Safe Borders Should Not Mean Cruelty
Safe borders should not mean cruelty. Congress must protect asylum seekers, reduce detention, defend Dreamers, and pass humane immigration reform rooted in dignity, due process, and justice.
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Friends,
Today, the Supreme Court showed us exactly what is at stake.
In two major immigration rulings, the Court did not simply answer technical legal questions. It opened two more doors for the Trump administration to choose detention over due process, fear over fairness, and political theater over a working immigration system.
First, the Court ruled that the Department of Homeland Security may revive a policy that allowed the government to turn noncitizens away at the border without hearing claims that they may qualify for asylum. Then, in another 6–3 ruling, the Court allowed President Trump to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian and Syrian migrants who were permitted to live and work here because their home countries were unsafe.
I want to be very clear about what this means.
This is not just about paperwork. This is not just about ports of entry. This is not just about one policy, one court case, or one group of migrants.
This is about whether the United States will honor the basic principle that people fleeing danger deserve a chance to be heard before the government turns them away, locks them up, or sends them back into harm’s way.
Seeking asylum is a human right. It is also part of our legal and moral tradition. A serious country can secure its borders, stop trafficking, prevent violence, and process immigration cases with order and fairness. But a serious country does not use chaos as an excuse for cruelty. A serious country does not tell people to follow the law and then slam the door before the legal process can begin.
The lie is that cruelty equals safety.
It does not.
Trump and his Republican allies are pouring billions into enforcement and detention while refusing to build the fair, efficient immigration system our communities actually need. Trump signed a $70 billion bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol through the remainder of his administration, and $38 billion of that package goes to ICE, $26 billion to Customs and Border Protection, and $5 billion more to DHS.1
But where is the matching investment in justice?
Where are the judges? Where are the attorneys? Where are the translators, asylum officers, legal orientation programs, case managers, court staff, and work authorization processors needed to make the system actually function?
Here is the danger hiding in plain sight: when government refuses to process people fairly, detention becomes the pressure point. It becomes the punishment. It becomes the threat. It becomes the money machine.
Right now, the U.S. immigration court system is buckling. At the end of May 2026, TRAC reported more than 3.2 million active cases pending in immigration court, including more than 2.3 million people waiting for asylum hearings or decisions.2
That is not processing. That is a backlog big enough to swallow families whole.
People do not disappear from their lives just because the government refuses to run a fair system. They still have children in school. Jobs to report to. Rent to pay. Doctors to see. Communities that count on them. Families who love them.
And then the government points to the very backlog it failed to fix and says: more detention.
No.
Warehousing people is not processing. It is punishment without conviction.
We have already seen what happens when detention is rushed, privatized, and treated like a political stage instead of a legal system. A Government Accountability Office review of Camp East Montana found that ICE and the Army rushed the opening of the largest ICE detention facility to date, negatively affecting planning and acquisition. GAO also found that the government paid for meals and services for 5,000 people even when the facility held far fewer people, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.3
That is not law and order.
That is cruelty with a contract attached.
And yes, this is also a profit pipeline. Private prison corporations and contractors benefit when detention expands. Politicians benefit when fear is useful. But families pay the price. Taxpayers pay the bill. Communities absorb the harm. And people seeking safety are turned into line items.
This is how the circle widens.
It starts with asylum seekers. Then TPS holders. Then Dreamers. Then undocumented workers. Then mixed-status families. Then students. Then protesters. Then voters. Then anyone who refuses to look away.
That is how power grabs work. They do not come for everyone at once. They isolate one group, test how much cruelty the public will tolerate, and then move to the next.
This is why we cannot accept the false choice between safe borders and human dignity.
We can and must have both.
A real immigration reform agenda would secure the U.S. border while reducing the number of immigration detention beds. It would reform the legal immigration system to better meet U.S. needs. It would invest in enhanced security and technology at ports of entry to help stop the smuggling of illegal weapons and narcotics, including fentanyl. It would address the root causes of migration from South and Central America through diplomacy and humanitarian aid. It would permanently protect DACA and Dreamers.
It would increase funding to process immigration applications and work authorization applications more efficiently. It would expand case management programs that help undocumented immigrants and their families understand and meet their immigration court obligations. It would hire 1,600 new asylum officers and processing personnel to improve the efficiency of the asylum system. It would hire 375 new immigration judges to help move cases through the courts. It would eliminate the six-month waiting period before asylum seekers can apply for work authorization so people can support themselves, contribute, and live with dignity while their cases are pending.
That is not radical.
That is responsible.
And here is the part this administration does not want us to notice: the public is not demanding cruelty. A substantial majority of voters — 69% — support the U.S. having a system for asylum seekers to legally migrate here to seek protection.4
People understand what politicians pretend not to understand: safety and compassion are not opposites. Due process and border security are not enemies. Human dignity is not a loophole.
The path forward is not more cages. It is more courts. More case management. More legal pathways. More accountability. More humanity. More truth.
We can have secure borders without cruelty. We can protect communities without scapegoating immigrants. We can stop trafficking and fentanyl without punishing people fleeing persecution. We can build an immigration system rooted in safety, dignity, and due process.
But we have to demand it.
So today, we are asking our members of Congress to act.
Fix this broken immigration system. Protect the dignity and rights of asylum seekers. Protect Dreamers. Protect families. Fund fairness, not fear. Fund courts, not cruelty. Fund people, not cages.
A country built on liberty and justice for all should not replace courts with cages.
Not in our name.
Power belongs to the people — and when we stand united, we can still force this country to live up to its promise.
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Laurie Woodward Garcia
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Leader, People Power United
🗽 America at 250: Liberty, Justice, and Building Power to the People
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/10/trump-signs-70-billion-dollar-immigration-act-ice
https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/eoir.html
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108886
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/1/19/more-than-2-in-3-voters-support-having-an-asylum-system-and-hiring-more-immigration-judges-and-asylum-officers