This Thanksgiving, many families will gather with an empty seat at the table, missing someone who is behind a wall.

Our country’s mass incarceration crisis has resulted in 50% of adults having had an immediate family member incarcerated. Half.

Growing up with an incarcerated parent, I can only imagine what my childhood could have been like if my father’s substance use disorder had been met with compassion and care rather than criminalization and incarceration. We would’ve gotten more time together — more family meals, more holidays, more invaluable years.

I’m proud to share that my father is healthy, he is thriving, and he has gone on to make great contributions to our society as an accomplished author and professor of journalism. But I am not proud that those contributions had to be delayed because our criminal legal system is focused more on replicating hurt and harm instead of rehabilitating productive members of society.

This is personal for me, and my story is hardly an anomaly. So before President Biden leaves office, I’m urging him to seize the limited window of time he has left to use his executive clemency powers to address our country’s mass incarceration crisis — a crisis that disproportionately affects people of color.

My colleagues and I sent an official letter urging that President Biden use his clemency power to reunite families, address longstanding injustices in our legal system, and help broad classes of people and cases, including:

• The elderly and chronically ill
• Those on death row
• People with unjustified sentencing disparities, and
• Women who were punished for defending themselves against their abusers

Clemency is a powerful tool, and President Biden has already used it to pardon people convicted of simple marijuana possession and LGBTQ+ former servicemembers, which has had life-changing impacts.

We are bracing ourselves for an incoming administration that is hell-bent on doing more harm than healing. Donald Trump infamously purchased a full page ad in the New York Times calling for the execution of the Central Park Five, who have since been exonerated. He used the federal death penalty to carry out an unprecedented execution spree in the final months of his first presidency. And Project 2025 calls for the Department of Justice to do “everything possible” to execute the individuals currently on federal death row.

We must do everything — everything — in our power to save lives while we still can. President Biden was elected with a mandate to lead with compassion and change lives for the better, and today he has the power to do so right now.

I’m going to do everything I can to fight for this — for young children longing to hug their grandparents, for people who have taken responsibility for their mistakes, and for those who simply were never given a fair chance. If you’re able to pitch in a small-dollar donation today to our campaign, you’ll help make this critical work happen. Thank you.

Onward,

Ayanna