In response to President Trump’s supplemental funding request for a down payment on his mass deportation plan and a border wall, a broad range of more than 400 organizations have signed on to a letter urging congressional leaders to reject the president’s request.
Advocates to Congress: deny “excessive and unnecessary” request
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the national and local organizations urge them to deny the “excessive and unnecessary supplemental funding request” that would subsidize the president’s mass detention and deportation programs outlined in his immigration executive orders.
The Trump Administration funding request of $3 billion is just the initial ask of the billions of taxpayer dollars it would take to pay for Trump’s additional border patrol and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents, new private immigrant detention camps, an ineffective border wall and government lawyers to seize private land along the southern border in order the build the wall. This is on top of the $19 billion that the United States spends on immigration enforcement a year – more than all other principal federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined, including FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Secret Service.
The letter follows a strong declaration from more than a hundred faith groups that represent thousands of congregations, opposing President Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kelly’s immigration policies and enforcement actions.
No ban, no wall, no raids
With a growing majority of Americans who do not support mass deportations or paying for a border wall, the organizations – including immigrant rights, refugee, faith, labor, civil liberties, environmental, and legal services groups – call on the congressional leaders to refuse diverting taxpayer dollars, specifically urging them to:
1. Refuse to fund the expansion of the already broken immigration detention system that will further line the pockets of the private prison industry.
2. Refuse to fund President Trump’s southern border wall that will cost billions of dollars and won’t strengthen border security.
3. Refuse to fund the creation of the largest deportation force in history, including increased spending in fiscal year 2018 that will fund 1,000 new ICE agents, 500 CBP agents, and dozens of federal prosecutors and support staff tasked with needlessly expanding the already overly aggressive prosecution of immigration-related offenses.
View the complete letter and the list of all the signatories here.
