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