ICE Shut Down An Immigrant Hotline After It Was Featured On 'Orange Is The New Black'

Rarely does life reflect TV as directly as it did in the fifth episode of the last season of Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black.


In the episode, which debuted on July 26, 2019, as well as the rest of show's seventh season, the character Martiza Ramos, played by Diane Guerrero, is sitting in the prison kitchen’s walk-in refrigerator. She's worried for a upcoming immigration hearing because she doesn't have an attorney, only to find out about a toll-free hotline that can connect her to a complimentary lawyer and starts celebrating — it's operated by Freedom for Immigrants, a crowd has that exact hotline set up in real life. Yet fellow inmate Gloria Mendoza, played by Selenis Leyva, cuts Ramos’ celebration short, warning her: “You have to be cautious, though. Apparently, if they figure out that you’re using the hotline, Big Brother shuts it down.”


According to the Los Angeles Times, “that’s exactly what happened.”


Immigration and Customs Enforcement shut off a hotline for detained immigrants operated by Freedom for Immigrants, a categorize that runs visitation programs in detention centers across the nation, just two weeks soon following the number was featured on the show, the LA Times announced. The hotline had operated for a couple of many years before it was highlighted on OITNB.


“The timing of the shut downs is deeply concerning. Freedom for Immigrants is being targeted for exposing abuses in detention and amplifying the stories of people suffering in the system” Christina Fialho, an attorney and the co-founder/ executive director of Freedom for immigrants mentioned in a press release. “Once again, ICE is attempting to create us pick between our First Amendment rights and supporting our companions in immigration detention. This isn't a choice our government can legally ask us to make.”


On Thursday, August 22, immediately after their hotline was shut off, Freedom for Immigrants sent a cease-and-desist letter to ICE, alleging that the government violated the group’s free speech and asking that ICE Director Matthew Albence restore the line. The sort argued that the national attention brought to their hotline via show was one of the driving forces beyond ICE retaliating and shutting it down — yet ICE spokesman Bryan Cox told The Washington Post that allegation is “false.”


“The claim this has anything to do with a TV show is pure fiction,” he mentioned. “The reality is this sort engaged in prohibited conduct.” He told MTV News that the particular reason the hotline was shut off was because Freedom for Immigrants may have broken some rules, including “three-way calling and call forwarding.”


“Detainees are further allowed to prepare free calls to a ICE-approved list of free legal service providers the reason for deriving beginning legal representation,” Shawn Neudauer, ICE’s public affairs officer, told MTV News in a statement. “Because these legal calls are unobserved and unrecorded, certain prohibited activities, to include three-way calling and call forwarding, are strictly prohibited. Pro bono corporations noticed to be violating these rules may be removed from the platform. Although, removal from this platform in no way limits the ability of a ICE detainee to phone such an agency directly should the detainee want to do so.”


Yet, that’s not the reasoning ICE gave Freedom for Immigrants, according to the order. They mentioned ICE told them they blocked the hotline because it wasn’t on an approved list maintained by the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.


No matter why the hotline was shut off, Freedom for Immigrants isn’t planning on staying quiet. The sort penned a letter of support to accompany their cease-and-desist letter, which was signed seven producers and actors from Orange Is the New Black and more than 100 organizations. Netflix, for its part, did not offer MTV News with comment.


“The line’s termination undermines trust and accountability of government institutions, dissuades public service by community companies, and further isolates susceptible detained individuals,” the letter, signed by OITNB producer Tara Herrmann and actors Guerrero, Vicci Martinez (Daddy), Emily Tarver (CO McCullough), Alysia Reiner (Fig), Laura Gómez (Blanca), and Beth Dover (Linda Ferguson).


Gómez instructed them LA Times that she was “heartbroken” that the hotline was shut down.


“Now we visualize life mimic art in the most destructive way,” she instructed them newspaper. “I wish this were more of a fictional situation and we were exaggerating reality, nevertheless it’s sort of in reverse around.”