Reconsider Funding for Costly and Ineffective Immigration Raids

As your constituent, I am asking you to move away from immigration enforcement that is shaped by arrest quotas and headlines rather than facts or the Constitution. We all agree that people who commit serious crimes should be removed. But national data shows that undocumented immigrants are arrested for violent and drug crimes at less than half the rate of U.S. citizens, and for property crimes at about a quarter of the rate. Multiple studies confirm that immigrants, including those without legal status, are less likely to commit crimes than the U.S. born. Despite this, in 2025 more than 80 percent of the people arrested during the D.C. “crime emergency” campaign had no prior criminal record, and many were arrested without warrants. This is not targeted public safety. It is enforcement theater that treats long time workers and parents as if they are dangerous when the evidence shows otherwise. This immigration theater is also extremely costly. Congress approved a 75 billion dollar enforcement package spread over four years and has now given Immigration and Customs Enforcement about 28.7 billion dollars for 2025. Another law passed this summer adds 45 billion dollars for new detention centers and nearly 30 billion dollars for expanded ICE enforcement, which triples ICE’s annual deportation budget. Immigration enforcement spending overall is higher than all state and local police spending in the United States. These dollars could support local law enforcement, schools, hospitals, and ports of entry that actually improve public safety and keep fentanyl out of our communities. Spending tens of billions on mass detention and broad raids that mostly catch noncriminals is neither fiscally conservative nor consistent with limited government or civil liberties. Undocumented immigrants are also deeply tied to the economic stability of the districts you represent. About 8.5 million undocumented workers are part of the U.S. labor force. They fill essential jobs in construction, food service, caregiving, agriculture, and manufacturing, where chronic shortages already exist. In 2022 undocumented workers paid roughly 96.7 billion dollars in federal, state, and local taxes. In 2023 undocumented households paid about 89.8 billion dollars in taxes and had around 299 billion dollars in spending power that supports local businesses and public services. When long time workers are removed in raids, families are separated, employers lose trusted staff, crime reporting falls because people are afraid to talk to police, and local economies are weakened. I urge you to reject blank check funding for mass detention and sweeping raids. Please support enforcement that focuses only on genuine public safety threats and advance legal pathways and due process focused reforms that strengthen our economy, respect constitutional rights, and protect the stability of families and communities.