News & Commentary

Every day, nearly 400,000 people in America with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) wake up wondering whether today will bring news of a court ruling that could effectively end their immigration status and put them at risk for deportation.

In the 1980s, fewer than 2,000 people were locked up in an immigration detention facility on an average day in America. Since then, that number has skyrocketed, quadrupling from 7,475 to 32,985 people detained by ICE per day between 1995 and 2016.

With the Republican National Convention (RNC) taking place right now in Charlotte, some of us may engage in acts of protest, taking a stand against the Trump administration’s discriminatory and hateful policies. As a nonpartisan organization, we don’t support or oppose candidates or officials.

After a rebuke from the Supreme Court, President Trump is again trying to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — a program that protects over 700,000 people from deportation and allows them to work and attend school in the United States, their home.

As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to become a death sentence for people trapped in prisons and jails across the U.S., the actions — or inaction — of prosecutors to decarcerate have had a tangible life or death impact. Read more about Mecklenburg County's District Attorney.

The recent spikes in COVID-19 cases across the country are a stark reminder that the pandemic is still very much with us. As John Oliver recently noted, nowhere is that more true than in jails and prisons.