Organizational Letters to Congress

We the undersigned 1,112 organizations write to express our horror, outrage and deep grief about the news that federal agents have executed a human being in broad daylight on the streets of Minneapolis. How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted, before Congress fulfills its responsibilities and stops these out-of-control agencies from continuing to violently attack our immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as their many allies and supporters?

We, the undersigned 134 organizations, write to reaffirm our commitment to the Communities Not Cages campaign and its call to shut down Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers and halt the expansion and construction of new facilities across the country. The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing an unjustifiable and inhumane plan to expand immigration detention to detain 100,000 people at any given time. Over the summer, Congress passed an unconscionable and obscene funding package, handing the Trump administration and ICE over $150 billion for mass detention and deportation, including a staggering $45 billion dedicated to expanding immigration detention, while slashing essential services and benefits that millions of Americans depend on. With this unprecedented new funding, ICE is the largest federal law enforcement agency, and the ICE detention system will be bigger than the federal prison system.

Our 193 immigrant and civil rights organizations urgently write to ask that you take immediate action to protect immigrant communities while you still can. In your remaining months in office, you have an opportunity to honor your stated commitments to the dignity and humane treatment of all people, including those who immigrate to our nation, before the next president follows through on his mass deportation plans, separating families and upending the lives of millions of people in the process.

Our immigrant and civil rights organizations write to draw your attention to recent policy changes and other decisions across the immigration detention system that violate the basic rights and humanity of immigrant communities, particularly people who are currently detained. We urge you to reverse these decisions and work towards fulfilling your stated commitments to dignity and humane treatment of all people, including those who immigrate to our nation. We also request an immediate engagement with agency officials to discuss these recent changes.

The undersigned 233 organizations call on the Biden administration to live up to its promise of creating a more humane immigration system by ensuring asylum seekers and other migrants are not placed behind bars in immigration detention as Title 42 is lifted. Our organizations welcome the overdue end of the unlawful and cruel Title 42 expulsion policy. As Title 42 ends, the government can heed lessons from other nations; the international community has for years managed to humanely and fairly receive people forced to flee their homes due to crises and conflict. Many nations have responded to…

The undersigned 383 organizations write to express our grave concern over reports that your administration is considering returning to the policy of family detention which has subjected hundreds of families to abusive, inhumane, and racially discriminatory practices. The long dark history of detaining families in Immigration and Custody Enforcement (ICE) facilities provides all the evidence necessary to show the U.S. government should never return to this inhumane practice. Directly impacted families, advocates, attorneys, whistleblowers, and medical and other experts have condemned this practice for years and fought to close down the facilities used to detain families. Your administration took the important and widely lauded step of ending the detention of families in ICE detention in late 2021. Reinstating a policy of detaining families in ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody, even for short periods of time, would be a horrifying reversal of your past policies and commitments.

On the campaign trail, President Biden promised to prioritize the dignity of immigrants and those seeking safety in the United States. As he took office in January 2021, the number of people in ICE detention had decreased to approximately 15,000 (due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the previous administration's anti-asylum policies). These historically low numbers provided the Biden administration with an opportunity to chart a new path. Instead, the number of people detained began increasing again after the first month of President Biden's term. In addition, on the campaign trail President Biden…

We the undersigned organizations write in support of a formal review of the implementation of President Biden’s Executive Order 14006 phasing out the use of private prisons by the Department of Justice (DOJ). As advocates and members of Congress warned, implementation of the executive order (EO) has been inconsistent and allowed private prison corporations to circumvent the intent and spirit of the EO by courting local governments and other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We urge you to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the implementation and report your findings publicly as requested.

The 220 undersigned organizations write to express our deepest disappointment regarding the planned reopening of Moshannon Valley Correctional Center, a former Bureau of Prisons (BOP) jail, as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center and the conversion and expansion of the Berks County ICE detention center to an adult facility for women.

As you consider the FY2022 Continuing Resolution Appropriations request for anomalies required for a short-term CR, we write to urge you to oppose the White House’s requests for additional funding or flexibility in spending for immigration enforcement and detention operations. We ask, specifically, that you reject the request from the White House for additional flexibility to increase spending on ICE detention and removals above the Fiscal Year 2021 levels. We also caution against providing additional flexibility for CBP funds that could be channeled towards further border militarization and enforcement. It is critical that Congress assert its authority to stop the administration’s unaccountable runaway spending on its abusive detention system and protect against further border militarization.

In view of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic and the government’s inadequate response to it, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that as the Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) you use your discretion to order the immediate release of all people detained in ICE custody. Jails, prisons and detention centers are sites where people are acutely vulnerable to health complications and the impact of outbreaks. Choosing to deprive people of their freedom contributes to the already lethal conditions of mass confinement.

This month marks the end of the third fiscal year of the Trump administration, and again we are struck by the enormity of the changes in the immigration and border policy landscape in the United States. In the face of a White House that chips away at the norms of good governance each day, we urge you to ensure that in Fiscal Year 2020 Congress cuts the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s budget for detention, enforcement, and border militarization, while putting accountability measures in place to stop the agency’s pattern of abuse of the appropriations process.

We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to reduce funding for this administration’s harmful border militarization and immigration enforcement policies. Any increase in funding will facilitate family separations, cause irreparable harm to the border region, and incentivize mass detention and deportation—policies that tear apart the fabric of our families and communities.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s appropriated budget for immigration detention and enforcement has jumped by nearly one billion dollars in the past two years, from $3.212 billion in fiscal year 2016 to $4.110 billion in fiscal year 2018. DHS has achieved this massive increase through chronic fiscal mismanagement and outright manipulation of the appropriations process. Over the past two years DHS has persistently overspent its detention budget, confident that Congress will permit regular infusions of funds through reprogramming and transfers. By meeting this expectation, Congress has essentially given DHS the power to write its own appropriation by using its inflated detention budget as the starting point for each subsequent spending negotiation.