The League joined partners in opposing legislation that would provide additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The letter was sent to the US Senate and urged a NO vote on the budget resolution.
April 22, 2026
Dear Senators:
Immigrant communities and civil and human rights organizations across the country are grateful for your ongoing vigilance against additional dollars for ICE and Border Patrol, dollars that will be used to tear apart families and jail immigrants in dangerous conditions.
Across the country, working families cannot afford to pay their bills while facing ever increasing prices at the gas pump, the doctor’s office, and grocery stores. Despite these widespread anxieties over basic affordability, Senate and House leadership are forcing a partisan vote on billions more for immigration enforcement and deportation.
This budget resolution votearama comes at a time when ICE and CBP are already
swimming in money, their coffers filled with far more than their usual appropriated budgets thanks to the $170 billion provided for immigration enforcement, detention and deportations by last summer’s harmful reconciliation bill. That bill cut funding for health care and food aid to fuel deeply unpopular and violent immigration actions, yet Congress is back at it again.
We urge you to vote NO on the budget resolution. This measure would allow Congress to spend up to $140 billion in new mandatory funds for ICE and CBP, without guardrails or accountability on agencies engaged in violent behavior in our communities, through 2035.
We also urge you to continue to stand in solidarity with immigrant communities under attack by voting NO on all amendments to the budget resolution that will harm
immigrant communities. Amendments that demonize and criminalize immigrant
communities amplify hate and are intended to stir disunity. We encourage you to vote NO against such amendments, including measures that:
- earmark funds for specific increases in surveillance, enforcement, or detention;
- pit certain immigrant communities against others, including immigrants with
prior involvement in the criminal legal system; - aim to further exclude immigrant communities from critical health and nutrition
support programs; - divert funds meant to serve communities across the country in order to target
and attack our immigrant community members; - and/or otherwise focus the resolution’s dollars toward punitive and harmful
uses.
The American people overwhelmingly see that ICE and CBP are making our communities less safe. We are grateful to all those Members of Congress standing in unity against more money for ICE and CBP.
Sincerely,
See attached for full list of signers