Join the Rogers Park and Little Village Solidarity Networks and allies Saturday, October 12th, 3:30 pm at Touhy Park in Rogers Park as we march to demand the closure of Heartland Alliance’s child detention centers and the immediate release of the children!
This Indigenous People’s Day weekend, we say “No Stolen Kids, No Stolen Land!” Just as the American Indian boarding schools once did, Heartland’s facilities are used to support a genocidal system, tear apart families, assimilate cultures, and strengthen illegitimate borders drawn across indigenous lands by colonialist states.
Facilities where migrant children are detained and dehumanized to further an accelerating program of white supremacist genocide must be named as what they are: concentration camps. Even those hidden in plain sight, like Heartland’s two facilities in Rogers Park.
Child detention is an instrument of state terror, and it is also big business. Thousands of children are trapped in the immigration industrial complex, where they are abused, neglected, and dehumanized for profit. For the vast majority of kids in their custody, Heartland has the power to reunite them with their families now, but instead they drag their feet, collecting revenue for each day each child is held in detention. Often, children are held until their 18th birthday, when—at the stroke of midnight—Heartland hands them over to ICE agents without warning. Heartland cooperates with ICE in other ways as well, conducting interrogations and collecting biometric data.
(Read more: https://itsgoingdown.org/this-is-legal-kidnapping-former-child-detention-staff-speaks-out/ )
When we fight back we win. After Heartland’s detention centers came under public scrutiny over allegations of abuse and lax supervision, people got organized and Heartland closed four of its centers in suburban Chicago. Mobilizing our communities into robust solidarity networks, we can build the power necessary to dismantle the underlying systems at the root of these outrages, and work together to create a better world from the bottom up. Join us in the streets to demand:
NO STOLEN KIDS, NO STOLEN LAND! CLOSE THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS!
Meet 3:30 pm at the southeast corner of Touhy Park, near the intersection of Paulina and Sherwin, to kick off the march around 4. Please bring water and wear comfortable clothing and shoes. There will be a midway stop-off point where folks can use the bathroom and pick up water and snacks. Public transportation to the event: The closest El stops are Jarvis Red line (not accessible) and Howard Red/Yellow/Purple line (has elevator) or the 22 Clark bus.
More info:
bit.ly/LVSNinfopacket
freeheartlandkids.com
https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-chicago-children-teens-immigration-shelters-heartland