#EndTheQuota

ACTION: End The Quota Action in Washington, D.C.!

Friday, May 9th, 2014 | 3:00 p.m. | Meet outside the Smithsonian Metro Station (Orange/Blue Line)

As the immigrant rights movement grows stronger, and as communities in defense of justice and dignity for all immigrants, we have the power to demand that Congress and President Obama eliminate the quota and stop the senseless targeting and incarceration of immigrants. The Congressional Appropriations Committee should take the lead by striking the quota language in the upcoming appropriations bill. And every single member of Congress has the power to get rid of it via the amendment process by voting to eliminate the quota.

Get Involved
•Join DWN’s mailing list to get regular updates on the #EndTheQuota campaign
•Organize an End The Quota action or public education event in your community. Contact Catalina Nieto at cnieto@detentionwatchnetwork.org
•Call and/or meet with your member of Congress and ask them to oppose the immigration detention bed quota in any appropriations bill

What is the immigration detention bed quota?

Congressional appropriations language on ICE’s detention budget states “[t]hat funding made available under this heading shall maintain a level of not less than 34,000 detention beds.” The immigration detention bed quota requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to lock-up an average of 34,000 immigrants in detention at any given time.

•For talking points and more information on the quota, read DWN’s End the Immigration Detention Bed Quota Campaign Narrative
•Take a look at NIJC’s Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline
•Listen to a conversation about the bed quota on WBAI’s War on Immigrants Report:

Impact of the Quota

•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.
•What’s more, the cost to maintain this unmanageable system is excessive. In 2012, ICE detained an estimated 478,000 immigrants and the current budget for ICE’s detention budget is just short of $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.
•Having a quota on how many people must be locked up every day puts a price tag on immigrant lives. The policy leads to Congress and ICE treating immigrants as numbers filling a quota and products to be bought and sold, not as real people with children and loved ones depending on them.
•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.
•The quota also incentivizes targeting people for deportation in order to fill jail cells. As politicians tout efforts towards comprehensive immigration reform and relief for those subject to deportation, any meaningful reforms to the immigration system will be impossible with the quota in place.

Advocacy

Call your Senators and Representative and tell them Congress should eliminate the detention bed quota, which ensures funding to keep 34,000 immigrants locked up in ICE detention facilities on any given day.
•Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121

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.

Members of Congress on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee will be debating the detention bed quota over the coming months.

Schedule a meeting with your Senators and Representative
•End The Quota legislative toolkit. For more information on how to set-up a meeting with your member of Congress.
•Tell us how it went. We need your help in tracking which Members of Congress will help us end the quota!

Please contact Madhu Grewal DWN’s Policy Counsel at mgrewal@detentionwatchnetwork.org if you need support with scheduling a visit with your members of Congress.