WASHINGTON, D.C. – FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement today after U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, the Ranking Member of the DHS Appropriations Sub-committee, sent letters to more than 20 jurisdictions that are potential sites of warehouse detention centers:
“These ICE mega-warehouse jails, many of which would be larger than any single jail in the United States, are a central pillar of this administration’s all-of-government approach to expanding its ability to arrest and deport immigrants. If this massive expansion is allowed, it will inevitably criminalize many others. At a time when Americans are focused on rising costs, spending tens of billions more for ICE jails is absolutely the wrong approach.
“We’re grateful to Senator Murphy for his leadership in sending letters to these jurisdictions so that they understand the deep and lasting consequences that will come from beginning to construct these mega jails. This is exactly the sort of common-sense approach we’re thankful to see from a Ranking Member.
“The administration’s efforts to use warehouses and industrial spaces as large-scale detention centers are deeply unpopular. That is evident from the pushback in red, blue, and purple jurisdictions across the country – from Mississippi and Tennessee, to Utah and Georgia, from rural to suburban areas, from big cities to small towns. This past Saturday, there were more than 200 events across the country protesting this explosion of immigrant detention beds.
“This letter makes clear that any jurisdiction that allows these massive jails is likely to find itself not only warehousing thousands of human beings in awful conditions, but will find itself with years and years of ongoing substantial negative fiscal, public health, economic, and community consequences.
“Last summer, in a party-line vote, ICE and CBP were given an unprecedented one-time surge in funding. Now, nearly every week we are seeing more questions raised about the contracts and legality of these processes, alongside ongoing concerns about due process violations and unsafe conditions in existing ICE facilities. As this letter points out, jurisdictions should assume they’ll bear deep costs if they enable this administration’s efforts to increase the number of detention beds by tens of thousands in the next few months.”
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