1,000 signatures reached
To: VisionQuest
No Detention in a Sanctuary City!
Keep profit-driven detention company VisionQuest out of Philadelphia and stand up for immigrant youth. Tell Visionquest that their proposed youth detention center has no place in our city!
Why is this important?
Last fall, profit-driven detention company VisionQuest announced plans to detain 60 Central American youth within Philadelphia, a sanctuary city. In response to this announcement, the community mounted fierce opposition. Philadelphia denied VisionQuest’s permit application, affirming its status as a sanctuary city and protecting immigrant youth from a detention company with a decades-long track record of physical and emotional abuse -- and even death.
But the fight is not over. VisionQuest, which stands to reap $5.3 million on this immigrant youth jail contract, has now filed a lawsuit against the city. The company is claiming “discrimination” because the city has said no to locking up Central American youth here. On June 13th the courts sided with VisionQuest stating that allowing them to open their detention center now will cause "no adverse impact on or jeopardy of health, safety, or welfare of the employees of VisionQuest or the children placed in the shelter." even after multiple employees have come out publicly stating that the North Philadelphia location “Is not safe for us right now….“How would it be safe for the kids?”
We ask that you join us in demanding that Visionquest stop pursuing the opening of their child detention center!
VisionQuest is a company with a shocking record of abuse going back decades. Between the company’s founding in 1973 and 1991, twelve children died while being held in VisionQuest’s “care.” In 2017, VisionQuest closed its previous youth jail in Philadelphia after staffers punched, choked, and demeaned children being held there. Philadelphia youth subjected to VisionQuest have also reported being held in restraints, having ribs broken, and being burned with an iron. Speaking up in defense of their undocumented peers, these youth leaders have declared VisionQuest unsafe for youth.
Questioned about such abuses in a public meeting, the company dismissed them as past events and argued that the new immigrant youth jail would “revitalize” the neighborhood and “create jobs” for the community -- absurd justifications that community members rejected. These community members prevailed when city officials rejected a new detention-for-profit scheme in our city. Help us keep winning in this fight by signing this petition and sharing it with your networks.
En la lucha
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