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Dear Friend,
DC’s status as a sanctuary city for immigrant families is under attack. In the DC budget that was introduced on Tuesday, Mayor Bowser snuck in legislation to repeal the District’s sanctuary city laws that were enacted in 2012 and strengthened in 2020.
Our sanctuary laws prohibit District agencies like MPD and the DC Jail from detaining and transferring DC residents to ICE without a judicial warrant. If these laws are repealed, our local government would become another arm of Trump’s deportation machine — turning over our own neighbors to ICE agents so they can be detained and deported. Repealing DC’s sanctuary laws would shatter community trust in District government, spread fear, rip apart families, and make all of us less safe.
Immigrant communities are calling on the DC Council to remove this dangerous provision from the DC budget. They are also asking DC residents to sign up to speak at a critical DC Council hearing on Monday, June 2 in support of maintaining DC’s sanctuary protections. The deadline to sign up is tomorrow morning — Friday, May 30 at 9:30am — so please act now. |
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Learn more about the attack on Sanctuary Values Act and notes for testifying here.
If you are not available to testify at Monday’s hearing virtually or in person at the Wilson Building, you can still submit your comments in writing at this link by selecting “Submit Testimony” on the top right corner. It only takes five minutes, but it makes a difference.
And finally, please contact your Ward Councilmember, At Large Councilmembers, Committee Chairwoman Brooke Pinto, and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and urge them to remove this anti-immigrant provision from the DC budget.
We need to make it abundantly clear to every Councilmember that we will not tolerate our local government helping ICE disappear DC residents from our communities.
Please make your voice heard. |
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