In December 2009, the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights received a two-year, $100,000 grant from the US Human Rights Fund to support its initiative, "Promoting Fair and Humane U.S. Detention Practices". The Coalition has framed its efforts through the lens of human rights, to pressure the U.S. government, at the federal, state and local levels, to comply with international obligations to guarantee due process, humane conditions of confinement and freedom from cruel and degrading treatment and torture for all detainees. With the support of the USHRF, the Detention Practices program is working to reshape and reanimate the Coalition’s advocacy efforts toward the following policy goals: (1) reform of the U.S. immigrant detention system; (2) an end to cruelty in jails and prisons, and (3) US ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture.