Media Contact: Christina Fialho, CFialho@freedomforimmigrants.org, (310) 765-4044

National advocacy group Freedom for Immigrants, which has been working for the last decade to end U.S. immigration detention, has released the following statement about the Biden-Harris immigration bill:

“The Biden-Harris bill marks an important step forward for immigrants, and we are pleased that the bill will not increase immigration enforcement or detention,” said Christina Mansfield, co-founder/executive director. “However, this bill alone will not undo the Trump administration’s ruthless and racist attacks on our communities, or the preceding decades of unjust immigration enforcement policies. We call on the Biden-Harris administration to make good on its campaign promises to end private detention and enact a 100-day moratorium on all deportations.”

“The Biden-Harris administration’s immigration proposal is a significant departure from the hateful attacks of the outgoing administration, but any comprehensive plan to overhaul our immigration system must include the phasing out of all immigration detention facilities,” said Christina Fialho, co-founder/executive director. “It is beyond time we #FreeThemAll and eliminate the costly, inefficient, and inhumane U.S. immigration detention system once and for all.”

By way of background, Freedom for Immigrants has called for divesting from immigration detention and investing in community-based alternatives, and in 2019 worked with then-Senator Kamala Harris when she introduced the Detention Oversight Not Expansion (DONE) Act, which would prohibit the construction of new detention centers, call for a plan to cut the detention population in half, and fund community-based alternatives. The DONE Act builds upon California's Dignity Not Detention Act, a bill Freedom for Immigrants drafted and co-sponsored that was the first statewide legislation in the country to put a moratorium on detention expansion.

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