ACLU Urges Senate Not to Sacrifice Immigrant Families or U.S. Legal Commitments in Reconciliation Bill 

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to U.S. Democratic senators today, urging them to vote against anticipated anti-immigration amendments to the FY 2022 budget reconciliation legislation package, known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The package, which is slated for debate this week and will include a vote-a-rama, contains provisions to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs and address climate change.

In the letter, Anu Joshi, deputy director of ACLU’s Equality Division, urges senators to reject poison pills that “would sacrifice immigrants, who help fuel our economy and contribute to American life, and fight to pass a clean package that upholds our nation’s values and legal commitments.”

Key amendments the ACLU urges senators to oppose include:

• Forcing the Biden administration to keep in place Title 42, which has exacerbated problems at the border and inflicted suffering — including kidnapping, rapes, and hunger — on migrant families and children.
• Increasing mandatory immigration detention, which would needlessly jail more people who don’t pose a threat to communities or flight risk at enormous taxpayer expense.
• Undermining access to asylum, including attempts to reinstitute the Trump administration's so-called “Migrant Protection Protocols”" (MPP) and “metering” — practices that forced tens of thousands of individuals and families to remain in Mexico for months or years in makeshift encampments and shelters without access to sufficient food, water, and medical care.
• Increased funding for CBP or ICE, both of which are already overfunded and overstaffed, with funding streams that disproportionately support enforcement and surveillance while humanitarian needs go under-funded.
• Funding for border wall or barrier construction, which would further destroy the borderlands and harm millions of people who call the region home.
• Reduction in protections for unaccompanied children, who are extremely vulnerable and entitled to due process and other vital protections.

The letter, with a fill list of recommendations, is online here:

https://www.aclu.org/letter-democratic-senators-vote-no-anti-immigrant-a...