Media Contact: Rebekah Entralgo, rentralgo@freedomforimmigrants.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

WASHINGTON, DC — Freedom for Immigrants urges Congress to reject a spending bill that will expand the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) detention and deportation apparatus.

Under the proposed FY20 spending bill, both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) budgets are higher than FY19, with CBP receiving an additional $1.375 billion for the Trump administration’s border wall construction. While ICE’s funding for detention is at the same levels as FY19, the bill proposes an overall budget increase for the agency, from $7.9 billion in FY2019 to a proposed $8.4 billion. Critically, the proposed FY2020 spending bill places no restriction on the administration’s transfer authority. As a result,the already record amount of funding for immigration detention could increase even more. The administration can continue to re-appropriate funds from other DHS agencies — as it has with FEMA, the Coast Guard, and the Department of Defense in the past — to fund its detention and deportation machine.

Although the bill also includes oversight and transparency measures — including the creation of an Immigration Detention Ombudsman — a $20 million funding increase for the Office of Inspector General, increased reporting requirements for DHS, and access to immigrant detention facilities by Members of Congress without prior notice, these measures lack enforcement mechanisms. Without robust means to hold DHS accountable, we fear that we will see a continuation of long-standing patterns of abuse.

“Freedom for Immigrants urges members of Congress to stand with immigrants and vote against a budget that will result in the expansion of an abuse-laden system of mass detention,” said Sarah Gardiner, Policy Director at Freedom for Immigrants.