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The Trump administration is infamous for its attacks on immigrants and their loved ones. The administration鈥檚 cruelty has no bounds, as we鈥檝e seen from its , of our historical commitment to protecting asylum seekers and migrant children, and exploitation of a global pandemic to advance the xenophobic dismantling of the immigration system. We are rightly horrified. For far too long and on far too many occasions, under the radar, with your taxpayer dollars. For years, we鈥檝e pushed back, and now, Congress is listening with a scaled back funding proposal for the Department of Homeland Security 鈥� the arm of Trump鈥檚 deportation force.

We are inspired by the fierce, coordinated, and growing movement to divest from police forces across the country to put an end to racist policing and the epidemic of police violence in Black and Brown communities. This movement calls us to hold the system of immigration enforcement accountable too. We see similar surveillance, over-militarization, and violence inflicted on Black and Brown communities by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS was created after 9/11, and its sub-agencies (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have been funded at record-breaking levels by Congress since their inception. DHS is funded than all federal law enforcement agencies combined, and these agencies often collaborate with state and local law enforcement and funnel resources such as training, funding, and equipment to local police departments.  

For the current year (Fiscal Year 2020), Congress doled out a whopping $14.7 billion for CBP 鈥� funding for of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and for countless (including for dog food and dirt bikes, instead of food and medicine for detained children). ICE received $8.1 billion from Congress 鈥� your tax dollars funded used at BLM protests and to worldwide through continued deportations. Worse still, even with these exorbitant levels of funding, ICE and CBP have regularly raided other parts of the government, including , to expand its detention regime and to build Trump鈥檚 border wall 鈥� even over Congress's firm and clear objections. Although we are in the middle of a pandemic, the congressional appropriations process continues to move forward. Your voice, now more than ever, is critical. 

On July 6, the House Appropriations, DHS Subcommittee its DHS funding bill for Fiscal Year 2021. This is the first major step in a long and process, and we can expect the bill to undergo significant changes in the Senate. But the House bill signals a major shift in how the Democratic-led House is approaching funding for the Department of Homeland Security. This shift didn鈥檛 happen overnight. Over the last two years, ACLU activists and spoke out, sending 71,000 messages and calls to Congress demanding that their representatives cut funding for the agency. Because of that work, the House of Representatives is poised to pass a bill that begins the long overdue process of divesting from ICE and CBP. 

Perhaps most notably, the House bill cuts over $1 billion for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) 鈥� the ICE subdivision responsible for detention, raids, and deportations. ERO just launched an indefensible 鈥溾�� to train ordinary civilians about how it arrests immigrants, including 鈥渄efensive tactics, firearms familiarization, and targeted arrests.鈥� (It is modeled after programs carried out by and by .) 

The significant cut to ERO includes reducing ICE detention by over 50 percent from the previous fiscal year. This is an unprecedented and overdue reduction, but there鈥檚 more: The bill also requires that ICE must not detain more than 10,000 immigrants on any given day during our current global pandemic, compared to the all-time high of during the Trump administration. And if this bill were signed into law today, family detention would be eliminated by the end of the year. 

We鈥檝e made progress in other areas, too. The bill rescinds $1.374 billion in border wall funding, citing Trump鈥檚 dubious emergency declaration and subsequent illegal diversion of funds for the wall from the Department of Defense. And moving forward, the bill severely restricts the ability of ICE and CBP to loot funding from other government agencies.  

Yet our work is far from over. Even with these massive cuts in ICE detention, we would continue to see dangerous and unnecessary detention of immigrants by ICE and CBP. Most alarming, the bill still supports DHS grants for state and local law enforcement agencies, which can be repurposed by police to buy military-grade equipment and to . And it inexplicably increases funds for , an agency that is emblematic of Trump鈥檚 brutal immigration agenda, including working closely with local law enforcement to and .

While we will continue to fight for the strongest possible funding bill, with deeper cuts to harmful programs and more accountability and oversight, we are also energized by the progress you helped us achieve. The bill significantly reduces ICE detention, takes meaningful steps to hold ICE and CBP accountable for their wasteful spending, and rescinds money for Trump鈥檚 border wall. Congress is finally appreciating its immense 鈥溾�� under the Constitution and its role in reining in Trump鈥檚 extremist agenda.