JUST PARDON THEM INSTEAD:

Last month, the national movement to end immigration detention achieved two major campaign victories that invite our attention and signal opportunities ahead. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will no longer incarcerate immigrants at the Etowah County Jail in Alabama and will reduce the use of three other jails in the south.

A couple days later, President Joe Biden released his 2023 budget request to Congress, which calls for a reduction in the capacity of immigration jails by 9,000 beds or 26 percent of the current funded level (34,000 beds). This was the first time in the history of the modern immigrant incarceration system that a president reduced the request to this degree.

For 40 years, the trajectory of immigration jails in the United States has been expansion: more beds, more money. President Biden's budget request signals that we've finally moved the needle in the opposite direction, as a result of years of popular organizing and advocacy by people in detention and communities across the country. It can feel hard to celebrate given the continued harsh realities of immigration enforcement, but we can't lose sight of our ability to score significant wins like these.

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