Proclamation for the Davis City Council to Support the Rights of Immigrant Detainees

Dr. Tia Will read this proclamation on Friday, which she intends to submit to the city council:

• Whereas the United States of America has been built in large part by generations of immigrants;
• Whereas the majority of our early immigrant population consisted of individuals and families fleeing social, religious, political or economic oppression;
• Whereas asylum seekers have a legal right to enter the USA to seek asylum;
• Whereas there have been recent reports of increased numbers of women and children seeking asylum;
• Whereas previous stays in custody have been relatively brief, they are now much longer with detainees separated from family members for months rather than days, some with no guarantee of ever being reunited;
• Whereas we are a nation of laws based on commonly held moral values and human decency;
• Whereas our laws require that detainees be kept in safe and sanitary conditions, recent reports indicate that children have been detained without adequate adult supervision, and that both children and adults have been kept in overcrowded conditions with inadequate food, water, hygienic supplies, light & temperature control, bedding and medical care;
• Whereas the failure to provide all of these necessities has been associated with the deaths of at least six children under custodial care while the current administration threatens to compound the situation by the removal of funding for legal, educational, and recreational services for children;
• Whereas we recognize that we, as citizens of Davis and the United States of America, have a moral obligation to oppose the human rights abuses of family separation, overcrowded and unsanitary housing and the deprivation of of rights and opportunities previously available to those in custodial care.

Now therefore we, the City Council of Davis, on behalf of the citizens of Davis, petition our federal government to:

• Adhere to our nation’s laws with respect to the rights of all immigrants and residents.
• Immediately halt the detention of children, adults, and families in overcrowded, unsafe, and unsanitary conditions.
• Immediately reverse the practice of family separation and expeditiously reunite those families already separated.
• Expedite the closure of all for-profit detention centers.
• Provide immediate medical screening upon arrival, medical evaluation at routine intervals and upon request, and provide the established standard of care for all detainees.
• Deploy adequate legal, custodial, and medical staff to rapidly and efficiently process all requests for asylum and other legal immigration criteria.