Pedro Pascal, Madonna, Javier Bardem, Mark Ruffalo, America Ferrera, Elliot Page and Jane Fonda are among the dozens of Hollywood names who have signed an open letter calling on the federal government to shut down the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, where ICE has been detaining children and their parents. The open letter begins with the declaration: “No child should be locked in an immigration detention center.”
The Hollywood celebrities join the likes of children’s entertainment figure Ms. Rachel, who made headlines earlier this month for meeting with detained children on video chat while vowing to fight to close Dilley. Additional signees of the new open letter include John Legend, Brandi Carlile, Hannah Einbinder, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, Wunmi Mosaku, Billy Porter, Keke Palmer, Hasan Minhaj, Katie Couric, Susan Sarandon and dozens more.
Per NBC News: “Children have complained of limited education, lights that never turn off and moldy food” at Dilley. Amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, “more than 2,300 children” have been put into detention with their parents, “with the overwhelming majority held at Dilley, according to figures provided by court-appointed monitors. Many have been held for several weeks or months.”
“Children held in immigration detention endure trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights,” reads the open letter. “Court filings of abuse against children have included refusals to provide clean water, rotten food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal counsel, the separation of children from their families, and retaliation against families protesting the inhumane conditions. Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers.”
The letter continues, “We urge the federal government and CoreCivic to close the Dilley facility immediately, return children and families to the homes and communities they were taken from and to end child imprisonment now. Our commitment does not end with closure. We demand transparency, accountability, and systemic reforms to prevent these abuses from happening anywhere in the United States.”
Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso, first found out about Dilley after federal agents detained the father of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in Minneapolis and sent them both to Dilley. She recently had a video call with 9-year-old Deiver Henao Jimenez, who was detained at Dilley along with his parents in early March. It was her second video call with a detained child, the first being with a 5-year-old named Gael.
Speaking to NBC News, Accurso said: “It was unbelievably surreal to see this sweet little face and feel like I was on a call with somebody who’s in jail. It broke me, and it was something I never thought I’d encounter in life… We’re trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee. I just never thought those words would go together.”
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