DHS Funding Bill Passes With Harmful Immigration Family Detention Provisions

March 3, 2015 3:13 pm

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WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives passed a spending bill today to fund the Department of Homeland Security through September 30. While the spending bill does not include amendments seeking to defund the president’s executive actions on immigration, it does include hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain the operation and expansion of family detention facilities across the country.

Joanne Lin, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, had this reaction:

Thankfully, the harmful amendments were stripped, but the bill still allocates over $362 million to imprison thousands of mothers and children fleeing domestic abuse and lethal violence in Central America. This is a very troubling development. Mandatory detention of people awaiting their immigration proceedings violates the right to due process and is inefficient and costly. Instead of funding immigration detention, Congress should appropriate money for community-based alternatives to detention with case management services, which have been proven to be effective and cost-efficient.

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