Washington, DC — The Defund Hate Coalition issued the following statement in response to President Trump’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2020:
“Trump’s budget doubles down on his hateful, anti-immigrant agenda. Notably, the budget calls for a massive slush fund amidst his fabricated national emergency declaration, providing further evidence that the Administration opposes constitutional checks and balances and is attempting to concentrate power—particularly over federal resources—in the Executive Branch.
This budget dramatically expands the deportation force, surveillance dragnet, wasteful and harmful border wall and unjust immigration detention system. As Congress evaluates the federal budget, the fight to prevent Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda from being funded is more crucial than ever before. That this request also includes thoughtless across-the-board cuts to nearly all non-defense spending further reveals that this is in no way a moral budget that prioritizes meaningful investments in community stability or vibrancy.
For far too long, our representatives have said they care about immigrant communities while simultaneously funding aggressive immigration enforcement, border barrier construction, and deadly immigration jails. Members of Congress must fight to protect the immigrant community from deportation by rejecting Trump’s budget proposal immediately and instead call for significant cuts in funding to ICE and CBP and meaningful restrictions on their authority to reallocate funds Congress appropriates.”
Trump’s budget also calls for:
- $2.7 billion to massively expand the immigration detention system to 54,000 people detained per day—including a shameful 300 percent increase for family detention. This is on top of Trump expanding the detention system by more than 40 percent since he took office;
- A whopping $5 billion to build 200 miles more of Trump’s hateful border wall and $3.6 billion more in wall funding taken from the military budget;
- $506 million to hire and support 750 additional Border Patrol agents, 171 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and 1,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents;
- CBP and ICE are agencies notorious for their corruption and lack of accountability; $367 million in CBP surveillance technology and equipment, further militarizing the border region.
###
The #DefundHate campaign, composed of organizations representing directly impacted communities, faith leaders, and civil rights and immigrant rights advocates, is committed to divestment from agencies that tear apart our families and terrorize our communities. For too long, our representatives have said they care about our communities while simultaneously funding aggressive immigration enforcement and deadly immigration jails. They must be held accountable to keep their promises and stand with the immigrant community. We call on our members of Congress to say no and vote against wasting taxpayer dollars on an abusive and deadly immigration enforcement system. Instead, we want our tax dollars used to strengthen our families and communities by investing in education, housing, nutrition and health care programs that provide opportunity and increase well-being.