The petition to Congress reads:
“Protect Dreamers, cut funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and block funding for Donald Trump’s southern border wall in the next omnibus bill.”
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Donald Trump wants more than $20 billion to wall off our borders and lock up and deport more immigrants.1 We must speak out now to stop them.
Congress needs to approve an omnibus spending bill to fund the government and keep it running by March 23. With Dreamers still in danger of deportation and Donald Trump’s lawless deportation forces tearing immigrant families apart daily, we must make sure that Congress permanently reinstates the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the bill and blocks any budget proposal that would ramp-up the criminalization and deportation of immigrants.
Democrats and Republicans of good conscience must make a choice: Will they use their power to defund Trump’s hate in the omnibus bill or help him expand his racist agenda? Speak out now to make sure they do the right thing.
We can no longer treat funding for immigration detention and enforcement as business as usual. Every dollar Congress appropriates for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is a dollar that will fuel Trump’s deportation machine and arm and mobilize his rogue enforcement army.
ICE is hunting down immigrants at hospitals, schools and courthouses. Its agents are even arresting and detaining Dreamers and green card holders.2,3 Now, immigration enforcement agents are targeting immigrant activists who are speaking out against Trump’s authoritarian regime. ICE agents have deported Haitian activist Jean Montrevil and have detained and threatened to deport other prominent immigrant activists including Maru Mora Villalpando, Eliseo Jurado and Ravi Ragbir.4,5
By unleashing this dangerous deportation force to terrorize immigrants and undermine resistance movements, Trump’s xenophobic administration is threatening our nation’s values and our democracy.6 Congress must obstruct any budget proposal that would expand ICE and CBP and push for pro-immigrant policies in the omnibus bill.
The March spending bill could be the last best chance for Congress to pass legislation that would permanently protect Dreamers from deportation. As in previous budget fights, Democrats in the Senate have the power to include the bipartisan DREAM Act in this must-pass bill. But to save Dreamers and cut funding for Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, we must speak out now to demand that Democrats fight back and Republicans of good conscience stand with the immigrants in their states, not the Trump regime.
It’s important to remember that ICE and CBP have a long history of neglect, overreach and abuse.
ICE’s mismanagement and neglect of the immigration detention system has resulted in a network of hundreds of jails riddled with reports of abuse and human rights violations. ICE agents have reportedly subjected immigrants in their custody to excessive solitary confinement and medical neglect that has led to immigrant deaths, physical abuse and sexual assault.7
Like ICE, CBP agents also have a troubling history of misconduct. More than 95 percent of all cases of alleged misconduct by CBP agents – including allegations of physical abuse and sexual assault – have resulted in “no action taken” by the agency.8 CBP is notorious for violating the rights of immigrants and people of color in the massive “100-mile border zone” over which it has jurisdiction.9
What Democrats and Republicans of good conscience do on March 23 will not only determine how much power Trump’s deportation machine will have over the next few years, it will also show the rest of the country whose side they are on. Whether they do their jobs and stand up for every person in their state – not just the ones who were born in this country – or side with a racist who is trying to uphold white supremacy on the backs of immigrants is up to us.
Tell Congress: Protect Dreamers and cut funding for Trump’s deportation machine. Click the link below to sign the petition.
- Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action
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