Defund Hate Celebrates Another Clean Continuing Resolution Without Additional ICE & CBP Money
WASHINGTON, D.C – This week, members of Congress managed to pass a short-term spending bill that will fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security until February 2, avoiding a government shutdown. This continuing resolution did not include supplemental funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s detention, deportation, and surveillance operations – a victory for Defund Hate, which has been organizing all year to prevent additional DHS funding in the 2024 federal budget.
The Defund Hate campaign, a coalition of groups that advocates for decreased funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), offered the following statement:
“For the second time, the additional funding for ICE and CBP that President Biden requested did not make it into the government’s short-term spending bill. The Defund Hate campaign has sent 5,000+ emails, postcards, and hundreds of phone calls demanding that Congress oppose the White House’s additional funding request. The United States government has every resource available to invest in housing, healthcare, and education, but instead has spent it on more militarization, detention, and deportation.
As of today, the Defund Hate campaign has successfully stopped $15 billion from going to ICE and CBP. A growing movement of people is invested in how and where the federal government invests people’s tax dollars. Elected representatives in Congress can no longer disregard people’s demands for a less militarized world and the call to redirect investments into critical refugee, asylum, and immigrant services that uphold people’s dignity and humanity. While the omission of supplemental funding for ICE and CBP provides us a sigh of relief, we know this fight isn’t over—we are continuing to fight this funding request. We are committed to defunding the billions of taxpayer dollars ICE and CBP get every year.”
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The #DefundHate campaign, composed of organizations representing directly impacted communities, faith leaders, and civil rights and immigrant rights advocates, is committed to divestment from agencies that tear apart our families and terrorize our communities. For too long, our representatives have said they care about our communities while simultaneously funding aggressive immigration enforcement and deadly immigration jails. They must be held accountable to keep their promises and stand with the immigrant community. We call on our members of Congress to say no and vote against wasting taxpayer dollars on an abusive and deadly immigration enforcement system. Instead, we want our tax dollars used to strengthen our families and communities by investing in education, housing, nutrition and health care programs that provide opportunity and increase wel