Today:
[Jersey]-
Last week, mounting pressure from thousands of activists like you forced President Trump to reopen the government with a temporary funding bill. But make no mistake: Trump will keep fighting for his border wall and for more funding for his detention and deportation force. To get his way, he's even threatening to shut down the government again or declare a national emergency.
Right now the ball is in the House's court. Your representatives are currently negotiating a new funding deal, and we must stop any attempts to give DHS a raise.
Call Congress now: No border wall, no more money for Homeland Security to abuse and terrorize immigrants.
I've been in court fighting family separation and the asylum ban, so I know firsthand that the department responsible for these cruel policies, DHS, does not deserve the unprecedented raise that Trump wants to give it with the next funding bill he signs. He's digging in his heels, so we have to demand that Congress cut DHS's massive budget.
Thanks for staying in this fight,
Lee
Hi [Jersey],
Today, 800,000 federal government workers and countless contractors are wrestling with the fallout of the longest government shutdown in history. On Friday, President Trump reopened the government without his border wall. Now we have three weeks before the current funding runs out to ensure the government stays funded – but with no money for a wall or a raise for Trump's detention and deportation force.
Let's not forget how we got into this mess: Trump's desire to implement unconscionable, inhumane, and illegal immigration policies. He created a crisis at the border with his own policies that target asylum seekers. A wall and more border militarization won't fix it.
I witnessed the crisis firsthand a few weeks ago when I traveled to Tijuana, Mexico. Because in order to win this fight, we must confront the realities of Trump's anti-immigrant agenda. Read about the real problems at the border – all consequences of the administration's own policies.
The Trump administration is violating U.S. and international human rights law by denying asylum seekers entry. As a result, migrants who are fleeing persecution and violence must wait in Mexico in cities like Tijuana. Many stay in overcrowded shelters, where a thin plastic sheet is the only barrier protecting them from dirt floors. Those who can't find a space in a shelter live in tent encampments on the street. Respiratory illness, chicken pox, and other sicknesses run rampant as a result of people sleeping outside for months. And as children wait for asylum, cartels prey on them – kidnapping, extorting, torturing and murdering them.
These conditions become worse as the backlog of migrants seeking refuge grows – a backlog that the Trump administration has created as it continues to illegally deny people's right to claim asylum. The administration can fix this problem by reversing its own anti-asylum policies – not by building a wall, and not by giving any more money to ICE or CBP.
As Trump insists on ineffective solutions like a wall and jailing an unprecedented 52,000 immigrants per day, we must confront the real crisis on the border and the policies that manufactured it. When we call on our members of Congress again, we'll remember what we're fighting for.
[Jersey], we'll keep challenging Trump's anti-asylum policies in the courts. But it's activists like you who made Trump change course on Friday and reopen the government without getting his border wall. And it's activists like you who will make sure Trump never gets his wall, more money for his detention and deportation force, or gets away with any of his inhumane, illegal immigration policies.
Thanks for your support,
Lee Gelernt
Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project
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