In 2019, Freedom For Immigrants partnered with the popular Netflix show Orange is the New Black (“OITNB”) to help portray the experience of people detained in ICE facilities. Season 7 of OITNB prominently featured the National Immigration Detention Hotline, which FFI maintains, and press surrounding the July 2019 season premiere focused on the immigrant-centric storylines and FFI’s work. After first restricting the national Hotline to only certain facilities in Florida, ICE completely shut down the Hotline two weeks after the premiere of OITNB Season 7.
Hueston Hennigan filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of FFI in December 2019 to reinstate FFI’s Hotline because ICE had shut it down in retaliation for FFI’s exercise of its First Amendment rights advocating on behalf of people in detention.
On February 12, 2020, Judge Birotte granted FFI a preliminary injunction and ordered ICE to restore the Hotline. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE thereafter entered into a settlement agreement that keeps the Hotline accessible, free, and confidential at all immigration detention facilities nationwide.
Shortly after the Trial Impact Project (formerly the Social Justice Legal Foundation) was founded, we joined the case. We now work with FFI to make sure the Department of Homeland Security is keeping up its side of the settlement and keeping the Hotline free and accessible.
FFI’s National Immigration Detention Hotline—the nation’s largest free and unmonitored detention hotline—is crucial to FFI’s work of building community and collective power with people inside detention centers. FFI’s team of volunteers from across the country answer hundreds of calls each month from people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). FFI supports the immediate needs of detained immigrants while strengthening long-term relationship building to reinforce long-term internal organizing efforts. The Hotline also allows detained immigrants to report abuse, neglect, and inhumane conditions, which fuels FFI’s advocacy work. The Hotline shutdown was only the most recent act in a years-long pattern of retaliatory harassment and interference with FFI’s work.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement shut down a real hotline for detained immigrants run by the California group Freedom for Immigrants less than two weeks after it was prominently featured on the show.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement shut down hotline that connected detained migrants to an advocacy group
At a time when detention conditions are worse than ever, Trial Impact Project works with FFI to ensure that the Hotline remains accessible, free, and confidential, and that people held in immigration detention have information about how to access the Hotline. This allows people outside detention facilities to learn about the conditions within and take action.
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