We need your help to speak out against the detention of immigrant children and to help us stop the dramatic expansion of the system of immigrant juvenile detention centers.

For decades, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee has fought to protect the rights of immigrants and immigrant communities. Over the last two years, that commitment has led us to fight for the rights of immigrant children in detention. In 2017, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, along with the law firm Wiley Rein LLP, sued the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center (“SVJC”), a secure detention facility in Staunton, Virginia, on behalf of unaccompanied immigrant children detained at the facility.

Our clients are young people forced to leave their homes in Central America to escape violence. They have experienced unimaginable trauma. Instead of treatment and services, when confined, they were subjected to a pattern and practice of excessive force, unnecessary and punitive seclusion, and deprivation of adequate mental health care. As lawyers for a class of unaccompanied immigrant children confined at SVJC in Staunton, Virginia, we learned much about the punishing conditions to which detained immigrant children are subjected and the pain and suffering that those conditions create.
The fight against the detention of migrant children has arrived at the front door of the Capital once again. Northern Virginia local representatives are currently considering federal plans to open a detention center for 440 migrant children in NoVa. This detention center, along with one planned in D.C., would nearly triple the current population of migrant children jailed in the DMV region. These plans were announced shortly before the Trump Administration unveiled its intention to detain migrant children indefinitely, past the 20-day period required by consent decree.

We continue to stand with migrant children. That’s why the Washington Lawyers’ Committee has joined #UnitedAndFree, a coalition of organizations, including grassroots organizations, legal services providers, religious congregations, and indigenous peoples in the DMV region to oppose the detention of migrant children.

Here’s what you can do to support these efforts:

1. Write to your NoVa representatives to oppose any contracts to build the 440-bed detention center. Say No the new detention facilities in Virginia or anywhere. Insist in community based, trauma informed, service oriented placements for all children. You can find sample scripts and the contact information for representatives here. The #UnitedAndFree Campaign also collects Call and Email Report Forms here after you have made contact.

2. Attend a #UnitedAndFree community meeting this Sunday at 5pm, to learn more about our Campaign.