The way people think about changing conditions is about an individual who experiences something and, and what can we do for that individual. Whether it is providing public defense or creating better conditions in detention centers or prisons, or, let's do what we can for this individual deportation defense campaign, or these individual conditions that this person is in. But they fail to see the way the system plays a role…I think what was so important about 2020 and the abolitionist moment is that it was, opening people's eyes to the systemic questions.

Silky Shah joins us to discuss her new book from Haymarket Books, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition.

Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon.

Shah silky author photo 2 heather posten 2 f medium

Guest

Silky Shah

@silkys13

Silky Shah has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigrant detention in the United States, and now serves as its executive director. Her writing on immigration policy and organizing has been published in Truthout, Teen Vogue, Inquest, and The Forge and in the edited volumes, The Jail is Everywhere (Verso, 2024), Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence (Haymarket Books, 2024), and Transformative Planning (Black Rose Books, 2020). She has also appeared in numerous national and local media outlets including The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC.

Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition / Silky Shah

Silky Shah