In response to Donald Trump returning to the White House, Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network offered the following statement:
“Let us be clear: Trump’s return to the White House, and his unprecedented mass deportation and immigration detention agenda, will be catastrophic for the American people. During Trump’s first term his administration pursued draconian anti-immigrant policies that emboldened and normalized violence and racism, separating families, caging children, and detaining record numbers of people in a massive expansion of the inhumane Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention system.
Yet we find solace in the millions of voices resisting Trump’s agenda of hate. We remain inspired by the strength in communities across the country uniting for the rights and dignity of immigrants and power in the immigrant people who must unfairly face the immoral and heartless attacks of the Trump regime. As an organization that deeply cares for the dignity, freedom, and safety of all people we are committed to fighting tooth and nail against the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda and the racist ideology at its core.
We have been here before, and we know what is coming. Immigration detention expansion, including open-air detention camps, ideological screenings for visa applicants and revocation of status for millions of documented immigrants would be devastating not only for immigrant communities but for everyone in the U.S. We expect swift and cruel enforcement tactics designed to create a media spectacle that will dehumanize and criminalize our immigrant family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors while stripping away the already limited protections people have to live and work in the United States without fear of being targeted, detained, and exiled from their loved ones.
We are bracing for the suffering ahead while knowing that we still have power.
Despite Trump’s return, the fight to dismantle immigration detention and build local economies that don’t rely on incarceration has won notable victories. Communities are moving forward to limit the ability of local governments and private prison corporations to create or renew ICE detention contracts. Detention Watch Network’s members and communities nationwide have successfully fought to end detention contracts and make sure people are free to rejoin their loved ones as they fight their immigration case. We will not allow the Trump administration or anyone else, including Democratic leaders, drown out our vision towards more humane and just immigration policy.
Throughout this election cycle Democratic leaders as a whole have been woefully silent on immigration, or worse, have enabled the manufactured chaos over “border security.” The narrative which dangerously equates people moving to the U.S. with national security concerns, willfully plays into right-wing ideologies that have caused irreversible harm to immigrants. This disproportionately targets Black and brown people while blaming them for economic scarcity. We are here because our leaders have failed us. As a nation, we cannot continue with this dehumanizing status quo.
Members of Congress and elected leaders at all levels cannot afford to remain silent – the consequences are dire for immigrants and our democracy as a whole. Rather, in the face of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, they must act and be unwavering in their support of immigrants, by:
- Denying Trump the resources he needs to carry out his mass deportation agenda including by cutting funds to ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
- Urging the Biden administration to shut down ICE detention centers and immediately halting all expansion efforts before he leaves office
- Passing federal legislation that protects immigrants and reject the harmful border bill
- Cutting state and local partnerships with ICE
- Passing pro-immigrant state legislation including banning immigration detention
- Opposing state level anti-immigrant laws
Instead of taxpayer dollars going to support cruel, unnecessary, and ineffective policies trying to deter immigration and arrest, jail, and exclude people, we could redirect taxpayer dollars into education, housing for all income levels, and healthcare that makes life better for everyone in our communities, including people who are immigrants.
We are resolute in our commitment to fight Trump’s mass detention and deportation agenda. In doing so, we are fundamentally committed to supporting the local community groups across the country that are the first line of defense in keeping people safe.”
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.