Silky Shah
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silkys13.bsky.social
Silky Shah
@silkys13.bsky.social
15K followers 990 following 240 posts
executive director, Detention Watch Network, author Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024), from Texas, views my own book info/events: https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/unbuild-walls
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thanks for having me, Mariame! Those spaces are always so rewarding to be in.
Reposted by Silky Shah
“We have the largest jail infrastructure in the world, and it’s an easy thing for ICE to fall back on,” said @silkys13.bsky.social, the executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, to @nytimes.com. “The jail is a really central component of the deportation machine.”
Local Sheriffs Are Turning Their Jails Into ICE Detention Centers
Jails play a growing role in immigrant detention, housing thousands of people who have never been convicted of a crime.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Silky Shah
Yet another person killed by ICE. 32-year-old Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, QEPD 💔 t.co/mmHdsHYJij
Reposted by Silky Shah
🚨The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers.
Thank you for reading and sharing! I am glad to hear it was useful to you despite how much more dire things are than when I wrote it.
Reposted by Silky Shah
Just finished Unbuild Walls by Silky Shah. Appreciated the history lesson of immigration law in the US, the struggle to make progress, and the abolitionist framing for reformist reforms and unreformist reforms; those that increase the overall system of incarceration vs those that reduce it.
Reposted by Silky Shah
Trump’s unprecedented agenda is unmistakably authoritarian.
The deployment of the National Guard in Washington DC and in 20 states, including Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Texas and Louisiana, is an alarming unilateral move that is supercharging the already massive police presence in communities.
The escalating use of the National Guard and military for immigration enforcement is yet another marker of an authoritarian regime
Washington, DC — In response to news that the Trump administration is deploying the National Guard to assist in processing people for immigration detention in 20 states, Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy D...
www.detentionwatchnetwork.org
Reposted by Silky Shah
@silkys13.bsky.social: “There are so many things we’ve seen before — poor food quality, abuse by guards, not having clean clothes or underwear, not getting hygiene products. But the scale at which it’s happening feels greater, because it’s happening everywhere.”

www.latimes.com/politics/sto...
'It’s happening everywhere': 1 in 3 ICE detainees held in overcrowded facilities, data show
As ICE detainees top 60,000, some detention centers stack mattresses on the floor.
www.latimes.com
Reposted by Silky Shah
The money doesn't matter. There is never any sustained backlash for spending money for death-making institutions.
Reposted by Silky Shah
"[T]he most striking feature of the skyscraper jails' design is the degree to which these buildings have been represented by their boosters as anything but facilities for large-scale human caging."

"[T]he new jails would simply 'create little Rikers around the city.'"
#NewYork #USA #Incarceration
The Dystopia of the World’s Tallest Jails - Jarrod Shanahan & Zhandarka Kurti - Inquest
New York City’s plan to replace Rikers with skyscraper jails is a cautionary tale of how decarceral talking points can be misappropriated.
inquest.org
Thank you for reading/listening/sharing! It’s a strange thing to have written a book about abolishing a system that is becoming so much worse than I could have imagined. I’m glad it’s a resource at least and that we have more resources as we mitigate the harm/build power for when there are openings
Reposted by Silky Shah
Thanks to the audiobook release, I powered through the rest of @silkys13.bsky.social 's Unbuild Walls with a bitter taste in my mouth, knowing how things are unfolding. Really grateful to have this analysis of campaign successes, struggles & the need for an abolitionist uniting of struggles 📚
Unbuild Walls Audiobook on Libro.fm
Drawing from over twenty years of activism on local and national levels, this striking book offers an organizer's perspective on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison aboli...
libro.fm
Reposted by Silky Shah
Journalists: Please stop using phrases like "despite having committed no crime" in articles about immigrants.

As @silkys13.bsky.social says, "It continues to make the connection between immigration and public safety, which ... is a lie."

Immigration is NOT a safety issue.
zeteo.com Zeteo @zeteo.com · Aug 24
ICE Detention Facilities have “become even more deplorable and even more deadly” under Trump.

Ward Sakeik’s lawyer, Maria Kari, explains to Mehdi the inhumane treatment her client had to endure during her 140 days in detention, despite having committed no crime.

Watch: zeteo.com/p/i-can-send...
Reposted by Silky Shah
Some people are attempting to make their compliance with fascism into something it's certainly not. For @prismreports.org, I wrote about how the promotion of obedience, hiding, and disengagement is taking us backward, despite attempts to make it seem reasonable. prismreports.org/2025/08/21/o...
Another way out: Hiding and obedience won't stop fascism
By being obedient to the point of giving up all self-determination, we’re poised to return to what many before us fought to overturn
prismreports.org
lol no. It was an actual voice actor with skills unlike my amateur radio personality wannabe self
Reposted by Silky Shah
💥 An abolitionist organizing must-read is now an abolitionist organizing must-listen! 👂👂👂
The audiobook of Unbuild Walls is now available! bit.ly/unbuildwalls...

Also, physical copies are 40% off if you buy at @haymarketbooks.org sale ends Friday! www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/462-su...
NEW! 🎧 Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition is now an audiobook!

Unbuild Walls, from @silkys13.bsky.social executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, dives into 40 years of US immigration policy & mass incarceration, exposing their intertwined systems of repression.
The audiobook of Unbuild Walls is now available! bit.ly/unbuildwalls...

Also, physical copies are 40% off if you buy at @haymarketbooks.org sale ends Friday! www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/462-su...
NEW! 🎧 Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition is now an audiobook!

Unbuild Walls, from @silkys13.bsky.social executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, dives into 40 years of US immigration policy & mass incarceration, exposing their intertwined systems of repression.
Unbuild Walls Audiobook on Libro.fm
Drawing from over twenty years of activism on local and national levels, this striking book offers an organizer's perspective on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison aboli...
libro.fm
Reposted by Silky Shah
#UnbuildWalls is a timely intervention as anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by fear-mongering, a scarcity mindset, and racist rhetoric has reached a dangerous fever pitch in today’s political discourse.

🔗Order your audiobook today from @libro.fm at bit.ly/unbuildwallsAUDIO
Unbuild Walls Audiobook on Libro.fm
Drawing from over twenty years of activism on local and national levels, this striking book offers an organizer's perspective on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison aboli...
bit.ly
Reposted by Silky Shah
NEW! 🎧 Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition is now an audiobook!

Unbuild Walls, from @silkys13.bsky.social executive director of @detentionwatchnetwork.org, dives into 40 years of US immigration policy & mass incarceration, exposing their intertwined systems of repression.
Unbuild Walls Audiobook on Libro.fm
Drawing from over twenty years of activism on local and national levels, this striking book offers an organizer's perspective on the intersections of immigrant rights, racial justice, and prison aboli...
libro.fm
Reposted by Silky Shah
"It is no surprise that ICE is expanding in the Midwest."

"The Midwest has long been a critical site of resistance against ICE's attacks on immigrant communities, and this time around is no different."
#Indiana #Kansas #Michigan #USA #Incarceration #Deportation #EthnicCleansing
A Fight Is Brewing in the Midwest Over Immigrant Mass Detention
As ICE expands its presence across the Midwest, activists fight the reopening of private prisons to jail migrants.
truthout.org