable for that which they used to do in secret. The secrecy of this system is a significant factor in why there has never been a widespread public reckoning about migrant child detention. It has operated in the shadows with most ordinary people fully unaware of how it operates or how it affects families around them. It is also worth noting that in the year since the locations of Heartland's/Archdiocese's facilities have been made public, there have been no known "attacks" or breaches of their security from outsiders trying to get in. There have been no MS-13 raids on these places. These facilities may look innocuous from the outside (purposefully) but there are many layers of security inside. You cannot waltz into one simply because you know the address, just like with jails and prisons all around the country. But these facilities are similar to all other jails and prisons in another important way, which we must not forget -- the locks are ultimately not intended to keep people out, they are intended to keep people in. In this case, the people are children. Children who have families. Families who want them back, desperately. This system must be exposed.
Q: Where would the children be if they weren't in facilities like Heartland's? Aren't you endangering the children?
A: One common fear is that without facilities like Heartland's, all these kids would be in places like the infamous Tornillo camp in Texas. This is exactly how this migrant child detention justifies its own growth -- allow one example to fester very publicly and use the fear to justify the quiet continuation of the practice elsewhere. There is no Tornillo without Heartland and vice versa. What most people don't consider is that this whole system could only be built (quite recently) with the cooperation of many people. The government can only fill the beds if they exist, and the capacity of the entire migrant detention industry relies largely on contracts with non-government entities. And so the system can be unbuilt with the non-cooperation of many people. The more we resist and pressure our own communities to reject these contracts, the less the government has the capacity to keep expanding migrant child detention. Community pressure already successfully shut down Tornillo, and we cannot let the fear of its return stop us from shutting down Heartland's facilities too. We have examples of other successes to guide us. Community resistance has been a driving factor in the decline in juvenile detention facilities for US citizens, too. Communities kept saying "no" to new contracts. New beds cannot be filled if they cannot be built. So let's answer this question with full honesty. Where could the children be if they weren't in facilities like Heartland's? These children could be reunited with their family immediately. They could have access to all the "services" these places claim to provide (legal counsel, social work) within their own communities without the terror of separation and incarceration. Kids belong at home, not in jail, and ultimately there's no justification for continuing to cage these kids.
Q: What can I do? How do I get involved? Where can I find resources to learn more?
A: We ask communities that are concerned with the criminalization and incarceration of migrants, people of color and poor communities to join the fight against the incarceration of migrant children. This campaign’s aim is to close down all detention facilities for migrant children and to end the policies that make these detention centers possible in the first place. In Chicago, community groups are confronting Heartland Alliance and the Catholic Archdiocese, exposing them for profiting from the detention of children and demanding an end to these programs. In Florida, Texas, and Michigan, community groups are also building campaigns to tear down local child detention facilities. These children are being detained everywhere, and therefore our fight is everywhere. Children are being held across the country in over 100 facilities, and a national movement is building to shut them all down. There are lots of ways to get involved. There is a need for local organizers in Des Plaines, Rogers Park, Bronzeville, Lakeview, Beverly, and Englewood (all the neighborhoods with known detention centers). There is a need for people to publicly challenge the myth of "care." To continue learning about this issue, check out our Research Archive. To get involved with upcoming meetings, teach-ins, and actions, visit Little Village Solidarity Network/Red de Solidaridad de La Villita on Facebook, check this website for updates, or email [email protected].
