What is there to salvage in an agency that exists solely to hunt, catalogue and detain the most vulnerable among us? Ice’s violence is as systematic as it is cruel

This summer, a coalition of award-winning authors came together with a plea to Congress: they called for an end to the inhumane conditions in detention centers, where women are forced to drink out of toilets and children go without food, water or medical care.

The writers, immigrants and refugees themselves, know just what is at stake: “Many of us came to the US as children and shudder to think how this country would treat us now,” they write. They urge Congress to mitigate the worst abuses of our immigration system, from unsafe conditions – in detention or third countries – to endless backlogs and convoluted legal processes.

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