Relatives of detained individuals attend a press conference calling on
Congress to cut funding for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and
to defund border detention facilities, outside the US Capitol in Washington,
DC, February 7, 2019. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo credit should read
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Immigrant Rights Groups Trash Border Deal: Immigrant Families Will Pay the
Price
Aída Chávez, Ryan Grim
February 13 2019, 5:35 p.m.
Relatives of detained individuals call on Congress to cut funding for US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border detention facilities in
Washington D.C., on Feb. 7, 2019. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Immigrant rights groups are reacting angrily to the border deal to keep the
government open, which President Donald Trump has said that he will sign
into law, averting a shutdown. The bill, which has not yet officially been
drafted, gives Trump more than $1 billion in funding for new barriers on the
southern border, and funds a potential increase in immigrant detention
capacity.
The barriers that the bill would fund are a rhetorical downgrade from
Trumps signature policy of erecting a border wall, which House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has repeatedly rejected to fund. Funding for
immigration detention, which has soared under the Trump administration, was
a key issue in talks over keeping the government open. Democrats had pushed
for cuts to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements detention budget, but
ceded that demand in the interest of moving negotiations forward. The bill
would fund the government through September 30.
The central problem with the deal, leaders of the immigrant rights community
say, is that Democrats, from a position of strength given their control of
the House of Representatives, merely entrenched Trumps immigration policy.
The deal, they say, puts a bipartisan stamp of approval on the dark chapter
of American history that Trumps policies have brought upon us.
The War on Immigrants
Read Our Complete Coverage
The War on Immigrants
Ana María Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular
Democracy, said that Democrats appeared to be negotiating as if the November
elections hadnt happened. Trump made the midterms a referendum on his
border wall, driving 24/7 news coverage of a migrant caravan walking through
Central America. He declared the caravan a national crisis and sent the
military to the border.
Voters responded by giving Democrats the biggest midterm win since
Watergate.
Schumer needs to understand that his mandate is different. Hes negotiating
as if the elections didnt matter, said Archila, referring to Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. I think that the deal essentially
accepts Trumps paradigm that there is a security crisis at the border that
needs more investment and enforcement. It displays a level of a lack of
moral grounding in some ways. The country now knows what enforcement looks
like. Its ugly. Its children in cages. Its families thatll never see
each other again. Thats what this funding will do.
Javier Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road NY, an immigration
group, said that if the details of the deal match the reporting, he would
urge Congress to reject it. His biggest objection is that it expands
immigration enforcement, he said. Theres been a national conversation
about the role of ICE and detention, and folks expected wed see something
that actually decreased the level of detention and came with actual
oversight. Its not just about the wall. Its the other enforcement
mechanisms and the impact theyre having on our communities on a day-to-day
basis.
Republican leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy are pushing
the deal, but it is not entirely clear how the rest of the GOP caucus, many
of whom wanted to see a wall built, will vote on the funding bill. In some
ways, opposition from immigration groups and progressives could make the
deal more likely to pass, as the outrage convinces Republicans that the deal
Trump got does indeed expand his deportation regime.
There are, on average, about 50,000 people in immigration detention on any
given day, even though a 2018 spending deal provided funding for 40,520
beds. Democrats had fought to shrink or limit the number of beds available
to immigration authorities, in an effort to slow the expansion of the
administrations deportation infrastructure. But the party withdrew that
demand under pressure from Republicans, and the new bill allows for the
further increase of detention capacity from the current level.
Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, lambasted the
deal for making major concessions on detention.
The funding bill was a chance to put a check on the detention system, which
is a key driver of mass deportations.
ICEs budget has skyrocketed and despite this, they keep getting bailed out
for overspending. Some action needs to be taken and reducing funding is a
start, Shah said. The administration is quietly expanding detention all
over the country in behind-the-scenes deals with local counties and private
contractors, and the funding bill was a chance to put a check on the
detention system, which is a key driver of mass deportations.
Democrats were hamstrung in negotiations by their own previously
enthusiastic support for deportations and border enforcement. Before Trump
made the issue partisan by demanding a wall during his presidential
campaign, both parties eagerly spent billions to militarize the southern
border.
For decades, both parties have built up the deportation [machine] without
question, and this deal represents the enforcement-only status quo that
Washington has been stuck in for too long, said Greisa Martinez Rosas,
deputy executive director of United We Dream and a recipient of Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. On Wednesday, activists from United
We Dream, which advocates for immigrants who arrived in the United States as
children, occupied a portion of the Cannon House Office Building.
This was an old-fashioned shakedown Trump threatened to shut down the
government again unless Congress gave him and his deportation force more
cash to execute their racist vision of mass deportation, and while Democrats
gave him the money, immigrant families will pay the price, Rosas said.
One senior Democratic aide, who was close to the negotiations but not
authorized to speak publicly, said that the alternative to the deal that was
struck was a continuing resolution, a temporary funding measure that would
keep the system running as is. That meant that either way, there would be a
further expansion of beds. Thats the best argument, he said.
