Japanese internment survivors, faith leaders demand closure of South Texas ICE detention center

Photo Credit: Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune

Roughly two dozen immigration advocates, faith leaders, Japanese internment camp survivors and their descendants completed a four-day, 45-mile pilgrimage Saturday to an immigrant detention facility outside of Dilley.

The activists demanded the closure of the only federal family detention center, described by a Japanese internment survivor as inhumane and a tragic “repetition of American history.”

Free Families, a national coalition of organizations advocating for immigrant families, organized the pilgrimage with Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministries, Grassroots Leadership and Tsuru for Solidarity, a group of Japanese American concentration camp survivors and descendants who work to end detention. The goal of the pilgrimage was “to shut down Dilley, end family detention in its entirety, and stop family separation caused by ICE targeting and detention.”

Read full story in the Texas Tribune.