Alejandro Mayorkas
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
301 7th St, SW
Washington, DC 20528
Re: Re: Protecting Our Communities from DHS Collusion.
Secretary Mayorkas:
As organizations working to protect immigrant communities, we know that ending collusion between localities and federal immigration enforcement is paramount to protecting our towns, cities and counties. For this reason, we stand proudly by our policies that limit collusion with DHS agencies including ICE, HSI and CBP, and we urge you to reverse course on your recent attempts to undermine these policies.
As a result of years of organizing and advocacy in immigrant communities that have shared their stories and shed light on the deep violence experienced at the hands of DHS—the nation’s largest jailer—some local leaders have taken steps to reduce these harms by ending local collusion, minimizing community members’ interactions with the criminal legal system and investing in community education on immigrants rights. These steps have been critical to ensuring that immigrant community members access the services they need without fear.
Conversely, tactics by DHS agencies that use local resources to push immigrants into the police-to-deportation pipeline cause lasting harm to our communities and tear families apart. For this reason, we are deeply disturbed by your recent attempts to undermine our protective policies with your comments at this past January’s U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Today, we continue to see how DHS agencies perpetuate harm on the daily lives of immigrants, through ongoing policing and prolonged detention of community members whose liberty is deprived. Our friends and families are not “public safety threats,” but ICE and CBP officers continue to see them one-dimensionally based on contact with the criminal legal system. In using past offenses as a proxy for dangerousness, the immigration system compounds dynamics of inequality, marginalization, and racism. This form of perpetual punishment moves us backwards, in a moment of widespread reckoning and change in the criminal legal system.
We have fought for years for protective policies that refuse to use our local and state resources to facilitate the detention and deportation of our community members, and their separation from their families and communities. A growing number of local leaders recognize that protective pro-immigrant policies are necessary for a vibrant, healthy and trusting community. This is the right choice and we support the ongoing efforts around the country to strengthen their local policies accordingly. To enable these efforts to succeed, we urge you to follow through on past promises of this administration to affirmatively terminate 287(g) agreements as well as the so-called Secure Communities program. Ending these programs which perpetuate the entanglement of local agencies with DHS is critical to demonstrating accountability.
Regardless of who is in the White House, our communities are clear. We must stand by and strengthen all mechanisms to stop local entanglement with DHS agencies so that our communities are able to live with dignity and respect.
Signed
| United We Dream |
| Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights |
| Immigrant Defense Project |
| Project South |
| Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN) |
| Cape Cod Coalition for Safe Communities |
| Cleveland Jobs with Justice |
| Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. |
| National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) |
| DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving |
| RAICES |
| Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem |
| Envision Freedom Fund |
| Detention Watch Network |
| Cardozo immigration Justice Clinic |
| Washington Defender Association |
| Mariposa Legal |
| American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) |
| Human Impact Partners (HIP) |
| National Immigrant Justice Center |
| Families for Freedom |
| Make the Road New York |
| Emerald Isle Immigration Center |
| The Legal Aid Society |
| American Civil Liberties Union |
| Legal Aid Justice Center |
| Church World Service |
| The Kansas Missouri Dream Alliance |
| A.Y.U.D.A. INC. |
| Sur Legal Collaborative |
| Rapid Defense Network (RDN) |
| Make the Road CT |
| Local Progress |
| Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible |
| Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative |
| New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) |
| Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice |
| New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) |
| Make the Road Nevada |
| ACLU of Northern California |
| NM Dream Team |
| Alliance San Diego |
| Justice Overcoming Boundaries in San Diego County |
| UnLocal |
| South Bay People Power |
| Chula Vista Partners in Courage |
| BORDER ANGELS |
| Comunidad de Apoyo San Diego |
| PANA (The Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans) |
| Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network |
| JUNTOS |
| Cape Cod Coalition for Safe Communities |
| La Resistencia |
| San Francisco Public Defender’s Office |
| San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium |
| Immigrant Justice Network |
| Mijente |
| NCCPA |
| Community Justice Project, Inc. |
| DRUM – Desis Rising Up & Moving |
| NM Dream Team |
| Meyer Law Office |
| NM Dream Team |
| ProgressNow New Mexico |
| Equality New Mexico |
| NM CAFe |
| Washington Sun Fronteras |
| Hofstra Law School Deportation Defense Clinic |
| Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) |
| Surveillance Technology Oversight Project |
| Arizona Dream Act Coalition |
| Gangs Coalition |
| La ColectiVA |
| CT Students for a Dream |
| The Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College |
| WeCount! |
| Workers Defense Action Fund |
| Al Otro Lado |
| Southern Poverty Law Center |
| American Friends Service Committee |
| New York County Defender Services |
| Indivisible West Phoenix |
| Indivisible Phoenix |
| Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition |
| Public Defenders Coalition for Immigrant Justice |
| The Bronx Defenders |
| Poder Latinx |
| Black Alliance for Just Immigration |
| Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center |
| Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project |
| Community Asylum Seekers Project |
| Border Network for Human Rights |
| Indivisible |
| Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team |
| Freedom Network USA |
| New York Immigration Coalition |
| FWD.us |
| Bend the Arc: Jewish Action |
| Repatriate Our Patriots |
| Indivisable Phoenix |
| Youth Rise Texas |
| Center for Popular Democracy |
| Indivisible |
| Grassroots Leadership |
| Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP) |
| Immigrant Legal Resource Center |
| Brooklyn Defender Services |
| Universidad Popular |
| National Immigration Law Center |
| New Mexico Asian Family Center |
| San Joaquin Delta College |
| National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) |
| TakeRoot Justice |
| Grassroots Leadership |
| URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity |
| The Platform of Hope |
| Calvary Episcopal Church |
| Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights |
| The Festival Center |
| American University |
| HIPS |
| Border Network for Human Rights |
| LatinoJustice PRLDEF |
| Broward for Progress |
| Community Justice Project |
| Doctors For Camp Closure |
| Interfaith Welcome Coalition – San Antonio |
| DSA |
| National Jobs with Justice |
| JwJ |
| Beloved Community Incubator |
| Immigrant Action Alliance |
| Progressive Democrats of America – Arizona |
| Beyond Borders |
| The Good Shepherd United Church of Christ |
| Unitarian Universalist Refugee & Immigrant Services & Education |
| Texas Civil Rights Project |
| Nestor United Methodist Church |
| First Congregational United Church of Christ |
| Indivisible San Diego Persist |
| Care in Action |
| Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice |
| Miami Freedom Project |
| Presbytery of the Pacific |
| Casa Ruby |
| Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) |
| Bend the Arc Jewish Action South Florida |
| Hispanic Federation |
| Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) |
| Woori Juntos |
| Mi Familia Vota |
| Beacon Presbyterian Fellowship |
| St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley |
| St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley |
| RAICES |
| Grassroots Leadership |
| Hope Border Institute |
| Hartford Deportation Defense |
| Legal Aid Service of Broward County |
| Washington National Cathedral Sanctuary Ministry |
| Restaurant Opportunities Center of DC |
| Children’s Defense Fund |
| Florida Rising |
| Justice in Motion |
| CT Immigrants Rights Alliance |
| Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center |
| Unimex |
| Doctors For Camp Closure |