05/20/2026
📌We stand in solidarity with our community and uplifting all of our voices against the current "Reconciliation Budget" that is proposed and going to vote within the next 24-48 hours. ⏳ We urge all community members to join us in contacting your Senators and Congress reps, demanding all of them to vote NO‼️ on this significantly harmful budget. Please see our letter to elected officials below. 📝
May 20, 2026
To: Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden
RE: No More Blank Checks for ICE and CBP - Oppose the Budget Reconciliation
Unified Asian Communities (UAC) is a Maine-based not-for-profit offering community service and cultural support to the over-23,000 Asian-heritage individuals and communities, including U.S. citizens and non-citizen residents who are immigrants from Asian countries of origin and elsewhere. We were founded during the pandemic in response to the surge of anti-Asian violence in Maine and elsewhere in the U.S.
At a time when Americans are struggling with housing, childcare, and rising costs, Congress should reject unchecked funding for ICE and CBP and instead require real reforms, oversight, and constitutional safeguards. We at UAC write to urge you to Vote No on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget reconciliation bill and any accompanying amendments that will be voted on shortly in Congress. We also urge Members to vote NO on all amendments to the bill that will harm immigrant communities—specifically, amendments that vilify and criminalize immigrant communities fuel division and inflame anti-immigrant sentiment. This bill would
dramatically expand the already dangerously bloated budgets of immigration enforcement agencies without meaningful accountability, oversight, or protections for our impacted
communities.
Through this bill, Congress aims to hand the federal government another $72 billion to fuel the Trump Administration’s cruel immigration campaign. And this comes at a time when ICE and
CBP are already swimming in money, thanks to the $170 billion in immigration funds from last year’s reconciliation bill. The Trump administration’s spending spree following the last reconciliation budget bill has included:
● Buying massive detention warehouses and surging immigration enforcement
● Funding shocking violence including the deaths of U.S. citizens and immigrants in
Minneapolis and nationwide
● Separating and jailing thousands of families at the Dilley family prison, including
newborns, pregnant individuals, and children with serious medical conditions.
● Illegally restricting Members of Congress from routine detention facility oversight, justified by DHS’s claims that funds received through reconciliation are not subject to oversight required by the annual appropriations bills. DHS, ICE, and CBP are already working with a bloated budget and insufficient oversight, in spite of no evidence of an increase in need for this funding and years of documented unlawful and unethical uses of this funding including inadequate training for field agents and abuses by ICE agents and those working in detention facilities, leading to deaths in custody, family separation, racial profiling, and other unlawful enforcement tactics, terrorizing lawful U.S. citizens and legal residents. The bill also bypasses the normal funding process in Congress, setting a dangerous precedent that allows the party in power to hand DHS and other agencies massive funding increases without accountability or oversight.
The Trump Administration’s immigration agenda has harmed Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities across the country, including in Maine. From increased targeting of immigrant neighborhoods, shocking increases in detention and
deportation rates of AAPI immigrants, and entry bans that have separated families and stigmatized entire communities, AAPI community members have experienced firsthand the
consequences of punitive immigration policies enacted by these agencies. Families have been targeted and separated by ICE and CBP agents, and community members are terrified to leave
their homes even to attend doctor’s appointments or send their kids to school. AAPI communities have experienced the direct harms and even more heightened racial profiling of
this administration’s immigration agenda, including expanded surveillance and enforcement targeting immigrant neighborhoods, prolonged family separation due to travel and visa bans, and heightened detention and deportation rates.
Instead of investing tens of billions more into a detention and deportation apparatus with a long record of abuse, misconduct, lack of oversight, Congress should prioritize humane and effective
immigration solutions that keep families together and uphold due process and civil rights. ICE and CBP already have far more money than the budgets they’ve historically received through the appropriations process. The country simply cannot afford this ongoing diversion of public funds for ICE and CBP in the face of economic hardship and systemic abuses.
We urge you to vote NO on the budget reconciliation bill and to vote NO on all amendments that would use budget reconciliation to advance harmful anti-immigrant policies that would
disproportionately harm Asian-American, Pacific Islander, and other immigrant communities.
Sincerely,
Theresa Kim, Executive Director
Bonnie Tai, Board member
Unified Asian Communities
