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To: To Majority Leader Senator John Thune, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, and Congress
Congress, Protect Our Democracy Now: Stop ICE!
Recent events across our nation have made clear that ICE and BP agents are operating outside of the law and inflicting terror on our American citizens and communities. These forces are not upholding the values of our country and they are decimating the Constitution of the United States of America. A large majority of Americans are outraged by their tactics and are calling for the activities of these forces to be halted until reforms are implemented.
Majority Leader Thune and Speaker of the House Johnson, we call on you and Congress to withhold all funding from ICE and BP until all agents are required to wear identifying badges and to show their faces. All agents should wear body cameras.
Recently, training for ICE agents has been significantly shortened. We call on you and the Congress to withhold funding for ICE until longer and more in-depth training is implemented, especially the training of deescalation skills and when it is appropriate to use lethal force.
We call on you and the Congress to withhold funding until coordination between federal agents and local law enforcement is required to identify those undocumented immigrants engaged in criminal behaviors for apprehension rather than occupying neighborhood streets and randomly harassing and detaining people, many of whom are American citizens.
We call on you and Congress to withhold funding until the law is made clear that agents are required to obtain judicial warrants as is outlined in the 4th amendment of the constitution.
We call on you and Congress to withhold funding until it is made clear that all agents will be held accountable when they subvert the rule of law, whether federal or state.
Why is this important?
The Constitution guarantees American citizens and immigrants rights and liberties. We elect our leaders to uphold the Constitution and to protect our rights and freedoms; not to look away as federal agencies are given license to strip them away. Currently, ICE and BP officers are disappearing people off the streets and detaining them with no due process, they’re smashing car windows to gain access to people, requiring people to provide proof of citizenship on the spot, and killing people without cause. These actions are antithetical to our democracy, our security and our liberty.
We elect our leaders to represent us, the American people, and our democracy not to uphold the extreme tactics of an administration. We need our leaders to fulfill their vows to the constitution. We need our leaders to step forward with courage to protect the people who voted for them and that pay their salaries. We need them to do so now before our precious democracy is lost.