Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act

The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act provides standards for facilities at which immigrants and asylum seekers are detained while in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security. The bill mandates that all detained immigrants have access to a bond hearing before an immigration judge, and shifts the burden to the government to prove that asylum seekers and other immigrants should be detained because they pose a risk to the community or a flight risk.

This bill was introduced in the House on 3/26/21 by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-7) and in the Senate on 4/15/21 by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

It was re-introduced in the House on 4/20/23 by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-7) and in the Senate on 4/19/23 by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ). 

ACTION REQUEST | Ask your Member of Congress and Senators to:

• Support the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, especially if they serve on the House Judiciary or Homeland Security Committees, or on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• Cosponsor this bill if they have not yet done so, especially if they serve on the Judiciary or Homeland Security Committees in the House or the Judiciary committee in the Senate.

TALKING POINTS:

• We need the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act because the Department of Homeland Security has proven it will not practice basic human rights on its own. Humanitarian practices need to be codified and applied to U.S. immigrant detentions by DHS and the Department’s contractors.
• DHS practices at the border cause harm to LGBTQ+ people who are detained. Transgender women detained at the border are placed in solitary confinement which can cause emotional distress, compounding the trauma experienced in their home country that led them to the U.S. in the first place.
• Detention facilities are not prisons, and detainees should not be treated as if they are hardened criminals.
• The Constitution enshrines humanitarian practices into American values. But DHS treats immigrants and asylum seekers in distinctly inhumane ways. We call on our Members of Congress and Senators to stop DHS from exploiting legal loopholes to harm immigrants in their custody.