This is a photo taken in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in San Francisco.  Adults who are jailed and youth who are detained and catch an ICE hold are sent to this facility so they could be processed for immigration proceedings.  One East Palo Alto youth remembers being shackled upon her release from Hillcrest Juvenile Detention facility in San Mateo County, put in a van where you can’t see what’s outside, and then taken here.  She was then placed in a room for “hours and hours” until she was put on a plane to go to a group home in Southern California, where she spent four months before being reunited with her family to fight her deportation proceedings.  

The flag that flies on a street pole by the detention facility reads “Change the World From Here”.  In a place filled with fear and uncertainty, hope comes in the form of the families who fight tenaciously for their loved ones’ release.  They all walk in the metal doors of the building knowing that they will bring their loved one home.  — Submission Post by Charisse Domingo