Washington, DC – SEARAC strongly opposes this week’s Senate bill that would expand detention and deportation, enact harmful border policies, and effectively dismantle the US asylum system. In exchange for funding for international assistance, the bill includes unrelated immigration policy changes that would irreparably damage the United State’s ability to offer relief from violence and safe haven to vulnerable people and their families. The bill also includes the largest appropriation of funding for ICE detention and surveillance operations to date.
“The provisions in this bill include unconscionable attacks on immigrants and refugees,” said Quyên Đinh, Executive Director at SEARAC. “As refugees who came to the United States to escape war, violence, and persecution, Southeast Asian Americans (SEAAs) know firsthand the critical, life-saving importance of a functional and humane asylum system. With this bill, our elected officials are choosing to turn their backs on hundreds of thousands of people and entire families seeking refuge, instead of providing them safe haven and protection. Furthermore, the drastic expansion of immigration enforcement will devastate immigrant and refugee communities, including the approximately 15,000 SEAA community members who remain impacted by this country’s unjust deportation laws despite their refugee backgrounds; this bill will only serve to further displace and separate SEAAs from their families and communities. SEARAC denounces this bill, and we urge the Senate to vote against it.”
Take Action
Members of Congress need to hear from you!
- Contact your legislators to urge them to REJECT this attack on immigrants and refugees:
- Learn more about the Senate funding bill by checking out these analyses:
- National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC)
- American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)
- Read SEARAC’s previous statement on this funding negotiation
