Urge Congress to End Detention Bed Quota

From the Detention Watch Network:

Make a Call to End The Quota Today

The Senate and House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittees will be debating the detention bed quota over the coming months. Call your Senators and Representative today and tell them that Congress should eliminate the detention bed quota. 

Call the Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121 and ask for your Senators and Representative

Or click here to find your Senators and here to find your Representative

Sample Script: My name is _____ calling from [CITY, STATE].  I urge Congress member [NAME] to oppose the wasteful and inhumane immigration detention bed quota in any appropriations bill.

Background Information: The immigration detention bed quota requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to lock up a minimum of 34,000 immigrants at any given time. This policy is unprecedented – no other law enforcement agency operates on a quota system.

With a guaranteed need for detention “beds” or jail cells, the detention bed quota essentially forces the use of facilities that have poor track records in which innumerable human rights abuses and dozens of deaths have occurred. These facilities have issues ranging from no access to the outdoor space, maggot- and worm-infested food, and wholly inadequate medical and mental health care.

The cost to maintain this unmanageable system is excessive. In 2012, ICE detained an estimated 478,000 immigrants and ICE’s current detention budget is nearly $2 billion. During a time of fiscal crisis, it is unacceptable to be spending billions in taxpayer dollars each year to needlessly detain immigrants to fill a quota.

The quota not only impacts the hundreds and thousands of immigrants that go through the detention system each year, but also the families and communities that that have been torn apart due to immigration detention.

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