Resources

• Complaint to DHS’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties filed by Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC) and Former and Current Etowah Detainees
• Advocacy Organizations’ Letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson Calling for Closure and Investigation of Etowah County Detention Center

Reports on Etowah & Immigrant Detention:

• Human Rights Watch & CIVIC, Systemic Indifference:Dangerous & Substandard Medical Care in US Immigration Detention (2017) (featuring data and interviews with detained people at Etowah and 6 other detention centers known for inadequate medical care)
• Southern Poverty Law Center, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and Adelante Alabama Worker Center, Shadow Prisons: Immigrant Detention in the South (November 2016) (featuring data and stories culled from extensive interviews with hundreds of detainees in six southern detention centers, including Etowah – see pp51-62)
• Families for Freedom & NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, The Writ of Habeas Corpus: How a United States District Court Circumvents Oversight of Detention (November 2016) (in-depth study of habeas corpus petitions filed by Etowah detainees seeking release from prolonged detention, finding that the federal district court in Birmingham has abdicated its duty to review detainees’ claims of unlawful detention) 
• DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Fiscal Year 2015 Report to Congress (June 2016) (see pages 28-29 and 35, discussing “super-recommendations memorandum” issued by CRCL to ICE noting serious and longstanding concerns arising from numerous complaints of civil rights violations at Etowah, recommending that ICE cease use of the facility)
• National Immigrant Justice Center & Detention Watch Network, Lives in Peril: How Ineffective Inspections Make ICE Complicit in Immigration Detention Abuse (October 2015) (see pages 21-22, highlighting Etowah as a prime example of the failed ICE inspections system)
• U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, With Liberty and Justice for All: The State of Civil Rights at Immigration Detention Facilities (September 2015) (see pages 41 & 124, noting Etowah detainees’s repeated complaints about rotten food and insufficient nutrition, finding that Etowah has “not complied with NDS [National Detention Standards] contractual standards to provide detainees with nutritious food”)
• Detention Watch Network & Center for Constitutional Rights, Banking on Detention: Local Lockup Quotas & the Immigrant Dragnet (June 2015) (see pages 9-10, describing how although ICE slated Etowah for closure in 2010, it rescinded the decision and kept the facility open after Alabama congressional representatives threatened ICE’s funding)
• Detention Watch Network, Expose & Close, One Year Later: The Absence of Accountability in Immigration Detention (November 2013)
• Detention Watch Network, Expose & Close: Etowah County Jail (November 2012)
• Women’s Refugee Commission, Politicized Neglect: A Report from Etowah County Detention Center (March 2012)

Shut Down Etowah 101 Slideshow

• Shut Down Etowah 101 – Use this presentation to learn more about the Shut Down Etowah campaign. Contact us for a presentation in your community!

FOIA & Open Records Request Documents:

• The CRCL “Super-Recommendations Memorandum” on systemic civil rights complaints and failed reforms at Etowah, obtained in Adelante v. DHS FOIA litigation by Shut Down Etowah members and co-counsel Public Citizen Litigation Group (read a summary of the records here)
• Etowah contract documents, obtained by the Immigration Detention Transparency and Human Rights Project of the National Immigrant Justice Center through the NIJC v. DHS FOIA litigation. Learn more about the project and view other detention center contracts here.
• Etowah inspections documents obtained by NIJC (scroll down and click on “Etowah County, AL”)
• More Etowah contract documents obtained by Families for Freedom and the ACLU of Alabama: Part I & Part II. Also, check out Families For Freedom’s Close Etowah page.