FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@freedomforimmigrants.org
WASHINGTON, D.C. — News reports suggest the Biden administration is ready to accept the following extremist anti-immigration policies in exchange for Congress passing the White House’s supplemental funding package: halting U.S. asylum law and reviving a version of the inhumane and illegal Title 42 policy; expanding expedited removal nationwide; and implementing mandatory detention for all newly arrived migrants, despite the continued human rights violations and premature deaths detention causes.
The following statement is from Andrea Carcamo, policy director with Freedom for Immigrants.
“President Biden and his administration are unequivocally negotiating for Stephen Miller’s wish list. This administration is disgracefully casting away the lives of migrants as political pawns. Dismantling the asylum system with dehumanizing policies like Title 42 are not only proven to result in grave humanitarian consequences — they fail to achieve their stated purpose and contribute to more confusion and chaos at the border.
“Mandatory detention would invariably grant ICE even more authority to detain and deport our community members. Detaining those seeking safety will only exacerbate the trauma they’ve endured while fleeing harm or persecution. Biden has increased the fundamentally abusive immigration detention system as detained immigrants continue to face egregious human rights violations and death. Supporting mandatory detention fits into President Biden’s persistent betrayal of his campaign promise to end private immigration detention. Besides failing to end the practice altogether, his administration has repeatedly taken positions that keep private immigration prisons open and benefit the bottom lines of corporations, as expanding mandatory detention would certainly do.
“We demand the Biden administration prioritize the humanity of our people instead of negotiating their lives away. Our communities are not bargaining chips. The Biden administration is currently engaged in a race to the bottom, and this shameful betrayal must stop.”
Freedom for Immigrants has long opposed the White House’s supplemental funding request due to its funding of billions of dollars toward immigration enforcement agencies. The White House requested $8.7 billion dollars in additional funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including $4.5 billion dollars for U.S. Customs and Border Protection and $2.5 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase border militarization and increase immigration detention capacity. Read FFI’s previous statement here.
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Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) is devoted to abolishing immigration detention, while ending the isolation of people currently suffering in this profit-driven system. FFI monitors the human rights abuses faced by immigrants detained by ICE through a national hotline and network of volunteer detention visitors, while promoting community-based services that welcome immigrants into the social fabric of the United States. Learn more: https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/