WHAT:

On Friday, April 22, at 12:15 pm Pacific, 3:15 pm Eastern, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) will host Immigration Prison: Hard Questions About Abolition. CILP’s Faculty Co-Director, Ahilan Arulanantham, who has won several landmark rulings that have freed thousands of immigrants from detention, will convene a conversation with Alex Rodriguez, the lead plaintiff in Jennings v. Rodriguez who was jailed for three and a half years in immigration prison, Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network who has spent almost 20 years doing advocacy and organizing to end immigration prisons, and Andrew Free, Founder and Interim Director of #DetentionKills and former human rights lawyer who has spearheaded class action lawsuits against for-profit immigration prisons.

Journalists and audience members can submit questions throughout the duration of the program.

WHO:

• Ahilan Arulanantham, Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy
• Alex Rodriguez, Lead Plaintiff in Jennings v. Rodriguez
• Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network
• Andrew Free, Founder and Interim Director of #DetentionKills, former human rights attorney

WHEN:

Friday, April 22, 2022

12:15 pm Pacific/3:15 pm Eastern

WHERE:

Zoom Webinar; register at bit.ly/3Djh8ZS.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

The United States runs the largest immigration prison system in the world. This so-called “detention” system jails half a million people a year. Some are undocumented, others have green cards, and many have come here seeking asylum. For the most part, they have no right to an appointed lawyer, no right to ask a judge for release on bond, and often no right to a deportation hearing at all. And most jailed immigrants are held in for-profit prisons, despite the progress made in reducing private prisons in the criminal legal system. Recognizing these realities leads us to an uncomfortable truth: this country runs a very large system of imprisonment without trial—just for immigrants. Immigration Prison: Hard Questions About Abolition will tackle what we can and should do to end immigration prisons. How can we both reduce the harm the system causes and at the same time work to end it?

Founded in 2020, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

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