The Senate will vote Thursday on a border security bill that is dividing the Democratic caucus and failed earlier this year, exposing rifts within the party even as they try to shift the narrative on border security.
Blaine Bookey, legal director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, said the deportations were “a disgrace”.
“They protect no one. They ‘deter’ no one. They violate our laws and treaty obligations, legal guidance from the UN Refugee Agency, and basic principles of humanity. They must end,” Bookey said in a statement on Friday.
The Biden administration is choosing to hold asylum seekers in detention while their case goes through the system instead of just processing them and releasing them with a court date as was the standard practice before Trump. That is why the number of detainees is ballooning:
We write to express outrage over your administration’s expansion of the cruel and unnecessary immigration detention system. Last month, you signed a spending bill that provides historically high funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention - $3.4 billion in taxpayers’ money. Our organizations work with and advocate on behalf of people who have experienced immigration detention. They carry life long scars from the mistreatment and dehumanization they endured because of the United States’ reliance on detention, mostly through private prisons and county jails. Your administration is further entrenching this reliance, marking an utter betrayal of your campaign promises.
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In an abrupt change of course, over the last two years, ICE has instead increased the number of people in custody. Most of the facilities on ICE’s internal closure list remain open, despite numerous reports from advocates and service providers further documenting the ineffectiveness of detention and the need for a different approach. As the political winds shifted, so did your funding requests to Congress. In October 2023, you requested supplemental detention funding, and your FY2025 budget requestsought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles. The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration.
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Detention does not provide an efficient or ethical means of border processing, and it certainly does not indicate to migrants that they are welcome in the United States. It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane and misguided – as even the most punitive forms of detention have been proven not to deter people from seeking safety or a better life.
Sincerely,
18 Million Rising
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Amnesty International USA
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Center for Immigration Law and Policy, UCLA School of Law
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Human Rights Watch
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Mijente
Muslim Advocates
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Refugees International
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Showing Up for Racial Justice
Sikh Coalition
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Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice
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So, there is so much here that it’s a little hard to respond to without taking a big chunk of my day to do a bunch of research. But looking over it to some extent, it looks to me like I pretty much already gave my quick take on it:
Part of the Democratic immigration plan is to boost resources for ICE … and increase the number of judges to clear the backlog, which will decrease that side of the misery. Part of the plan is to deliberately increase the cruelty in some parts of the system … so that the Republicans will make a deal and actually pass the thing.
As an example here’s what the HRW article says:
On the date of your inauguration, fewer than 15,000 people were in ICE detention. This presented a remarkable opportunity to wind down a wasteful and abusive system. Indeed, your own 2023 and 2024 budget requests sought significantly decreased detention funding. ICE began internal reviews of the system, recommending the closure or downsizing of numerous facilities because of dangerously abusive conditions.
As the political winds shifted, so did your funding requests to Congress. In October 2023, you requested supplemental detention funding, and your FY2025 budget request sought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles. The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration.
I honestly just don’t have much reaction to add to this besides what I said up above. They’re not remarking on the massive backlog of people (including the people waiting on the Mexican side of the border, which is a significant source of suffering, since unlike people in custody there’s no particular guarantee of food, water, or sanitation while they’re just camping there for months and months). They’re not wrong about the compromises Biden has been making with the Republicans, and the increased cruelty that’s being allowed into the system as a result, though. They’re not remarking at all on the things in Biden’s proposals that will reduce the misery (increasing judges being the main one) – which is fine, I mean, it’s not their job to come up with explanations for why something might be inhumane; they’re just pointing out that it’s terrible and asking that he fix it. But like I say, it seems like anything whether cruel or mixed or beneficial that Biden tries to do now is going to be blocked by the Republicans, so it’s all moot.
I’m just not sure how you take away from all of that any kind of conclusion that 100% of it is Biden’s favorite thing (as opposed to something dictated in part by circumstances or Republican maliciousness), or that it doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Republicans because they’re all the same.
Biden has resumed deportation flights to Haiti despite protests from the UN Refugee Agency and others:
The Biden administration is choosing to hold asylum seekers in detention while their case goes through the system instead of just processing them and releasing them with a court date as was the standard practice before Trump. That is why the number of detainees is ballooning:
This policy has been protested by Human Rights Watch, Amensty International, and a slew of other organizations:
Rights Groups Oppose President Biden’s Expansion of ICE Detention:
So, there is so much here that it’s a little hard to respond to without taking a big chunk of my day to do a bunch of research. But looking over it to some extent, it looks to me like I pretty much already gave my quick take on it:
Part of the Democratic immigration plan is to boost resources for ICE … and increase the number of judges to clear the backlog, which will decrease that side of the misery. Part of the plan is to deliberately increase the cruelty in some parts of the system … so that the Republicans will make a deal and actually pass the thing.
As an example here’s what the HRW article says:
I honestly just don’t have much reaction to add to this besides what I said up above. They’re not remarking on the massive backlog of people (including the people waiting on the Mexican side of the border, which is a significant source of suffering, since unlike people in custody there’s no particular guarantee of food, water, or sanitation while they’re just camping there for months and months). They’re not wrong about the compromises Biden has been making with the Republicans, and the increased cruelty that’s being allowed into the system as a result, though. They’re not remarking at all on the things in Biden’s proposals that will reduce the misery (increasing judges being the main one) – which is fine, I mean, it’s not their job to come up with explanations for why something might be inhumane; they’re just pointing out that it’s terrible and asking that he fix it. But like I say, it seems like anything whether cruel or mixed or beneficial that Biden tries to do now is going to be blocked by the Republicans, so it’s all moot.
I’m just not sure how you take away from all of that any kind of conclusion that 100% of it is Biden’s favorite thing (as opposed to something dictated in part by circumstances or Republican maliciousness), or that it doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Republicans because they’re all the same.