[For Immediate Release: Action-11/24 3:30pm] Children Risking Their Lives to Escape Heartland Alliance Child Detention Centers

[Jose]

For Immediate Release

Protest/Rally: November 24, 3:30 PM

Press Contacts: Marta  813-789-0123

 

Children Risking Their Lives 

to Escape Heartland Alliance Child Detention Centers

RALLY IN SOLIDARITY WITH DETAINED CHILDREN:  NO MORE CHILD PRISONERS!

 

Chicago Anti-Detention Network Released a video of attempted escape:

Chicago Anti Detention Network on Facebook Watch

Chicago Anti Detention Network on Facebook Watch On Nov 20, 2021, a teenager risked his life to try and escape from the Heartland Alliance child detention cente...

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 3:30 PM

WHERE: HEARTLAND DETENTION CENTER, 3500 S GILES AVE. CHICAGO, IL

WHAT: Protest against the detention of migrant children, for immediate reunification of children with loved ones and communities

WHO: Organizations include Chicago Anti-Detention Network, Rogers Park Solidarity Network, Los Brown Berets Chicago.

 

On Saturday, November 20, around 3:30 PM, a teenager risked his life when he went out a fourth-floor window in an attempt to escape a Heartland Alliance detention facility at 3500 S Giles Ave. He was chased by Chicago Police and Heartland staff, and taken away in an ambulance. A Heartland security staff was heard repeatedly calling the child a “trouble-maker” and “psychotic”. Instead of addressing why children between ages 3-17 are forcefully detained in this facility to begin with, Heartland staff blame and stigmatize a youth for trying to escape.

 

Over the last few months, immigrant children held in custody at the Heartland Alliance facility in Bronzeville have been sounding an alarm: refusing food, escape attempts, instances of self-harm, injuries, psychiatric hospitalizations, or children harming themselves or others. Community members gather to stand in solidarity with all detained children and to demand an end to the forced detention of migrant children. Children belong with loved ones, in unrestricted home settings within their communities, not in a prison –  no matter how much "better" this prison claims to be.

 

Heartland Alliance has been receiving Millions in federal contracts to operate detention facilities for migrant children in Chicago and is currently holding dozens of Afghan children in custody. The media has recently reported on the extreme suffering of these children while in custody, and Senator Dick Durbin has called the situation at the Bronzeville facility a “crisis”. Heartland, a long-time detention profiteer, is cynically using a crisis they helped create as an opportunity to expand their child detention operation.  Under the guise of "improving" their services, Heartland is seeking even more funding from the multi-billion dollar child detention industry.

 

Background

Children are being displaced from their homelands. They are fleeing violence, wars, hunger and the effects of climate change – all the results of US intervention and policy. Instead of finding safety, children by the thousands are being re-routed into a network of over 100 detention facilities in the United States that specialize in migrant children. Migrant children are brought here by force and held in 24/7 locked facilities, while loved ones struggle to regain custody. While in lock-up, children cannot leave. They cannot have family visit them. They cannot eat, sleep, play or call loved ones whenever they want to. They are exposed to a regime of 24/7 surveillance and strict control of all their behaviors. Their personal belongings are removed from them. These detention sites advertise themselves as "shelters" and as a "better alternative" to the large-scale detention camps on the border – but they are in fact the centerpiece of the US government's detention apparatus and a growing sector of the Prison Industrial Complex. For over 25 years, these "nicer" child prisons have been able to operate with very little public opposition. Our silence has enabled the US government to normalize the incarceration of displaced migrant children as a matter of policy. This is what has lead us to the current crisis facing immigrant children and families.