New marketing campaign calls on Congress to dismantle ICE, finish immigration detention, and assist the MELT ICE Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As we speak, Free Speech For Individuals introduced the launch of a brand new nationwide marketing campaign and web site calling for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the top of immigration imprisonment in america.
The marketing campaign features a public petition, instructional sources, and organizing instruments aimed toward mobilizing People to demand that Congress dismantle ICE and change it with immigration insurance policies that respect constitutional rights, human dignity, and democratic values.
“Twenty-four years in the past, Congress created a closely armed immigration enforcement company and positioned it below the direct management of the manager department,” stated John Bonifaz, President and co-founder of Free Speech For Individuals. “Within the years since, ICE has repeatedly been used to focus on a few of our nation’s most weak communities whereas eroding basic civil liberties. Our democracy can’t tolerate a federal company that operates with this stage of energy and impunity.”
Created in 2002, ICE has grown into an unlimited enforcement equipment with tens of 1000’s of brokers and a detention system that depends closely on privately run immigration prisons. Free Speech For Individuals argues that the company’s construction—combining civil immigration enforcement with counterterrorism authority—has made it significantly weak to political abuse.
The group warns that below the administration of Donald Trump, ICE has more and more been used to intimidate communities, suppress dissent, and goal political opponents.
“ICE has been remodeled right into a political weapon,” the group stated in its marketing campaign assertion. “Brokers carrying masks and carrying weapons have been deployed to grab individuals of their properties, workplaces, and communities. Detention has grow to be a mechanism of punishment, not a lawful software of immigration administration.”
As a part of the marketing campaign, Free Speech For Individuals is directing supporters to induce Congress to assist the MELT ICE Act, just lately launched by Representatives Delia C. Ramirez and Yvette Clarke. The laws would remove funding for immigration detention and monitoring packages run by the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety, terminate present detention contracts, and redirect billions of {dollars} presently spent on immigration enforcement towards community-based companies corresponding to housing, healthcare, and authorized assist.
The laws would additionally prohibit new detention contracts, require the phase-out of digital monitoring packages corresponding to ankle displays, and redirect ICE funding to neighborhood organizations that present wrap-around companies for immigrant communities.
Advocates say the invoice affords a concrete legislative pathway to dismantle the immigration detention system whereas investing sources in neighborhood security and stability.
As a part of the launch, Free Speech For Individuals is urging supporters throughout the nation to signal a public petition demanding that lawmakers abolish ICE and finish immigration imprisonment.
“ICE doesn’t serve the American individuals or the very best pursuits of our nation,” the marketing campaign states. “On this 24-year experiment, it has grow to be clear that the company shouldn’t be defending our democracy; it’s undermining it. It’s previous time for Congress to abolish ICE and put an finish to immigration detention.”
The Abolishing ICE marketing campaign will embody ongoing advocacy, public schooling, and grassroots organizing aimed toward constructing nationwide momentum for structural reform of the U.S. immigration enforcement system and advancing laws such because the MELT ICE Act.
Supporters can study extra and signal the petition on the marketing campaign web site.
