Immigrants Say Close Rikers NOW, No New Jails
The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) have already called on immigrants, migrant rights organizations and allies across New York City to demand Rikers close immediately without building any new jails. No New Jails NYC in solidarity echo this call asking the immigrant rights movement to stand against Mayor De Blasio's jail expansion plan.
We know New York City is not a sanctuary city. We know that the majority of immigrants in New York City are deported after police contact and often incarceration in NYC jails. The attack on immigrants in NYC has come not just from Trump but also from all layers of our own local government. From the increase in ICE arrests at court houses, to the Brooklyn DA hiring ICE prosecutors to engage immigrant communities, to Mayor De Blasio using the criminal justice system to collaborate with ICE and keep our people from immigration legal support. With this jail plan if the Department of Corrections is kept in control of jails there are no proven checks to the harm to our people who are caged but if they transfer the jails over to another department the jails will be outside of the 2014 detainer bill allowing ICE to potentially return to NYC jails. This is a false choice, we must close Rikers and not build any new jails.
We can not support any jail plan, especially not one crafted by Jeff Thamkittikasem, the immigration enforcement officer Mayor De Blasio hired to direct his office. This jail plan requires everyone held in NYC jails to be moved onto Rikers Island right as the Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard has extended the Laguardia Airport Security Zone to include all of Rikers Island. As BAJI and DRUM have explained, "The Department of Homeland Security has access to Rikers Island -- at the same time City Council intends to move all incarcerated New Yorkers there, indefinitely." This plan spends $11,000,000,000 on building 4 more jails, when there has never been a jail built that was good for our people. But days away from the city’s Oct 17th vote the jail expansion plan still does not have a guarantee to close Rikers Island despite a recent zoning amendment. Rikers Island has damaged thousands of people, and has been a symbol of the city’s commitment to incarceration. In solidarity with Community in Unity, the Campaign to Shut Down Rikers and now the growing No New Jails movement we demand the immediate closure of Rikers without building any new jails.
Jails do not keep us safe and are a unique threat to immigrants. The punishment system has always surveilled Muslim and South Asian neighborhoods, policed LGBTQ immigrants, incarcerated Black immigrants and forced constant raids on Latinx immigrants. These jails will embed the Department of Corrections surveillance technology in the middle of immigrant neighborhoods in jails designed as "community based facilities." In fact these new jails that will have affordable housing and even grocery stores inside of them making them prime targets for ICE that has promised, “If we're not able to pick them up from the jail… we're gonna look for them in the community."
Seven out of 10 people held in NYC jails are there awaiting trial and can be released with a remand review or a bail payment. We know incarceration does not prevent crime it only increases violence. If the overwhelming majority of people incarcerated can be released we must then call for city investments to support people at home so we can commit to closing Rikers without building any new jails.
New York City has consistently invested in policing and cages at the expense of our immediate needs and we oppose Mayor De Blasio’s jail expansion plan not simply because of the brutality of incarceration but our belief that no jail should ever be built on stolen land and that $11,000,000,000 should be used to fix NYCHA, house the homeless, provide support to victims of violence, heal our communities and address our needs not build jails. That is why we must join the No New Jails NYC effort and unite to end the jail building era.