1,000 signatures reached
To: Immigration and Customs Enforcement
End the Crayon Ban at Karnes Family Detention Center
Allow kids to be kids! If ICE insists on detaining children, demand that they be allowed to color!
Or better yet, don't detain them at all!
Why is this important?
On Thursday, November 10th, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in San Antonio notified the Karnes Pro Bono Project that crayons for children were no longer allowed in the visitation area of the Karnes Family Detention Center. ICE claims that this rule is a response to children “defacing” interview rooms with coloring which has “caused property damage to the contractor.” That contractor, of course, is the GEO Group, a private prison company that has earned over $57 million in profits from the Karnes Family Detention Center.
Treating a child’s color markings as “destruction of property” is altogether inappropriate. And such markings are a cost that comes with the detention of children. It is extremely disturbing that ICE’s concern for GEO’s property takes precedence over the well being of the children and their mothers’ rights to legal advice.
If ICE is detaining children, at the very least, they should allow those children to act like children.
"I really like to draw flowers and then I give them to my Mom to make her happy. Shes very sad and I know the flowers help her not be so sad." - 5 year old girl detained in Karnes
"The kids need to develop their imaginations. Sometimes what they can’t express in words they can begin to confront through drawings." - Mom detained in Karnes
"They are too young to read and if they just play can get too rowdy. We don't always want them with us [when we speak to the attorneys] because some of the things we share we don't want them to hear." - Mom detained in Karnes