- The Senate is in the final stretch of passing “The Big Beautiful Bill Act”, which should be coming for a floor vote in the next week. There are many, many reasons to oppose the bill, and the more people know about it, the less they like it. While the bill would have a devastating impact on all families and communities, some of its most odious provisions directly impact immigrant communities:
- $32 billion for enforcement and removal operations
- $45 billion for the detention of adults and families, a dramatic increase from the $3 billion in Fiscal Year 2024.
- Dismantle the Flores settlement, which provides basic protections for detained children.
- Institute new applications fees to make humanitarian relief unobtainable, such as:
- $1,000 to file an asylum application with an additional $100 for every year that their application is pending
- $1,000 to apply for parole
- $500 to apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status
- $500 to apply for Temporary Protected Status
- $550 every 6 months for employment authorization related to humanitarian status.
- $100 for every continuance in immigration court
- Denies access to Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA marketplace, SNAP, and federal financial aid to most categories of lawfully present immigrants, including:
- Asylees
- Refugees
- Survivors of domestic violence
- Victims of human trafficking
The Senate is closely divided on this bill, and it would only take one or two more Senators in opposition to ensure that it does not pass. People all around the country are mobilizing to stop this bill in its tracks, and you can help. While Senators Warren and Markey are firmly against this bill, they still need to hear that you appreciate and encourage their opposition, so please send them a quick email. But we ask that you do not stop there; please call your friends and relatives in other states and urge them to reach out to their Senators in opposition to this bill. We are facing a national challenge, and we can only face it if we do so together in a national movement.
- Meanwhile, the administration continues its crusade against immigrants, and states continue to push back. In just one of many cases, the Department of Transportation had threatened to withhold funding to states unless they cooperate with federal civil immigration enforcement, what the department is calling the “Immigration Enforcement Condition”. In response, 20 states (including Massachusetts) filed suit in Rhode Island in May, and last week the judge issued a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Transportation from making “any attempt to implement the Immigration Enforcement Condition.”
- We are still waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court on the citizenship case, which should be coming very soon. As you may recall, the Trump Administration tried to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship on his first day in office, resulting in numerous lawsuits against the government. Many of those lawsuits resulted in nationwide injunctions blocking the move, and the administration appealed to the Supreme Court. The appeal does not try to claim that the move to deny birthright citizenship is constitutional, rather it only seeks to limit the geographic reach of the injunctions so they are not national in scope. Unlike other injunctions against the administration (see below), the Court had previously rejected an attempt by the administration to stay the lower court decisions before the Supreme Court could fully decide the case. Stay tuned.
- Unfortunately, earlier this week, the Supreme Court did grant a stay of a lower court’s injunction against deporting people to 3rd countries without due process. While 3rd country removals have long been acceptable under immigration law, it has traditionally been used sparingly. The administration has sought to dramatically expand the ability to deport individuals to a country other than their own, and advocates have pushed back saying that individuals should have the opportunity to challenge the possibility of torture or toher mistreatment in the proposed destination. A federal judge in Boston had ruled in May that individuals must have a chance to challenge removals to a 3rd country if they could face serious danger, but the Supreme Court on Monday stayed that decision in an unsigned opinion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, offered a lengthy dissent bemoaning not just this outcome, but also the fact that the Court has repeatedly allowed the administration to get away with violating lower court orders.
- Relatedly, the US cannot remove individuals to a 3rd country without that 3rd country’s consent, and it appears that the administration is using the visa process to bully countries into accepting deportees. Threats to expand the list of countries under a travel ban appear not to be related to any real defects in the identity documents issued by those nations, but appears rather to be an effort to force them into accepting non-citizens deported from the US.
- Despite repeated claims from the administration that they are going after only criminals, data analysis supports what we have all known: this administration is not against criminals, it is against immigrants in general. A recent report by the libertarian Cato Institute has found that ICE is arresting individuals with no criminal record at an alarming rate, with nearly 20% of those arrested having no criminal convictions. Cato is far from a progressive organization, but even they recognize that:
This means that Americans are much more likely to see ICE violently arrest nonviolent people in their communities. Combined with ICE’s decision to hide their identities and faces, this action increases the likelihood of unnecessary confrontations between ICE and the public. It also means that ICE is more likely to make mistakes, and US citizens and legal residents are ensnared in the crackdown.
- The State of Florida is building a new immigrant detention facility in the Everglades, which they have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” The idea appears to be using dangerous wildlife as guards, with one state official saying, “You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.” The facility is being constructed on the site of a mostly abandoned airport.