SEPTEMBER 3 • 2020 | 13
We can spend our days
arguing about what
to call these detention
centers, or we can say
what’s happening now is
enough to shut
them down.
— SERENA ADLERSTEIN
continued on page 14
of the founding members of
Never Again Action, a Jewish
activist organization calling for
the release and protection of
detained undocumented immi-
grants in the United States.
According to the Migration
Policy Institute, approximately
11.3 million undocumented
residents live in the U.S. In
2018, the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement’
s (ICE)
Enforcement and Removal
Operations Report claimed
396,448 people were booked
into an ICE detention facility
and, since 2004, 193 detainees
have died in ICE’
s custody.
In one detention facility
in Clint, Texas, the New York
Times found migrants lived in
overcrowded and unsanitary
conditions and, according to
agents at the facility, “Outbreaks
of scabies, shingles and chick-
enpox were spreading among
the hundreds of children and
adults who were being held in
cramped cells.
”
With researchers now claim-
ing detention centers have
the potential to be hotbeds
for COVID-19, Never Again
Action and their partner orga-
nization Movimiento Cosecha,
an activist group that focuses
on undocumdnted immigrants,
are demanding the release of
detainees in order to prevent a
public health emergency.
By adopting the mantra of
Holocaust survivors as a moni-
ker, Never Again Action claims
to link past atrocities against
the Jewish people to the mod-
ern system of persecution and
imprisonment toward undocu-
mented immigrants.
And sometimes that line is
even more explicit. In 2019,
Jewish undocumented immi-
grant Nylssa Portillo Moreno,
who was born in El Salvador
and grew up in Houston, was
detained by ICE. This August,
Never Again Action joined
several other Jewish activist
groups, including the ADL
and the National Council of
Jewish Woman, in lobbying for
Moreno’
s release. The push was
successful: ICE released Moreno
less than a week before her
scheduled deportation.
COMING TO THE CAUSE
Born in Portland, Maine,
Adlerstein was always in touch
with her Reform Jewish com-
munity but found her activist
community while in college at
NYU. After leaving New York,
she moved to Omaha, where
she taught English at a refugee
resettlement center. There, she
learned about the resettlement
process and immigration sys-
tem. When she heard about
a six-month fellowship with
Movimiento Cosecha, she knew
she had to apply.
The first Never Again Action in
Elizabeth, N.J., June 30, 2019.
RIGHT: Christine Miranda, Gema
Lowe and group founder Serena
Adlerstein.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SERENA ADLERSTEIN
“This politicization of
the Holocaust
must stop.”
— RABBI ELI MAYERFIELD, CEO,
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER