Loading....
Since February, both chambers of Congress have been negotiating budget proposals that will advance a misguided and counterproductive immigration agenda; looking to supercharge roundup, detention and deportation capacity by taking healthcare and food assistance – basic needs spending – away from everyday, average Americans and funding tax cuts for the wealthy and billionaires.
It's a bad deal for America: for our economy and society, for our immigrant neighbors; for both the un-documented, and legally allowed.
The House proposal threatens immigrant communities, expands funding for mass deportation, and excludes millions of children from the Child Tax Credit (CTC) just because they have immigrant parents. It will have huge ramifications for every single American, jeopardizing their ability to support themselves, laying the foundation for tax reductions for billionaires, and militarizing neighborhoods across the U.S. It will reshape the way States provide public health and community services.
Right now, the Senate is marking up their reconciliation proposal in reply to the House version which passed by a party line vote. Unless changed by the Senate, followed by hard-nosed engagement of Moderates in both chambers; the House package will profoundly harm at-risk and vulnerable populations, especially immigrant communities. If nothing else, we need to mitigate the worst harms of the House bill.
As proposed, the current package would:
- Exclude 4.5 million citizen and legal permanent resident children from the Child Tax Credit if one parent does not have a Social Security number.
- Cut legal immigrants from Medicare benefits (Medicare Rights) even if they’ve paid into that system for a decade or more, targeting millions of immigrants and their families.
- Require huge fees from immigrants seeking legal status or trying to reunite with unaccompanied children--even if they are refugees and asylum seekers.
- Supercharge harm to immigrant communities (NILC) by funding escalated roundup and detention capacity for unprecedented "border hardening and massive deportation enforcement." (WOLA)
As Unitarian Universalists, we view immigration as a moral issue; and have vowed to protect the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. This isn’t just about a bad deal. It’s a cruel and heartless attack on millions of hardworking families who are part of the fabric of our communities, and an effort to criminalize and other our neighbors. Actually, it's the essence of what Rev. William Barber, II and the Poor People's Campaign: NCMR described as "federal policy violence."
Send our message to your Senators now, please don’t fail to respond. Unity of purpose in the minority and a slim few, principled actors in the majority, can make a difference. ACT NOW!
Why You Should Act:
This effort is a blank check of up to $200 billion to President Trump to fund his mass deportation agenda at the cost of defunding crucial and lifesaving programs that millions of Americans across the country depend on such as Medicaid, Medicare, the ACA, and SNAP. This budget resolution will allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to detention and interior enforcement, including raids and deportations, while profoundly cutting vital programs for everyday Americans—going deeper with cuts than most voters imagined possible or prudent. The budget strategy being deployed by Congressional Leadership will profoundly harm our national well-being and is delivered directly to all 435 congressional districts, 50 states across the U.S.
As Unitarian Universalists, we believe that all people have inherent worth and dignity and should be treated with respect and compassion and that they have fundamental civil and human rights as well as protections under U.S. and international law. Therefore, UUSJ opposes the administration’s approach to immigration, particularly family separations and mass deportations, and especially at the cost of needed human service programs.
Also see, June 4th, NEW POLL: Republicans’ Billionaire Tax Scam Toxically Unpopular with American Voters (Families Over Billionaires) and New Polling: Voters Oppose the Republican Budget Bill (Hart Research, Families Over Billionaires, CAP Action, and Protect Our Care)
Share Link: https://bit.ly/StopCriminalizing
This Budget Resolution would:
- Multiply ICE’s Deportation Capacity. In FY2024, Congress appropriated over $9.1 billion to ICE, with $8.7 billion of it directed to the agency’s core operations, the Senate budget resolution would allow up to $350 billion to target families and workers. Congress will be signing a blank check to give ICE added capacity to meet arbitrary quotas, target individuals in churches, schools, courthouses, grocery stores and conduct home raids resulting in entire families being deported.
-
This funding will make more vulnerable children more susceptible to prolonged detention and deportation. Meanwhile, the Trump administration initially halted funding for organizations that offer legal services for unaccompanied children; then funding was reinstated. This "halt" or cut would have kept children from receiving direct legal representation, health services, and other critical services. We worry this funding cut could happen again.
-
This funding will broaden ICE’s deportation power by giving ICE agents power to indiscriminately target immigrants – which the data is already bearing out. ICE has expanded the expedited removal authority to effectively nationalize Arizona and Texas’ “show me your papers” laws, and encouraging racial profiling.
