1,000+ Organizations to Congress: ‘No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol’

A broad coalition of more than 1,000 advocacy organizations sent a letter on Tuesday pushing members of Congress to immediately stop all funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies at the forefront of the Trump administration's violent mass deportation campaign and crackdown on dissent.

"We the undersigned 1,025 organizations write to express our horror, outrage, and deep grief about the news that federal agents have executed a human being in broad daylight on the streets of Minneapolis," reads the letter, headlined "No Funds for ICE and Border Patrol."

"How many more people have to die, how many more lies have to be told, and how many more children must be used as bait and abducted before Congress fulfills its responsibilities and stops these out-of-control agencies from continuing to violently attack our immigrant communities and communities of color, as well as their many allies and supporters?" the coalition asks.

"We demand an immediate halt in all funding for these deadly operations until the violence, abuses, and deaths in American communities and in immigration detention centers stop," the letter continues. "Congress must refuse to provide one dollar to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol through the appropriations process and immediately take action to revoke the tens of billions already given through last summer’s reconciliation bill."

The message, organized by Detention Watch Network, was released as US senators prepared to consider a package of six appropriations bills that includes a measure proposing more than $64 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE and CBP. The DHS funding package includes $10 billion for ICE, which is currently the highest-funded US law enforcement agency.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said his caucus will block the appropriations package if it includes the DHS funding bill, which Republicans still support despite the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that DHS agents "have fired shots during enforcement arrests or at people protesting their operations 16 times since July, and as in the recent shootings in Minneapolis, in each case the Trump administration has publicly declared their actions justified before waiting for investigations to be completed."

"Most of the incidents involve officers firing at drivers during enforcement stops in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, where DHS has surged federal immigration officers," the Post noted. "At least 10 people have been struck by bullets—including four US citizens. Three people have been killed."

Democrats have proposed stripping the DHS appropriations measure from the broader funding package and considering it as a standalone bill, with passage conditioned on ICE reforms.

"What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) outlined a number of proposed reforms, including "no more masked secret police" and specific requirements that ICE agents obtain "a warrant from an independent judge before barging into people’s homes and snatching people from their communities."

"That’s just the start," Warren wrote on social media. "There’s more we can do to rein in ICE. Stripping the DHS bill from the Senate budget package this week is one of the best options we’ve got to slam on the brakes, condition any funding, and put some basic controls in place to stop this violence."

In their letter on Tuesday, the advocacy coalition demanded that senators "act decisively and show DHS and the communities you serve that this cruelty and lawlessness is unacceptable and must end now."

"When federal agents are patrolling the streets of American cities and gunning people down in broad daylight, the bare minimum
response is to stop the funding that enables these violent agencies to carry out these atrocities," the coalition wrote. "You have the power and responsibility to stop this. What you do now will be remembered for future generations—take a stand today while you still have the power to do so."