Urges Congress to Reduce Funding for Mass Detention, Deportations, and the Border Wall

Atlanta, GA, March 12, 2019 — The White House budget released yesterday includes a drastic increase in immigration detention and deportation funding while significantly cutting funding across the board for domestic programs vital to community health and stability.

The budget includes an additional $2.7 billion to expand the already massive immigration detention system to jail 54,000 people per day, even though the Trump Administration has expanded the detention system by over 40 percent since the President took office. This proposed detention expansion includes a deplorable 300 percent increase for family detention beds to jail children.

The budget proposes hiring an additional 1,000 ICE enforcement agents, 750 Border Patrol agents, and 128 immigration court prosecuting attorneys. The budget also includes $5 billion to build 200 miles of additional harmful border wall, and combined with the $3.6 billion of wall construction funding raided from the military budget, the White House’s request for border wall funding totals $8.6 billion. Additionally, the White House budget calls for a massive slush fund to be used to further bloat the immigration jail system to lock up 60,000 people per day, and to hire thousands more deportation agents.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice, an affiliation of five civil rights organizations, issues the following statement:

“Budgets reflect our priorities as a nation. Resources in our federal budget should go towards funding essential services, programs that promote community health, and include efforts that support immigrant and refugee families.

However, the proposed White House budget continues President Trump’s shameful anti-immigrant agenda by dramatically expanding the deportation forces that tear communities apart and the unjust immigration detention system that jails children and family members. The proposed budget would drastically increase immigration-related prosecutions and deportations while gutting vital domestic spending programs that help communities thrive. After fabricating an illegal national emergency declaration, the Trump Administration is attempting to gain even more money for a wasteful and harmful border wall.

We oppose this disgraceful budget, which is nothing more than another attack on our immigrant communities and attempt to continue the administration’s xenophobic and hateful agenda. Congress must put a stop to these anti-immigrant policies and funding that separate families and harm our communities. Rather than funding mass incarceration and the deportation of immigrant families, we ask that Congress propose a budget that supports our communities and the programs that allow us to thrive.”

Contacts: Michelle Boykins 202-296-2300, ext. 0144 mboykins@advancingjustice-aajc.org Jessica Jinn, (213) 241-8817, jjinn@advancingjustice-la.org Brandon Lee, (773) 271-0899 x200, blee@advancingjustice-chicago.org James Woo, (404) 585-8446, jwoo@advancingjustice-atlanta.org Christina So, (415) 848-7728, christinaso@advancingjustice-alc.org

Asian Americans Advancing Justice is a national affiliation of five leading organizations advocating for the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and other underserved communities to promote a fair and equitable society for all. The affiliation's members are: Advancing Justice - AAJC (Washington, D.C.), Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus (San Francisco), Advancing Justice - Los Angeles, Advancing Justice - Atlanta, and Advancing Justice - Chicago.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice–Atlanta (http://www.advancingjustice-atlanta.org) is the first and only legal advocacy nonprofit dedicated to the civil rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in Georgia and the Southeast. We work in four major program areas: public policy; legal education and support; civic engagement; and defense of rights FOR Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and other underserved communities.