These transfers are one of the many ways that ICE—operating under the authority of the Biden administration and the Department of Homeland Security—exerts its power over immigrants who are already in vulnerable situations that compromise their ability to fight their cases. While these unacceptable transfers cannot be undone, repair can be made. Envision Freedom Fund demands the following: 1) For ICE and Orange County Correctional Facility to immediately release all transferred people to their communities. At a minimum, those who have already been transferred should return to the jurisdiction that most benefits their pending immigration case. 2) An immediate halt to all ICE transfers in progress or future transfers from OCCF. 3) ICE must share the location of those who have been transferred with their advocates and loved ones immediately. They must create and facilitate a swift process for attorneys to file release requests on behalf of those they represent.
July 28, 2022 | Statement
Transfers of Immigrants from Orange County Jail
“We are appalled at ICE’s total lack of transparency and consistent determination to separate immigrants from their loved ones,” said Tania Mattos, director of advocacy and policy at Envision Freedom Fund. “Rather than facing the public outcry to release those inside Orange County, ICE cowardly chose to work in the shadows of their unchecked power and transfer immigrant New Yorkers away from their support systems. But the fight is not over and we will not let ICE transfer people without exposing behind-closed-doors actions. We demand that ICE immediately stop all transfers, and instead, release folks back into their communities.”
July 26, 2022 | Statement
Supreme Court’s Criminalization of Abortion Violates Civil, Racial & Reproductive Rights
“While we might not experience these changes directly in New York State, the consequences of this decision will reverberate through communities far and wide,” said Carl Hamad-Lipscombe, executive director of Envision Freedom Fund. “There is no doubt that the criminalization of reproductive care will have an outsized impact on low-income people of color, whose lives and freedom are routinely at the mercy of state and federal authorities.”
June 24, 2022 | Statement
Envision Freedom Decries Latest Deaths At Rikers, Demands Decarceration
“Our deepest condolences go out to the families who are grieving the unnecessary, heartless deaths of their loved ones while in Department of Correction custody at Rikers Island,” said Carl Hamad-Lipscombe, executive director at Envision Freedom Fund. “To knowingly send human beings to an institution that is averaging more than one death per month is unconscionable. The inhumane conditions at Rikers are endemic to the jail itself and the criminal legal system as a whole. Another committee, another report, or a federal takeover won’t save lives or keep our communities safe—we need releases and we need them now.”
June 22, 2022 | Press Release
Thanks to leadership by Senator Bailey and Assemblymember Epstein and vigorous advocacy by the Break the Shackles coalition—composed of organizations, advocates, and directly impacted immigrants and anchored by African Communities Together and the Envision Freedom Fund— New York is the first state in the nation to pass legislation that will address the for-profit bond industry’s exploitative business model and abusive practices toward immigrants.
June 4, 2022 | Press Release
Significant and concerning trends in the implementation of bail reform in New York State, including rising rates of pretrial incarceration, are likely to continue—if not worsen—as the state’s bail reform laws are rolled back a second time. Click here to read and download the report.
April 14, 2022 | Press Release
Envision Freedom Opposes New York State Senate’s Proposed Changes to Bail Reform
“It’s clear lawmakers are exploiting legitimate public concern and a shared desire for safety to completely gut bail reform, which they agree has not contributed to incidents of violence. We need them to think of their constituents in arraignment courts, at Rikers, in county jails across the state; people like Kalief Browder, Layleen Polanco, George Pagan and many others who have lost their lives because of bail and pretrial detention.”
March 31, 2022 | Statement
Envision Freedom Denounces Hochul’s Public Safety Plan
Governor Hochul’s proposals are short-sighted, irresponsible, and contradicted by every piece of evidence reported about the impact of bail and pretrial detention on violence and crime rates. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and other lawmakers must continue to stand against these baseless attacks on policies that protect the rights of Black, brown, low-income, and immigrant New Yorkers.
March 17, 2022 | Statement
Members of the Envision Freedom Fund community offered forceful testimony today during a day-long hearing convened by the New York City Council Committee on Immigration, chaired by Council Member Shahana Hanif, to discuss the conditions of immigration detention in New York State, particularly at the Orange County Correctional Facility (OCCF) in Goshen, NY.
February 28, 2022 | Press Release
Envision Freedom Fund Calls On Biden To End Expansion of Alternatives to Detention
Faced with rising numbers of immigrants being detained and deported since taking office, President Biden is attempting to fulfill his promise to reform this country’s immigration system by relying on a rapid ramp-up of “alternatives to detention.” Ending immigration detention cannot include substituting a physical cage for a virtual one.
February 8, 2022 | Press Release
CRIMINAL LEGAL SYSTEM BAIL INFORMATION
In partnership with the Center for Urban Pedagogy, we created a “know-your-rights” booklet, available in English and Spanish, to help New Yorkers navigate the bail payment system in New York State to avoid further harm.
