Dear Chair Granger, Chair Murray, Ranking Member DeLauro, Vice Chair Collins, and Members of the Committee,

We write on behalf of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action and our members across the country, to urge you to pass a Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations package that moves our country closer to becoming a just and equitable United States free from white supremacy, where Black liberation is realized, and all people are thriving. Appropriations bills in line with this vision cut funding from punitive, enforcement-focused systems that have disproportionately harmed Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) for centuries, and instead invest equitably in programs and policies that create the conditions where every member of our communities are safe and can thrive. 

Specifically, we urge you to prioritize the following in Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations: 

1. Invest in our communities’ safety and well being by robustly funding non-carceral¹ crisis response and violence intervention programs, including programs that fund unarmed, non-police first responders (such as social workers, nurses, and other health professionals) situated outside of police departments, and fund these programs outside of enforcement-and-criminalization²-focused agencies (for example, fund at least $100 million for mobile crisis response units out of the Substance Abuse, Mental Health Services Administration); 

2. Reduce the federal government’s harmful role in criminalizing and incarcerating Black people, Indigenous people and people of color, and addresses the public health crisis of police violence³ by cutting funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)⁴ Program;

3. Demilitarize our communities by stipulating that no funds should be used to operate the “1033 program,” necessarily decreasing the flow of surplus military hardware to state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies; 

4. Ensure immigrants, refuges, and asylum seekers are welcomed to the U.S. with dignity, and significantly decrease our country’s reliance on immigrant detention by making meaningful funding reductions for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations, as well as for Custody Operations and Alternatives to Detention (e-carceration programs)⁵;

5. Invest in programs that keep immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers with their families and in communities, such as non-profit-run voluntary community-based resettlement services⁶, funded outside of the Department of Homeland Security or, at a minimum, outside of ICE⁷; 

6. Support the wellbeing of border communities by decreasing funding for Border Patrol Operations, refraining from funding any new Border Patrol agents, cutting funding for invasive border surveillance technologies which militarize border communities, and rescinding all previously appropriated wall funds; 

7. Eliminate funding for the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) in the Department of Homeland Security, which grew out of failed and harmful⁸ “countering violent extremism” programs, as DHS continues to profile, criminalize, and infringe upon the rights⁹ of immigrant, Black, Muslim, Arab, Sikh and other communities. Instead, increase funding for violence prevention and safety programs housed in the Department of Health and Human Services and other public health-focused agencies.

Budgets are moral documents, a statement of values—for better and for worse. For too many years, our country’s budget has shown how deeply we undervalue the safety, health, and wellbeing of Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, low income people, people with disabilities, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and many other members of our communities. For too many years, government systems—like our immigration and criminal legal systems—have been called “broken” when we know that, in fact, they are working as designed to oppress many and maintain the status quo for the privileged few. Every year that Congress decides how to fund the government, you as our elected leaders have an opportunity to reckon with our nation’s past and chart a different future. 

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action members across the country are also engaging in state and local funding work to create a more just, equitable society. The funding choices you make not only impact every person in our country—now and in generations to come—but also sends a message to state and local governments across the country what is possible when government officials choose to be led by an antiracist vision. 

At the core of the Jewish tradition is the story of the Exodus—a story our community will read as we celebrate Passover in just a few weeks. We are taught that an erev rav, a mixed multitude, rose up against slavery and despotic rule, and left mitzrayim, the narrow place of Egypt, entering the expansive desert where we had to learn a new way to govern ourselves and allocate our resources. Our American Jewish community is a mixed multitude—a multiracial, multiethnic family, existing at every identity intersection—living within a larger mixed multitude in a nation that contains both the narrow place of oppression and the wilderness of possibility. 

Every year we have the opportunity to move closer towards the promised land of a democratic society where each person in our mixed multitude has what we need to live and thrive. For all of these reasons, as you develop the appropriations package for FY24, we urge you to center solutions that address the ways that racism and white supremacy have shaped American public policy, systems, and spending priorities for centuries. We urge you to exercise your considerable power to make our country a more equitable and safer place, where each person can flourish.

Sincerely, 

Jamie Beran 
CEO, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action

Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block
Washington Director, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action

Sources:

1. The Community Safety Working Group, "FY24 Community Safety Appropriations Agenda," March 14, 2023

2. Harsha Panduranga, "Community Investment, Not Criminalization," The Brennan Center for Justice, June 17, 2021

3. Marisa Iati, Steven Rich and Jennifer Jenkins, "Fatal police shootings in 2021 set record since The Post began tracking, despite public outcry," The Washington Post, February 9, 2022

4. Civil Rights Corps, "Civil Rights Groups Letter Expressing Concerns Regarding Police Funding Bills," August 11, 2022

5. National Immigrant Justice Center,  “114 Immigrant and Human Rights Groups Demand Biden Close Detention Centers, Stop Expansion, and Cut Funding for Immigration Detention,” November 21, 2022

6. The Defund Hate Coalition, “Beyond the Enforcement Paradigm: A Vision for a Transformative Budget for U.S. Immigration,” April 20, 2021

7. National Immigrant Justice Center, “Immigration Priorities for a Just Budget in 2023, Deep Dive: Fund Community-Based Services,” September 2021

8. Faiza Patel, Andrew Lindsay, Sophia DenUyl, “Countering Violent Extremism in the Trump Era,” The Brennan Center for Justice, June 15, 2018

9. Harsha Panduranga, “Community Investment, Not Criminalization,” The Brennan Center for Justice, June 17, 2021