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Help us ensure #DignityFirst in the 2023 Budget!

Each year, Congress passes a budget to ensure funding for government agencies for the next fiscal year. Budgets are policy documents; this is the government’s plan to prioritizing certain issues through the funding of programs and agencies. Regarding immigration, the following departments receive funding: Department of Homeland Security (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)); Department of Health and Human Services; Office of Refugee Resettlement; Department of Justice (immigration courts); the State Department; and Department of Labor. 

This multi-step iterative process begins as early as February and usually concludes by September.

  1. The State of the Union is the President’s formal address to the American people about the administration’s priorities for the upcoming year.

  2. The President creates a budget draft and sends it to Congress, which currently includes:

  3. The House and Senate review the budget draft, and each chamber creates its own version of a budget.

  4. Budget drafts are passed back and forth through committees and voted on.

  5. Finally, the House and Senate budgets are all reconciled into one cohesive document. If the Congress is unable to pass a budget before October, they must pass a continuing resolution as a temporary measure to keep the government in operation or risk a government shutdown while they work to approve the budget. 

congress has the power to put #dignityfirst

As they prepare the budget, Congress can honor the dignity of immigrant and mixed status families in the following ways:

  • Cut funding for the detention, deportation & destruction of our communities;

  • Include a pathway to citizenship for all; and,

  • Promote the inclusion of immigrants in government-funded programs.

Take action and tell your representative to support a budget that values family unity, community safety, and justice for all. #DignityFirst

Click here to see the letter IFCLA signed onto with national partners to cut funding for ICE.