President Trump’s plans for mass deportations and cruelty at the border will be catastrophic for those seeking safety and communities across the United States.
We cannot allow the continued weaponization of people’s fears about physical and economic security to justify abusive policies and harm to immigrants and people seeking safety at the border and in cities and towns across the U.S.
There is a better way that can both create order and fairness in the immigration system and uplift communities so everyone can thrive – regardless of whether you have been in the U.S. for generations or are newly-arrived to seek safety and security.
The United States can respect human rights, treat all people with dignity, and have an immigration system that works for all of us.
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Amnesty International strongly opposes any funding package in Congress that funds increased detention and deportations, border walls or barriers, or jumpstarts the harmful and xenophobic policies proposed by President Trump.
Communities across the country are struggling to make ends meet, and they deserve better than their leaders investing billions of their hard-earned tax dollars on expensive and cruel deportation and deterrence efforts rather than policies and programs that will help all our communities thrive.
They have seen billions of taxpayer dollars invested in walls, militarism, and surveillance in their communities and had their communities shaken by hate-fueled violence, all the while left to organize themselves to welcome the newcomers arriving at their doorsteps in beautiful, dignified ways.
Instead of fighting over a piece of the pie, we can make the whole pie bigger—and our immigrant friends and neighbors, current and future, are part of that solution. That looks like investing in education, housing, climate-resilient infrastructure and health care. When taxpayer dollars are invested in helping communities thrive, we have more than enough resources for everyone to live a fulfilled life.
Immigration detention in the U.S. is unnecessary, rife with systemic abuses, arbitrary, and illegal under international human rights law. Detaining people solely on account of their immigration status constitutes arbitrary detention, a violation of international law. And the detention of families violates the U.S.’s obligations toward the treatment of immigrant children. Fearmongering false narratives about migrant crime and invasions at the border advances policies grounded in white supremacist ideas at the expense of immigrants and people in search of safety in the U.S.
We all care about the safety and security of our families and communities. Deporting millions of our immigrant friends and neighbors does nothing to make our communities safe. Trump plans to target people already living in the U.S. and working in areas like agriculture, construction, and healthcare to support their families and make our communities better.
Instead of spending billions of taxpayer dollars on mass detention and deportation, we should invest that money in systems that benefit all our communities like housing, healthcare climate resilience, education, and infrastructure to help strengthen our communities. We need real solutions that respect human rights, address root causes of forced migration, allow for safe and orderly pathways to safety, and meet the needs of communities at the border and in the interior of the United States.
The U.S.’s border policies shamefully rely on deterrence, externalization, and incarceration to punish people for seeking safety, putting people’s lives in jeopardy. The continued focus on punishing people who move to seek a new, better, or safer life is not only cruel, it is ineffective and fuels our country’s reliance on mass incarceration that disproportionately targets Black and brown people.
Borderland communities are safe, vibrant, and full of the solutions to the issues facing their communities, issues beyond immigration and asylum, like access to healthcare, reproductive justice, housing, quality education, and more.
The United States must robustly fund the Shelter and Services Program that funds local governments and community organizations to provide immediate reception services to people seeking safety; expand the Case Management Pilot Program to provide a voluntary, case management program to people seeking safety; and establish and fund a Destination Reception Fund to send federal dollars to state, local, and tribal communities to establish and expand medium-term reception programs that promote self-sufficiency of newcomers and bolsters local capacity to ensure new and old community members have what they need to thrive.
The right to seek asylum is non-negotiable. People must have access to seek asylum regardless of how they enter the country, period. The United States has a moral and legal obligation to protect all people who seek safety in our country.
Seeking asylum at the U.S. Southern border is extraordinarily dangerous, and people wouldn’t make that dangerous trip if there were viable alternatives.
The United States, a country that was once seen as a beacon of humanitarian protection, is presenting a false choice to people fleeing for their lives and who are now at risk of kidnapping, extortion, and physical and sexual violence in Mexico: either remain in danger in Mexico for an indefinite period of time until their names are called for a lottery into the U.S., or escape the danger in Mexico and cross irregularly where they are more likely to be deported back anyway without due process.
Modernizing and investing in capacity at ports of entry allows people to walk up in a safe, orderly manner and be processed expeditiously, and stops forcing people to cross via dangerous routes at the hands of criminal actors.

We will not stop fighting to protect against communities being torn apart
We will need your activism, your membership, and your support to fuel this work so that we are the strongest we can possibly be.