1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to immediately move to claw back the $170 billion in funding allocated to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection through H.R. 1, which passed last July. This massive increase in immigration enforcement funding has empowered agencies to terrorize our communities while critical safety net programs were slashed. H.R. 1 made ICE the highest-funded US law enforcement agency, granting it over $73 billion over four years and tripling its annual budget for immigration enforcement and detention activities. Meanwhile, the same bill cut billions from Medicaid and SNAP, programs that actually support community safety and wellbeing. Notably, this enforcement funding increase included no corresponding increases for immigration courts or services that protect detainees' due process and basic human rights. Internal ICE data leaked to the CATO Institute late last year reveals that 73% of ICE detainees had no criminal conviction, and only 5% had a violent criminal conviction. This directly contradicts claims that enforcement targets "the worst of the worst." Instead, this funding enables documented abuses including ICE officers executing nonviolent protestors on video, entering homes without judicial warrants, and abusing and disappearing detainees. This is a misallocation of federal resources on a massive scale. We are spending tens of billions to fund agencies that terrorize communities rather than investing in programs that demonstrably improve public safety and economic security. The evidence shows this enforcement surge targets people who pose no threat while stripping resources from healthcare and food assistance. I urge you to take immediate action to claw back this $170 billion in immigration enforcement funding. Our communities deserve investments in programs that actually keep us safe, not agencies that abuse their power and violate human rights. Will you commit to supporting legislation to rescind this funding?