WASHINGTON, D.C. – FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement today after the U.S. Senate released legislative text of the reconciliation bill:

“This week's bill text would provide over $70 billion more in new appropriations to ICE and CBP on top of the roughly $171 billion provided to ICE and CBP just last year — of which these agencies retain approximately $125 billion to $150 billion in unspent funds from last year's reconciliation legislation. There is no policy, budgetary, or operational case for this additional funding. The result would be a quarter trillion dollars for ICE and CBP over the next three years, at a time when the administration’s own detention and enforcement expansion is already facing massive opposition from voters. 

 “These funds would supercharge an already out-of-control system, pushing hundreds of billions into ICE and CBP. At a time when disapproval for this administration’s ICE actions remain at an all-time high, voters are outraged to see cuts to health care being used to further finance hundreds of billions to terrorize communities instead of focusing on the cost of living. 

“When voters have seen how the past reconciliation funds have been spent — from contracts with allegations of corruption to mega warehouse jails to the killings and violence in Minneapolis — they have recoiled. But over a hundred billion remains unaccounted for. Where did it go? If they have it, why give them more?

“The American public has been clear. ICE's out-of-control operations — including warrantless arrests, raids at daycares, schools, churches, and other sensitive locations, and racial profiling are deeply unpopular. Voters do not want more money sent to ICE and CBP. In what is likely the last opportunity for Members to pass legislation this year, it is frankly shocking on policy and political grounds to use reconciliation to not address the cost of living or reverse last year’s cuts to Medicaid, and instead pass such a deeply harmful and unpopular piece of legislation.”