In December of 2019, Mario was tasked with managing a team of 15 UC Davis and UC Berkeley students to begin collecting information of over 400 community members in the Mesa Verde detention facility in Bakersfield. A collaborative of immigrant rights organizations, including Centro Legal, anticipated the potential closure of Mesa Verde Detention Center due to AB32 in March 2020. In order to avoid a crisis of information gathering, Mario’s team began an information collection process. They collected over 120 stories from detained clients in the first quarter of 2020. This allowed Centro Legal and its partners to understand not just who our clients were, but also how ICE actually operates and its impact on the community. When COVID-19 struck the nation, the information gathered by Mario’s team was used as an instructional tool to advocate for parole and bond requests for those made most vulnerable by the pandemic. To date, this critical information has allowed for more than one hundred immigrants to be released from detention.
“We have an obligation to change the narrative. We don’t know when someone is detained or the circumstances of their detention, so it takes a visit to a detention center to collect information and paint the truth without having to rely on ICE and Geo Group’s shady tactics. It’s a higher obligation and responsibility on how we use that information to further abolish these systems.” - Mario Martinez, PRAP Coordinator
Centro Legal is on the cusp of creating a model for automated information collection and analysis that can be replicated and sustained to help improve intake gathering for advocacy and policy change. We are uplifting the stories of our clients, and using data to advocate and work towards abolishing ICE. This pandemic remains uncertain, but during these times, the fight to #FreeThemAll continues. Please join us in supporting our clients, and fighting for justice! Thank you for your consideration.
