Washington, DC – Earlier today, House Republicans passed the reconciliation bill providing approximately $70 billion in additional funding for federal immigration enforcement agencies. This massive infusion of taxpayer dollars at the expense of struggling American families comes with virtually no guardrails or accountability measures, and will exponentially increase the cruelty, chaos, and undue harm that the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda has already inflicted on this country. ABC News reported that a Georgian immigrant who died last week in ICE custody is the 50th person to die in ICE detention during the second Trump administration. Mamuka Artmeladze, 43, died on June 4 at the troubled Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana. Today’s vote is an endorsement of the dangerous anti-immigration rhetoric underpinning the cruelty of Trump’s agenda.
This legislation lays bare the misplaced priorities of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. From reporting and restricting life-saving care for disabled immigrant children to causing anxiety and emotional trauma in young children, and from devastating local economies across the country, from California to Baltimore, it is very clear that House Republicans are more focused on appeasing Trump than advocating for the constituents who elected them.
As America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas stated earlier this week in the Associated Press, “Their options are limitless in terms of what they can do with this money. That is such a hard thing to accept as a taxpaying citizen that our dollars are going to this massive, mass deportation machine, while Americans are struggling to meet health care costs and have access to food, and they’re paying so much in gas.”
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“An additional 70 billion in funding for masked agents and brutality in our neighborhoods with little to no accountability is a travesty for American families who are trying to make ends meet. This vote also lays bare the priorities of this Administration and their allies in Congress: They answer to Trump, not to the people who sent them there to advocate on their behalf.”