-
Vast Expansion of Detention Capacity. In his FY2021 budget request (the last of his first term), Trump requested funding to support 60,000 beds. Reconciliation and transfers of funding from the Department of Defense could allow his administration to easily meet (or exceed) this figure. In fact, The Washington Post reported that the administration plans to open four new 10,000 bed detention facilities, as well as 14 smaller sites with space for 700 to 1,000 people.
-
The administration is using military assets and bases including Guantánamo Bay, dramatically expanding deportation capacity. Trump’s use of large-scale detention facilities on military bases would exacerbate the well-documented abuse inherent to the detention system.
-
More Deportation Officers. Today, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) has a workforce of over 8,500 employees, including more than 6,100 deportation officers and 750 enforcement removal assistants. Reconciliation funds could allow the President to hire over 10,000 more deportation officers
This budget resolution will negatively impact Americans’ lives, our communities and the economy while doing next to nothing for real public safety.
- Mass deportation fears are forcing people to withdraw from public life to avoid potential encounters with immigration authorities. This climate of fear isolates entire communities, eroding trust in institutions and creating long-term social disengagement that affects not only unauthorized immigrants but also legal residents and U.S. citizens.
- Businesses that rely on immigrant labor—such as construction, agriculture, and service industries—are facing workforce shortages as employees become reluctant to travel to and from work. Investment giant Goldman Sachs has cautioned that Trump’s immigration restrictionism could cost the U.S. GDP between 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points (for context, U.S. GDP growth was 2.8% in 2024).
- Mixed status families that form the backbone of countless American communities will be devastated. Deporting the parents of U.S. citizens creates ripple effects extending far beyond that single household. Local businesses lose valued employees, schools lose engaged parents, and places of worship lose community leaders. For children, the loss of a parent can mean psychological trauma, educational setbacks, and economic hardship that can shape their futures for years to come. Increased funding for enforcement does not just affect those targeted—it destabilizes entire communities.
UU Grounding:
As of General Assembly 2024, as Unitarian Universalists, we have agreed to “adopt new language on core religious values.” We agree love is the power that holds us together and is at the center of our shared values. The values we share include all the following, which we hold as inseparable and deeply interconnected: Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. (Read more on the Article II revision process.) With these agreed core religious values in mind, we also ground our call for support of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in the following Unitarian Universalist Statements:
-
Protect the Dreamers, the Recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) with a Pathway to Permanent Residence, 2023 Action of Immediate Witness
-
Undoing Systemic White Supremacy: A Call to Prophetic Action, 2021 Statement of Conscience
-
Protect the Rights of Immigrants and Asylum Seekers, 2019 Action of Immediate Witness
-
End Family Separation and Detention of Asylum Seekers and Abolish ICE, 2018 Action of Immediate Witness
-
Build Solidarity with our Muslim Neighbors, 2016 Action of Immediate Witness
-
End Immigrant Child and Family Detention Now, 2015 Action of Immediate Witness
-
Immigration as a Moral Issue, 2013 Statement of Conscience
Urgency Highlight:
This effort to militarize our neighborhoods in support of a misguided and counterproductive immigration agenda can be stopped if the minority party stands in unanimous opposition and a slim few, in the majority, find the moral courage to vote in favor of welcome, dignity and compassion.
Please send this message to your Senators. Consider personalizing it with your concerns. Mention the worries your community is discussing.
Let’s urge the Senate to show mercy and compassion and refuse to fund mass roundups, detentions, and deportations. Prioritize immigration focus on immigrants who have committed serious crimes or are a threat to national security or public safety and use the savings to make food, housing and healthcare more affordable for average Americans.
Sorry, we're not targeting any of your federal legislators. But, you can still help!
Do you want to engage? If so, you can help support our faithful defiance by:
-
Funding us with a tax deductible gift toward our programs, operations, and witness.
-
Subscribing to our our monthly electronic newsletter (our eNews).
Do you want to get involved, put hand to the tiller? If so, you can contribute to our faithful defiance by:
-
Joining an action team
-
Subscribing to our advocacy volunteer list,
-
Placing yourself on our witness volunteer list.
Plenty of ways to get engaged!
Thank You
Share
Headline Goes Here
The comment period for this document is now closed. But, you can still help!
Edit this message to tell users that can't take action because comments are closed how to contribute. For example, consider adding a link to a petition or donation page that you have created, or add social sharing options so that these supporters can help get the word out on social media.