Claw Back the $170B Slush Fund for ICE and CBP

In July of last year, congressional Republicans passed H.R. 1, a budget bill that slashed billions in funding for social safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP while allocating $170 billion to immigration enforcement activities over the next four years. H.R. 1 made Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the highest-funded US law enforcement agency, granting the agency over $73 billion in funds over the next four years. This increase, which tripled ICE’s annual budget for immigration enforcement and detention activities, omitted corresponding funding increases for immigration courts and other services that protect detainees’ due process and basic human rights.

Empowered by this massive slush fund, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have escalated their abuses rapidly, with ICE officers executing nonviolent protestors on video, entering homes without judicial warrants, and abusing and outright disappearing detainees. Despite the Trump administration’s constant claims to be arresting and deporting “the worst of the worst,” internal ICE data leaked to the CATO Institute late last year revealed that 73% of ICE detainees had no criminal conviction, and only 5% had a violent criminal conviction.

Enough is enough. Congress must immediately claw back the tens of billions of dollars being used to terrorize and murder people across the United States at the expense of government programs that keep our communities safe.