Report

Standing with Human Rights Defenders in Rural Immigration Detention Centers

United Nations

Submission to the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, October 31, 2024

The majority of immigration detention centers are located in remote and rural areas and 67% of detained people have been held in a rural and isolated location at some point during their custody. This isolation is used to to retaliate against human rights defenders who are targeted for immigration enforcement for their political speech and who speak out against abusive conditions of confinement in immigration detention.

Alongside grassroots partners, RFK Human Rights delivered this written submission to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders for her report to the Human Rights Council on challenges and risks faced by human rights defenders in remote and isolated areas. It describes harms perpetrated by the United States against organizers, hunger strikers, and advocates for human rights incarcerated in immigration detention centers, the majority of which are in remote and isolated areas.

What solutions exist?

The federal government can immediately release people vulnerable to abusive conditions of confinement in immigration detention and cease further detention of them pending immigration proceedings.

Congress can pass laws that prohibit immigration authorities from detaining someone on the basis of their political speech.

How can I get involved?

Read this submission to learn what’s really going on in rural and isolated immigration detention centers.

Share this information with your networks.

Join and support an organization near you that is working to end immigration detention. 

October 31, 2024

Submission to the to the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders

Submission Partners

  • Center for Constitutional Rights

    The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  • California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ)

    CCIJ utilizes coordination, advocacy, and legal services to fight for the liberation of immigrants in detention in California.

  • Global Rights Advocacy (GRA)

    CCIJ utilizes coordination, advocacy, and legal services to fight for the liberation of immigrants in detention in California.

  • Project South

    Project South’s work is rooted in the legacy of the Southern Freedom Movement, and our mission of cultivating strong social movements in the South powerful enough to contend with some of the most pressing and complicated social, economic, and political problems we face today.

  • Seattle University School of Law

    Seattle University is dedicated to educating the whole person, to professional formation, and to empowering leaders for a just and humane world.

  • La Resistencia

    La Resistencia is a grassroots organization led by undocumented immigrants and people of color that have been oppressed by the immigration enforcement system.

  • Gittis Legal Clinics

    The Gittis Legal Clinics are Penn Carey Law’s teaching law firm, comprised of nine in-house clinics that offer students unique opportunities to develop essential lawyering skills and professional values.