Architecture Firm Cancels Future ICE Contracts After Employees Revolt

Welcome to our news segment: TL;DR of Immigration News, for when the news is Too Long and you Didn’t Read it.

This is a weekly collection of immigration-related news stories. These bite-size summaries will keep you up to date without overwhelming your inbox.
_

Are you ready to dig deeper into how we end fascism? Join the Never Again Action political education team for “Breaking Bread to Bash the Fash.” Bring your dinner to this four-part virtual series of Sunday evening Zoom calls at 7pm. Register here.
_

Top Architecture Firm Won’t Design More ICE Prisons After Employees Revolt

One of the largest architecture firms in the world, DLR Group, has responded to a revolt from the ranks of its own employees by swearing off any new work with ICE. Though the firm endorsed the idea of “humane design” of detention facilities, working on contract with CoreCivic to rehabilitate Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, Oklahoma convinced an overwhelming number of employees that the very idea is a contradiction in terms.

Architects and engineers throughout the firm revolted at the possibility of completing the work on Diamontback or accepting further contracts for detention facilities. According to one of them, “By the time I got to ‘This isn’t even our first detention center,’ that’s when the cold sweat hits. One of my greatest fears in life—and this is going to sound dramatic—but I don’t want to be one of the people in the village who said they didn’t know. This has turned me into one of those people. I am now actively profiting off making people disappear.”

DLR has long worked on building prisons. In the short term, management has conceded: “We will not do work to expand the portfolio of facilities that private providers own and operate with a fiduciary interest in promoting actions that increase the use of incarceration.” Courageous DLR workers are standing by to make sure that management stays the course.
_

Seattle and nearby cities move to block ICE detention centers

Seattle has taken proactive measures to curb the US government and the corporations it contracts with to build ICE detention centers in the greater Seattle area.

This month, the Seattle city council passed a one year emergency moratorium on expanding detention centers or building new ones within its city limits. At least four cities in the area have also passed similar measures. These ordinances come after DHS submitted a presolicitation proposal for the expansion of ICE detention in the Seattle area.

Lawmakers in the greater Seattle area are attempting to do their due diligence to keep ICE detention out of their jurisdictions, before contractors have inked deals with the US government.
_

Leqaa Kordia: I’m the Palestinian Who Has Been in ICE Detention for Almost a Year

Content warning: article contains descriptions of abuse and torture of adults and minors in the women's section of a concentration camp

Leqaa Kordia spent a year in Prairieland Detention Center in Texas, for the “crime” of attending a protest against the genocide in Gaza. As we were putting together the newsletter this week, the news broke that she had been released on bond, after the third time a judge had ordered ICE to do so.

In the piece linked in the headline, published shortly before her release, Kordia recounts her own experiences and observations in Prairieland. What she reports is truly nightmarish. Being pregnant or getting a period in ICE detention can be deadly. Detainees would rather remain sick than seek the “healthcare” the facility provides. Kordia reports that she “spent 72 hours chained like an animal in a hospital after experiencing the first seizure of my life.”

A summary like this cannot convey the full story. If you can, read Kordia’s whole account. As Kordia says, “The longer they hold me, the more I am reminded how important my story is. Our voices must matter. Why else would they be so afraid of what we have to say?”
_

Afghan asylum-seeker dies in ICE custody

Mohammed Nazir Paktyawal became the 12th person (at least) to die in ICE detention in the first three months of 2026, leaving behind a wife, six children, and a pending asylum case that will now never be resolved.

We highlight Paktyawal’s case because of the unique way that the Trump-Miller regime betrayed him. He came to the US for safety after working with the military in his native Afghanistan. The operation that brought Paktyawal and his family to the US was specifically designed to help protect Afghans who had aided the US from retaliation when the Taliban took over. The racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia of the current regime and ICE/DHS runs so deep that Trump, Stephen Miller and company are flagrantly betraying their own allies in their attempt at ethnic cleansing.
_

Iranian Dies in ICE Custody as Trump Administration Bombs Iran

While the current regime has justified the illegal war in Iran by claiming it is making the country safe for democracy, Iranians under the regime’s care suffer from unjust detention and threats of deportation to a country that in many cases would be likely to kill them.

On March 6, ICE reported the death of Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi, a 59-year-old Iranian man who had lived in the US for 35 years. Najafabadi died of heart failure 9 days after being booked into an ICE facility in Louisiana, despite ICE itself having records of his chronic illness going back over a decade.

Ryan Costello of the National Iranian-American Counsel states, “We have received reports of deplorable conditions… at ICE detention facilities, including those where [Najafabadi] was detained… We know that some detained Iranians who did not face the prospect of retaliation from the Iranian government willingly chose deportation back to Iran in recent months rather than continue to be detained in such awful conditions.” Other Iranians, including a same-sex couple, do face retaliation from Iran’s government, and are therefore stuck between two horrific options.
_

Action items:

_

Support Never Again Action’s organizing by making a donation today. You can make a tax deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor at this link, or you can donate directly to our 501(c)(4) organization at this link.
_

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for next week’s roundup, drop us a line at neveragainaction@gmail.com.

Never Again Action