Priorities for Immigrant Communities in the FY2025 White House Budget

The Women’s Refugee Commission and six other national nongovernmental organizations sent a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget outlining the following priorities for immigrant communities for the FY2025 President’s Budget:

1. Alternatives to detention: Prioritize funding to grow community-based case management programs and downsize the budget for enforcement-based programming
2. Detention: Continue to seek decreased funding for ICE Custody Operations while ensuring increased oversight and improved access to services for those detained
3. Appointed counsel in immigration court: request sufficient funds to ensure legal representation for all indigent adults, families and children facing removal
4. Enforcement and surveillance: Decrease CBP surveillance programs and ICE and Border Patrol’s over-sized agent corps while ensuring robust CBP processing capacity
5. Border reception: Continue to request increased funds for the Shelter and Services Program; work with Congress to create non-custodial, humanitarian reception models at the border
6. Address the USCIS backlog: Request sufficient funding for USCIS to promptly reduce the growing backlog and ensure efficient intake and processing