1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

Please declare your support for HR 7743, Chellie Pingree's STOP ICE INTIMIDATION ACT. Please sign on as a cosponsor, declare your support for this bill, and vote for it when it reaches the floor. American public opinion has turned against Trump's punitive and unamerican immigration policies. We do not want our neighbors to be kidnapped, we do not want immigrants who came by a legal route to be betrayed, and we say NO to the terrorising, law-breaking and anti-constitutional activities of ICE. We do not want tentacular ICE surveillance to be used to chill, intimidate, and punish Americans who protest and dissent. ICE has been aptly compared to slave patrols and Hitler's Gestapo. ICE has shot citizens at point blank range, defied habeas corpus, subjected children to terror, caused deaths in custody. And lied. But alongside these and other abuses, ICE is developing and deploying surveillance and biometrics in chilling ways, with an agenda that violates our founding principles-- liberty, free speech and freedom of thought and expression. Pingree's press release explains: "The Stop ICE Intimidation Act blocks funding for expanded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surveillance tools and staffing until the agency fully discloses how it uses databases and facial recognition, who it targets, how long it keeps data, and whether it complies with constitutional protections and local laws. It also freezes ICE's Clearview Al until until Congress receives clear assurances that bystanders, observers, and protestors are not swept into the enforcement dragnet. When a federal agent can photograph someone's license plate, add them to a database, and label them a 'domestic terrorist' simply for filming ICE officers, we've crossed a dangerous line." Congress needs to protect our rights; ICE needs to be reined in now. This bill is an important, necessary start. I hope I can count on you to protect our constitutional rights and put the brakes on on ICE.