Donald Trump may have postponed his mass ICE raids, but he got what he wanted: families across the country are living in terror under the threat of deportation.
But Trump’s promise to target up to 2,000 migrant families is still looming. And budget hotels like Best Western and Red Roof are waiting in the wings to serve as temporary prisons for detained families.
We need to disrupt mass deportations however we can. That’s why we’re coming together to tell hotel chains: stand with immigrant communities and refuse to be a tool in Trump’s deportation machine.
Call on budget hotels to refuse contracts with ICE.
ICE already has funding to maintain over 40,000 beds in public and private detention centers. Which makes it even scarier that Trump’s aggressive deportation has overwhelmed ICE facilities, leading the agency to turn to cheap hotels as a “staging grounds” for deportations.
These hotels can serve as detention centers hiding in plain sight—until other guests discover that families awaiting deportation are being held under armed guard in the next room. One review of a San Diego location of Quality Suites, a Choice Hotels subsidiary, reported “security sitting straight across from my room as if [it were] a prison.”
The Trump administration is testing us to see how much violence the public is willing to tolerate. Which is why we need to draw a line in the sand and fight deportations any way we can. Today, that means calling on hotels like Choice Hotels and Best Western to stand with immigrants and refuse contracts with ICE.
Tell Choice Hotels, Best Western, and other chains: don’t turn hotel rooms into prison cells—refuse contracts with ICE.
More information
Across the country, basements, offices and hotels play short-term host to people in ICE custody
Texas Tribune. 29 August 2019.
Texas Tribune. 29 August 2019.
ICE raids targeting migrant families slated to start Sunday in major U.S. cities
Washington Post. 21 June 2019.
Washington Post. 21 June 2019.