"ICE detainees arer kept like cattle"... one witness said about the ICE raids

Echo opinion letter published in the Hattiesburg American a Mississippi newspaper:

I have been on the ground since the cruel immigration raids, every day watching as fear turns to pain and back again. And still, three months later, Congress has done nothing to prevent this from happening in other communities.

The field hearing is one step, but Congress cannot continue to fund President Donald Trump’s bigoted deportation machine. Further funding is directly responsible for raids like these and for family separations.

Put simply, continuing to fund the Department of Homeland Security’s implementation of its racist, anti-immigrant policies would be a slap in the face to communities reeling from the local onslaught of attacks and dangerous rhetoric coming out of this administration.

By maintaining the budget status quo and funding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and DHS with impunity, Congress is refusing to do its constitutional duty and hold Trump accountable. The US Congress is failing if ICE funding continues without accountability.

The evidence of the disastrous effects of this administration's immigration policies is mounting, with new reports every day of mothers separated from their children, immigrant deaths while in custody and inhumane conditions in private detention centers.

For Congress to continue with business as usual — to fund enforcement agencies like ICE and CBP with no implementation of real oversight or accountability at even a department level — is an assurance that these atrocities will continue.

Congress’ verbal condemnations of ICE and the Trump administration are far too little, far too late.

Congress is giving money to enforcement agencies to carry out what should be humanitarian aid. Our members of Congress can no longer approve funding and stand by knowing it will be used to continue these horrific policies.

Congress must not send one more dollar to ICE or CBP while immigrant lives remain at stake.

Lorena Quiroz-Lewis is a lead organizer for Working Together Mississippi and Mississippi Immigrant Coalition.  https://yourmira.org/