ACLU & SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS, PRESS CONFERENCE at the Otay Detention Center on June 22nd, 2018 at 1:00 pm.

Senator Kamala Harris toured the CorCivic Otay Mesa Detention center located near the US/ Mexican border. She visited with women seeking asylum who traveled from Honduras and El Salvador. They are here because they had hoped to escape oppression and abuse. Senator Harris said that what she saw inside the detention center is inhumane, and that it was like a jail, a typical prison setting.

The CoreCivic Otay Mesa Detention Center, is a for profit prison run by contractors. The detainees are working there for a dollar a day, and to make a phone call to their children which should be free, instead they are being charged 85 cents per call.

Currently, there is no procedure in place to unite the women detainees with their children. The senator told the woman detained there that this treatment is not representative of the American people, and that there were protesters outside the facility fighting on behalf of their human rights.

Photo essay by Pamela Calore