Over 40,000 people, including children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel, musicians John Legend and Madonna and Hollywood stars Pedro Pascal and America Ferrera, have signed a Change.org petition calling for the closure of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas.
The facility received widespread condemnation earlier this year after heartbreaking footage circulated of ICE agents taking in a 5-year-old boy, Liam Conejos Ramos, and his father, in Minneapolis.
Among the signatories are a slew of famous names in the arts and entertainment world including Alyssa Milano, Jane Fonda, Pedro Pascal, America Ferrera, Christina Ricci, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Ariana DeBose, Gracie Abrams, Mark Ruffalo, Ayo Edebiri, Keke Palmer, Constance Wu, Javier Bardem, Ben Stiller, Lance Bass, Sophia Bush, Billy Porter, Busy Philipps and Cynthia Nixon.
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The petition reads in part:
No child should be locked in an immigration detention center….
Children held in immigration detention endure trauma, neglect and conditions that violate basic standards of health, safety, dignity and human rights.
The harms of detaining children are known and well documented. Court filings of abuse against children have included refusals to provide clean water, rotten food contaminated with worms, dangerous medical neglect, sleep deprivation, denial of legal counsel, the separation of children from their families, and retaliation against families protesting the inhumane conditions.
Children belong in schools and on playgrounds, not in detention centers.
To read the full petition, head to Change.org
(Feature Image Credits: Ms. Rachel photo by TheStewartofNY/Wire Image via Getty Images; John Legend photo by DFree/Shutterstock.com; Madonna Denis Makarenko/Shutterstock.com)
