John, 

BREAKING: Free Speech For People endorses the abolition of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and calls for an end to immigration imprisonment.

Twenty-two years ago, Congress created a heavily armed militia, put it under the control of the President, and aimed it at some of our country’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities. And at every turn—as refugees die in detention, children are ripped from their parents’ arms, people are dragged from their homes and cars, protesters are beaten and imprisoned—Congress responds by increasing ICE’s budget and paying for more immigration prisons, most of which are run by private companies making hundreds of millions of dollars off the imprisonment of immigrants. And Donald Trump has now co-opted ICE into his own private army. They are wearing masks and carrying weapons to kidnap people for exercising their First Amendment rights, to break up immigrant-rich communities, to silence protests, and to target Trump’s political opponents.

Sign if you agree: ICE is violating our human and constitutional rights and must be abolished.

Congress justified ICE’s existence by claiming that the agency, its unconstitutional excesses, and the erosion of our civil liberties make our country safe from terrorism. They do not. ICE does not serve the American people or the best interests of our country. In this 22-year-long experiment, it has become clear that ICE is not protecting our country. It is violently undermining it. And it is past time for Congress to abolish ICE and put an end to immigration detention.

ICE’s structure and mission, which places total control in the hands of the executive branch and presumes that the enforcement of civil immigration policies is part of the United States’ counter-terrorism mandate, is ripe for abuse. And abuse is precisely what we have seen under the second Trump administration. ICE has turned itself and its bloated budget over to Trump, who is treating ICE as a private army whose enemies are Trump’s enemies, from immigrant-rich communities to political dissidents. Detention—long rife with human rights and civil liberty abuses—has become a weapon in Trump’s arsenal, a means of visiting harsh punishments on thousands of people for existing in this country, for speaking against Trump’s policies, for living in communities that vote against Trump and his allies. Both the agency and the system of detention undermine the United States’ security agenda, civil rights, and democratic values.

Read Free Speech For People's full statement here.

In solidarity,
Free Speech For People