Friend,

This July 4th, it’s clearer than ever that the United States has not lived up to its promise of equality and freedom for all. I’m deeply grateful to social movements that have brought us closer to that promise, and recommit to that work.

Frederick Douglass spoke out against the nation’s hypocrisy on July 4th, 1852, saying:

“Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? … What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham...your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery...”¹

In Douglass’s era, the U.S. system of policing had begun as slave patrols, hunting people who were searching for freedom. In the past 40 years, our prison industrial complex has grown exponentially. This July 4th, too many Black and brown people are locked up in cages across America, denied freedom and now also facing a death sentence from COVID-19.

Imprisoned and detained people have launched hunger strikes and other protests, demanding a response to health experts’ calls for wide scale releases from detention centers, jails, and prisons, which would prevent the rapid spreading of COVID-19 behind bars and reduce mass incarceration.

That’s why I’ve joined my colleagues Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Barbara Lee to introduce the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act, which would save lives by releasing people immediately for up to a year after the pandemic ends.

If you agree that the pandemic should not be a death sentence for incarcerated people, please add your name today to become a grassroots co-signer of the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act.

COVID-19 is ravaging jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers due to overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and a lack of adequate healthcare.

From mid-May to mid-June, the number of infected incarcerated people DOUBLED to around 70,000 known cases, and COVID-related deaths have skyrocketed by 73%.² (These are definitely undercounts, as many confinement facilities have refused to test even symptomatic people.) No wonder the top five U.S. clusters of the coronavirus are all in prisons and jails—and cases keep rising.

Many imprisoned people are also more susceptible to getting and dying from the virus: About 40% of the millions of incarcerated people in the U.S. suffer from a chronic health condition, and nearly 275,000 are aged 50 or older.³

That’s why the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act prioritizes releasing people who are medically vulnerable to COVID-19.

I’ve joined colleagues in pushing our Federal Bureau of Prisons to release people, but the vast majority of imprisoned people are held at the state and county level. So our new bill conditions federal funding on whether states release eligible incarcerated people, including those who are:

• Awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime (likely just can’t afford bail)
• In ICE detention
• Pregnant or primary caregivers
• Terminally ill, medically vulnerable to COVID-19 (including ages 55+), or have a disability
• Nearing the end of their sentences
• Serving misdemeanor sentences or possession/sale of a controlled substance
• Incarcerated due to technical violation of parole/probation or a bench warrant for arrest (often due to a missed court appearance)
• Status offenders (young people charged with an offense that would not be a crime if committed by an adult)

The time for national action is now. Become a grassroots co-signer of the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act today!

Incarcerating far more people than anywhere else in the world, the U.S. now has many more prison beds than hospital beds. This is specially alarming as hospitals that have been starved of funding are now overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.

Our hospital system is not prepared to meet the influx of need that grows the longer we keep people locked up in dangerous conditions. Nearly half a million workers pass through confinement facilities daily, in every county in the U.S.⁴ This makes jails and prisons “a key source of virus transmission that leaves all people less safe,” said Thea Sebastian, Policy Counsel for Civil Rights Corps, one of the groups in support of the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act.⁵

Through the pandemic and uprisings, more people are realizing that prisons and policing don’t keep us safe.

In fact, police departments across the country are using the pandemic as an excuse to terrorize Black and brown communities, already disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. As writer Kevin Rigby Jr. noted, the “selective enforcement of shelter-in-place and dispersal orders” is “not just uneven policing. This is about the enforcement of a social order that is white supremacist and anti-black.”⁶

This social order is now failing all of us during the pandemic, but especially the most marginalized among us. It’s definitely not keeping us safe or meeting our needs, such as quality healthcare, clean water and nutritious food, and housing.

Rather than reflect our needs, our government budgets demonstrate upside-down priorities.

In Michigan, where we have a dire shortage of healthcare providers and protective gear, a housing crisis, and a lack of access to clean water, our number one budget line-item is “corrections.”⁷ In Detroit, the Police Department budget is 8 times more than that of the Health Department.

We must address mass incarceration and protect our most vulnerable community members. Please show your support by joining as a grassroots co-signer of the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act.

The pandemic has also worsened our country’s cash bail crisis, which disproportionately harms Black people and other people of color. Right now, close to a million people are incarcerated who are legally innocent, waiting for trial because they can’t afford bail. And since the courts are closed because of the pandemic, trials are delayed and people are locked up for even longer.

"Cash bail is particularly cruel to people who are poor, and right now when so many people are losing their jobs or are out of work, family members might not have any resources to put toward a loved one’s bail," said Meredith Loomis Quinlan, Executive Co-Director of Michigan Liberation.⁸

Michigan Liberation, which supports the new legislation, has been on the frontlines of ending mass incarceration and the unjust practice of cash bail, including through mutual aid work. During the pandemic, they’ve been working with other groups in Michigan’s 13th district to bail people out of jail and then to provide ongoing support, with needed services and items like food and clothes.

One such person is Ivy Cross, who reunited with her family a week before Mother’s Day after Michigan Liberation paid her bail:

The Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act is just the start of a goal to end mass incarceration. We must move toward a system that values human life, health, and well-being.

As Amanda Alexander, Founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Justice Center said: “we cannot return to ‘business as usual’ because even before the pandemic, we had a state of emergency.”⁹

We cannot return to normalcy, back to a system set up to value profits over people—and to value some lives more than others. We can’t continue a system that prioritizes institutions of state violence and punishment over life-affirming institutions of care.

Right now, we have an opening for bold and necessary action. We have momentum, but in order to have any hope of passing this critical bill, we need to demonstrate mass support.

Please add your name today to become a grassroots co-signer of the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act.

In solidarity,

Rashida