True Left

On Tuesday, Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) and co-sponsors Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) held a virtual press conference discussing their New Way Forward Act — originally introduced in 2019, alongside Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.). It would ban for-profit immigration detention facilities, end the use of local police for immigration enforcement and decriminalize border crossings.
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“Decriminalizing immigration is not a radical concept at all,” García said. “What is radical is caging school-aged children. What is radical is detaining thousands of refugees in dangerous conditions of squalor. We’re simply asking for fair treatment.”
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Pressley hopes the legislation will end the “prison-to-deportation” pipeline, in which immigrants of color, who are stopped and arrested more often by police and given harsher sentences than their white peers, can end up in ICE detention and at times deported back to their home countries.

“For too long our immigration and criminal legal systems have been deeply and fundamentally intertwined,” Pressley said, adding that this bill package aims to create an immigration system that “finally centers the humanity of our immigrant neighbors.”