1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to take action to end the inhumane and fiscally irresponsible practice of detaining non-citizens in our immigration system. The current approach fails both moral and economic tests while producing no meaningful improvement in public safety or immigration enforcement. The United States currently operates the largest immigration detention system in the world, holding tens of thousands of people daily at an average cost exceeding $140 per person per day. This translates to billions of taxpayer dollars annually spent on a system that separates families, traumatizes children, and subjects vulnerable individuals to substandard medical care and dangerous conditions. Many detainees are asylum seekers fleeing persecution or individuals with deep community ties who pose no flight risk or public safety threat. Alternatives to detention have proven both more humane and dramatically more cost-effective. Community-based programs using case management and monitoring technology achieve compliance rates above 95 percent while costing a fraction of detention, often less than $10 per day. These programs allow individuals to remain with their families, maintain employment, and access legal counsel while their cases proceed, all while ensuring they appear for immigration proceedings. The fiscal argument alone demands reconsideration. At a time when constituents face real needs in healthcare, education, and infrastructure, spending billions on unnecessary detention represents a profound misallocation of public resources. The human cost is even greater. Detention causes documented psychological harm, particularly to children, and has resulted in preventable deaths due to inadequate medical care. I urge you to support legislation that would limit immigration detention to individuals who genuinely pose a flight risk or public safety concern, expand alternatives to detention programs, and ensure humane treatment and due process for all individuals in immigration proceedings. This approach protects both our values and our fiscal responsibility to constituents.