FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 21, 2025

CONTACT: media@vera.org

WASHINGTON, DC – After a 12-hour “vote-a-rama,” the Senate passed a budget resolution early Friday morning along party lines, moving forward the FY2025 budget reconciliation process. Both the Senate resolution and the House’s budget proposal to be taken up next week would take funding away from critical programs that all people depend on—like health care, student loans, and food assistance—and reallocate it to drastically expand the Trump administration’s capacity to escalate mass deportations, separate families, terrorize communities, and undermine fundamental due process protections.

Said Shayna Kessler, director, Advancing Universal Representation initiative, Vera Institute of Justice: “Congress has a pivotal decision to make—whether or not it will use the ‘power of the purse’ to stand on the right side of history. With the Senate’s passage of its budget resolution, Congress is poised to fund mass detention, deportation, and family separation at an unprecedented scale by taking money from critical programs that serve and stabilize people across the country. Money for seniors’ health care will be rerouted to tear parents away from their children. Funding to feed families in need will be redirected to detain long-standing community members and deny them due process. This will exacerbate the economic challenges all Americans face while worsening chaos and cruelty in our immigration system. Congress must refuse to fund this administration’s cruel, unconstitutional agenda, and instead fund solutions—like the benefits programs proposed to be cut and legal representation in immigration court—that ensure safety and stability for all.”

Said Nicole Melaku, executive director, National Partnership for New Americans: “People need to know that the budget legislation being moved forward—arguably the most consequential legislation of this administration’s entire term—would divert billions in public dollars away from housing, health care, and education to expand detention centers, fast-track deportations, and separate families under the guise of ‘border security.’ This legislation hands a ‘blank check’ to the Trump administration to multiply ICE’s capacity to arrest, detain, and deport everyday people instead of making our immigration system more fair and workable. We’ve heard it said that a budget is a moral document, and the one before us is as immoral as they come. Congress must refuse to fund the administration’s agenda of selfishness and cruelty and instead create a budget that protects family unity, meets basic needs, ensures public safety, and upholds due process.”

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Fairness to Freedom: The Campaign for Universal Representation was launched by the National Partnership for New Americans and the Vera Institute of Justice in April 2022 with a coalition of over 200 organizations and legal service providers. The campaign’s goal is to support the passage of the Fairness to Freedom Act to establish a federal right to representation for all immigrants facing deportation.