Analysis

The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) is slated for a vote soon after the midterm elections. As written, this bill would pave a path for detention expansion by making immigration detention facilities easier to build and much harder to stop. It would undermine years of work by organizations across the country to protect communities and resist detention expansion, weakening the tools we use to hold immigration agencies accountable.

The United States already operates the largest immigration detention system in the world, bolstered by an unprecedented $45 billion to expand immigration detention from H.R.1 last year. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) runs a growing network of more than 200 long-term detention centers, alongside hundreds of short-term facilities across the country. Every day, ICE holds tens of thousands of people in this system with an extensive, well-documented history of abuse and neglect. Since 2003, more than 300 people have died in ICE custody, including 60 people during the current Trump administration. As conditions worsen, ICE’s footprint continues to grow dramatically, as written this bill would strip communities from tools used to fight back against this expansion.