Abolish ICE and End Deportations

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is out of control.

Tell your Senators and Representative to:

Cosponsor and quickly enact the bipartisan DREAM Act and (in the House) cosponsor and quickly enact the Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement System Act;

Defund and abolish ICE—the agency that’s unjustly detaining people and risking killing them during the COVID-19 crisis, terrorizing children and families; and

Vote NO on any legislation that falls short of the bipartisan DREAM Act.

The bipartisan Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act will grant protections and legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and have spotless records.

Libertarian think tank Reason.com reported that ICE “was created in the panicked days after 9/11 to enhance national security. But its primary purpose has become hunting down and ejecting people whose main ‘crime’ often is that they can't obtain a piece of paper from the government authorizing them to live and work in the United States.”

We must act quickly. Detainees are dying because it’s impossible to maintain social distance as detention facilities are becoming death camps. Children as young as 12 months are separated from their parents at the border. The Trump Administration keeps rejecting legitimate grounds for requesting asylum, in violation of U.S. law.

Once children are separated from their parents, they are no longer part of a family unit, but are categorized as “unaccompanied minors.” Tent cities are being erected as overflow holding areas for children in the Texas heat. Members of Congress are being denied entry to these detention.

The reality is that adults may be detained for a short period of time, but remain separated from their children for months. Overwhelmed and underfunded, DHS and associated agencies have lost track of hundreds of migrant children in foster care … “or whatever.”

The Administration has instituted this inhumane policy of “zero tolerance” and officials claim they are just following orders. Contrary to the Administration’s claims, there is no law mandating separation of families, and it is not illegal to approach the border and request asylum.

We demand a legislative remedy to end the reprehensible practice of separating children from their parents at the border, warehousing refugees in substandard detention centers, and refusing to consider claims of asylum that stem from fear of violence or retribution.

Tell your Representative and Senators to quickly enact the bipartisan and humane immigration reform (DREAM Act), to vote NO on any weak, watered down alternative to the DREAM Act, and also to defund and abolish ICE before more people suffer and die.