As Congress is considering a funding bill, Amnesty International USA’s mobile ad truck rolled through the streets of Washington, D.C., sending a clear message to Senators: Not another dime for human rights violations – vote NO on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding.
We launched the ads to call attention to the devastating deadly consequences of ICE and Border Patrol operations across the country, including most recently the killings of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and Keith Porter. These incidents show that ICE and Border Patrol are terrorizing communities, using deadly force, and acting without accountability.
The mobile ads in D.C. reiterated the need to cut ICE funding and the urgency for change. After sustained public pressure, the Senate voted down the DHS funding bill.
This result shows that our calls, emails, and organizing are working. Collective action works.
While the Senate’s decision to vote down the DHS funding bill is a victory, now is the time to keep the pressure up.
Keep the Pressure Going: Tell Lawmakers to Defund ICE!
Lawmakers are already preparing new proposals that could once again allocate money to ICE and Border Patrol and strengthen their reach. Our communities deserve better than endless militarization, mass detention, and violent enforcement tactics.
We need Senators to adopt these clear priorities in any funding legislation:
- No DHS bill should move forward without real cuts to ICE and Border Patrol.
- Not another dollar for ICE or Border Patrol until Congress completes a full investigation into recent killings and use of force, including deadly force, by federal civil immigration officials into whether the administration has targeted cities for major enforcement operations on the basis of racial profiling or political retribution, and the deaths of Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Keith Porter, and Silverio Villegas González.
- Not another dollar for ICE or Border Patrol until they are out of Minneapolis, Maine, and all of the communities where they have surged forces.
- No enforcement at schools, hospitals, places of worship, or other sensitive locations.
- An end to family detention and private detention contracts.
- Real accountability for abuses by federal officers, including ending qualified immunity.
- No expansion of mass enforcement operations targeting refugees and immigrant communities.
Call Your Senators Today
- Call now to be connected to your senators and follow the guidance below (you can even read it like a script) to urge them to use their legislative power to stop any new funding for DHS, ICE, and CBP and demand real accountability:
- Dial 347-514-6400.
- Identify yourself as a constituent and tell them what city or town you’re calling from. If you don’t feel safe sharing your last name, don’t.
- Say that you’re deeply concerned about CBP and ICE’s dangerous, militarized enforcement—especially after the recent killings by federal agents in Minneapolis and a two-decade record of 32 people dying in detention last year.
- Share that you know that Congress is renegotiating the Homeland Security funding bill right now, and that you urge the senator to demand cuts to ICE and Border Patrol. Not one more dime!
- Make it clear that we don’t want more masked agents in our communities, terrorizing our family, friends, and neighbors, and locking them up without due process. We need to rein in the Trump administration’s reckless abuses of the rights of immigrants and communities under the guise of immigration enforcement.