Washington, D.C. – Immigrant youth of United We Dream Action are calling on members of Congress to vote “No” on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill that increases funding for ICE and fails to limit Trump’s ability to take money from other agencies to continue funding his racist border wall and putting more people in concentration camps.
Over the course of his administration Trump has reappropriated over four billion dollars from FEMA, the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, and other agencies within DHS to fund immigrant detention and deportation.
Sanaa Abrar, Advocacy Director of United We Dream Action, said:
“Members of Congress must vote “No” on the DHS spending bill and Democratic presidential candidates must publicly reject a bill which allows Trump to keep his transfer authority for the deportation force. For the last three years, his administration has had total unobstructed power to take money from other agencies to use for constructing his racist wall and to jail thousands of immigrants in camps.
While important priorities are included in the package attached to the DHS funding bill, including funding for the census, Congress is giving billions of dollars so Trump can continue to pump money into ICE and CBP and their reign of terror on immigrants and refugees. The bill in its current form would increase funding for ICE and add 600 new CBP agents, this just days after news outlets reported CBP allowed a young boy to die from the flu while in their custody.
Failing to defund Trump’s hateful and deadly deportation force is not only irresponsible, it goes against what the American people, who are appalled by the cruelty of detention camps and mass deportation, voted for in November of 2018. In next year’s elections, our communities are looking for elected leaders that create policies and budgets with a vision of helping people without hurting people. Until we get there, immigrant youth of UWDA will unapologetically reject legislation that fails to meet our values.”