Stewart Detention Center Vigil 2013

In November 2013, we will again connect our acts of resistance, from the SOA to the Stewart Detention Center, as ongoing witness against militarization and injustice. This link is timely as an increasing number of organizations and media outlets are making the connections between U.S. policies on the so-called wars on drugs, terrorism, and immigration policies like secure communities. This culture of fear is also leading to hefty profits for corporations and an increasingly militarized hemisphere. Now is the time to cling to the truth and speak it out with boldness!

For more information, please contact Anton Flores-Maisonet at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (706) 302-9661.

About the Stewart Detention Center

Located in rural Southwest Georgia, the Stewart Detention Center detains approximately 2,000 immigrant men for deportation proceedings. Stewart is run by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest private prison corporation.
For more on the business of detention, click here.

Conditions at Stewart: Substandard and Inhumane

An April 2009 report by Georgia Detention Watch on conditions at Stewart documented violations of ICE’s own detention standards at the facility. The report charged that food and medicine are withheld as punishment and that solitary confinement is routinely imposed without a disciplinary hearing. Since the release of that report Roberto Martinez Medina died while detained at the facility. Additionally, Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen formerly detained at the Stewart facility, has a pending lawsuit against the U.S. government for his wrongful detention and deportation.

Click here for pictures from the November 2012 vigil at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA

Here are the links to the videos of the walk and speakers to the detention center!

New report on the Stewart Detention Center as a part to "expose and close" the 10 worst facilities in the country

Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) published a reflection blog about the November 16 vigil!

Mundo Hispánico estuvo presente para cubrir la vigilia. Haga click aquí para leer y ver el informe!

This vigil, co-sponsored by several state and national human rights organizations, drew attention to what organizers call the collusion between the government officials and private corporations to place profits and politics over people. This year, the vigil gathered activists from across the United States and family members directly impacted by inhumane immigration detention policies and unethical profit-making by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), owner and operator of the facility in rural Stewart County.

The attention is on this remote detention center because it is the largest in the United States and has a growing list of documented violations of human rights abuses including conditions leading to hunger strikes, inadequate medical care, the death of two detainees, the separation of families, and the detention and deportation of U.S. citizens.

This vigil highlighted the traumatic effects of detention on the wives and children of those detained. At the Stewart Detention Center, the average time of detainment is over 50 days with very few detainees receiving legal representation. One of the highlighted cases was that of Pedro Guzman. Guzman was detained at the Stewart facility for nearly two years, while his U.S. citizen wife, Emily, spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal representation. Last year, Pedro Guzman's freedom was a focal point of our vigil; this November, Pedro joined us as a freed detainee who also is now a Legal Permanent Resident.

“I never knew that the immigration system in the United States was so outrageously flawed,” stated Emily Guzman, “until I began to experience it through my husband."

Last year's vigil was both moving and powerful, follow by much celebration with the release of Pedro Guzman, who had been unjustly detained. Read more from last year here.

Videos and Articles from past years: