If Congress cares about ending family separation, why do they keep paying for it?
This week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to advance an appropriations bill that includes $17.8 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and $7.4 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These dramatic proposed funding increases – which combined are $4.1 billion more than last year’s funding – come amid massive public outcry against the separation of families at the border, detention of asylum seekers, rampant human rights violations by both agencies, and a cruel and sweeping crackdown on immigrants across the country.
Just two weeks ago, less than four miles from where the vote took place, at least 15 DC residents were rounded up and detained in their homes or on the streets in a series of raids conducted by ICE. The raids drew protest and criticism from hundreds of neighborhood residents, as well as D.C.’s Attorney General. In one raid, up the street from the White House, witnesses report that agents racially profiled and then indiscriminately detained people on the street, and lied to get people to open their doors.
These raids are emblematic of ICE’s destructive practices. Across the country, thousands of people are being rounded up in their homes and workplaces, torn away from their families and communities, and funneled into an inhumane detention and deportation system.
And Congress wants to make that system bigger.
The House bill includes $78 million to hire over 400 additional ICE officers and support staff, and $4.1 billion for detention and removal programs. It would increase the number of detention beds to a record high of 44,000, which would mean nearly 375,000 immigrants jailed next year. And it includes $5 billion for over 200 miles of border wall construction, despite widespread public opposition.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/399280-if-congress-cares-about-ending-family-separation-why-do