President Joe Biden’s speech was interrupted by protesters calling on him to end detention centers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During a rally to mark his 100th day in office, Biden was expressing his appreciation to the people of Georgia when protesters began shouting “end detention now” and “abolish ICE.”
Biden responded on Thursday, “I agree with you. I’m working on it, man. Give me another five days.”
He added, “There should be no private prisons, period. None. period. That’s what they’re talking about, private detention centers, they should not exist and we are working to close all of them.”
Watch the video below:
WATCH: Pres. Biden is interrupted by protestors calling for the end of detention centers.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 29, 2021
"Private detention centers should not exist and we are working to close all of them" https://t.co/konYfuLkmR pic.twitter.com/4N0kvYuU2X
A week into his presidency, Biden signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to reject renewing contracts with privately-operated, for-profit prisons.
“More than two million people are currently incarcerated in the United States, including a disproportionate number of people of color,” the order reads.
It continues, “There is broad consensus that our current system of mass incarceration imposes significant costs and hardships on our society and communities and does not make us safer.”
Biden’s order explains, “To decrease incarceration levels, we must reduce profit-based incentives to incarcerate by phasing out the Federal Government’s reliance on privately operated criminal detention facilities.”
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to close dozens of immigration detention facilities.
“With lower ICE arrest rates and already-reduced levels of detention arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE is currently paying to maintain thousands of empty beds, at enormous taxpayer expense — wasting hundreds of millions of dollars that would be better spent on alternatives to detention and other programmatic priorities,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Roughly 15,000 people are in ICE detention. This includes about 1,500 parents and children in holding facilities for families, according to CBS News.