Defund Hate Campaign Demands U.S. Senators Vote ‘No’ on Federal Proposal Targeting Immigrants

Washington D.C., United States –  This past Sunday, U.S. senators released a legislative package that would hand over an additional $14 billion to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This proposed funding to increase surveillance, detention, and deportation is joined by legislative proposals that would  severely limit the ways people can seek asylum in the United States and harshly punish the few who are able to access the asylum system. The package doubles down on failed policies instead of creating the pathways to status and fair and transparent immigration system the American public deserves.

The $118.28 billion package, which would decimate what is left of a broken asylum system, also doubles down on an enforcement regime that further endangers immigrant communities with varying types of protection status. The bill includes the following alarming and dangerous funding provisions:

• Over $6 billion for CBP, including over half a billion dollars to hire more abusive CBP officers, funding to facilitate the increased militarization of border communities through reimbursements to the Department of Defense for supplementing resources at the border, and investments in growing its mass surveillance infrastructure
• Re-appropriation of previously unspent funds allocated under the Trump administration for building a wall on the southern border
• $7.6 billion for ICE, including $3.2 billion dollars for custody operations (which if passed would be the highest funding levels for detention in ICE’s history), $2.5 billion to increase deportations and over half a billion more to hire additional ICE officers to carry them out, and $1.3 billion for ICE’s surveillance-based “alternatives to detention” program—approximately triple the annual funding it normally receives
• $100 million for Operation Stonegarden, a federal program that facilitates collaboration between state and local police and CBP throughout the country
• Conditions additional funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program on unrealistic metrics for enforcement and hiring of more ICE and CBP officers. 

The Defund Hate campaign, a coalition of groups that advocates for decreased funding to CBP and ICE, offered the following statement ahead of tomorrow’s anticipated vote: 

“This past fiscal year ICE and CBP received over $25 billion in annual funding. As soon as our campaign received word about the White House’s additional funding request to Congress, we mobilized to express our opposition to it. Over the last several months, people from across the country have made hundreds of calls, sent thousands of letters, and led actions to make our position clear to President Biden and members of Congress. 

The concessions in this supplemental package, made at the expense of immigrants who are essential to the social fabric of this country, are shameful and inexcusable. $14 billion dollars could fund 1.45 million public housing units in the U.S., or provide 2.83 million low-income adults with health care.* Instead, President Biden and members of Congress who support this supplemental funding request are neglecting the will of the American people. We fervently demand that all Senators vote no on this outrageous supplemental funding bill.”

*Source: National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies

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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 well-being.