Dear Representative,
I am writing to you regarding Revisiting Immigration Reform. According to the American Immigration Council, when Trump took office in January 2025, there were about 40,000 people being held in ICE detention centers, but in just one year, that number has increased to 73,000 immigrants. In November 2025 ICE was using 104 more facilities, than the previous year. With $45 billion in funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Trump Administration has funding to operate over 135,000 detention beds, and they have dramatically changed the profile of who is “at-large” which has led to a revolutionary increase in number of federal law enforcement.
There is a 2,450% increase in people with no criminal record being held in detention centers. Changes in policies include no-release and mandatory detention laws that deny people the right to seek bonds so people do not seek a trial.
With more arrests, we are hearing of overcrowding, worsening or substandard medical care, more complaints of abusive conditions and violations of detention standards. Detainees are “disappearing” for days. Access to phones are uncertain. I have seen videos of Congress members that are denied access to facilities and are talking about signs posted, saying that detainees are being fed only 2 times per day. 2025 was the deadliest year to date in ICE detention centers, and 2026 is keeping pace to be worse.
If facilities are overrun, would it not make sense to let immigrants, with no criminal records, return to their jobs and lives so tax payers are not paying for them to be neglected? Better yet, why are we holding them for so long? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to arrest the criminals with violent crimes, work on deporting them and then worry about people who are working and paying taxes?
I know the real purpose of putting immigrants in jail is to make money for rich people that own the jails by misusing the tax dollars of the poor, but since slavery is actually illegal, I would like to encourage you to actually do something morally correct and stop allowing our tax dollars to be used so frivolously, to hurt people. At this point it will take a lot for me to have any faith in you regardless.
Sincerely,
Summer D Clemenson
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