lbeisen.bsky.social

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “Blue City Chaos and Tragedy: How the Trump Administration is Addressing the Human Cost of Soft On Crime Policies.” This is a false premise, and the hearing included discussion of several bad ideas that won’t make Americans safer 1/5

Private Prison Companies’ Enormous Windfall: Who Stands to Gain as ICE Expands With unparalleled funding for ICE, corporations supporting the growth of detention infrastructure will continue to see soaring profits.

Congress in July tripled the budget of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including possibly doubling detention capacity.

@lbeisen.bsky.social outlines how private prison companies and their ecosystem may grow so large that it will be hard to unwind:

What Actually Works to Fight Crime The administration’s plans to fight crime by dictating state bail policy or deploying the National Guard won’t build long-term safety, but there are many evidence-based ways to reduce crime.

If the Admin is serious about crime prevention & helping cities with crime rates, the work starts with listening to local leaders, following the evidence, & providing support, not with deploying the Guard. @amescg.bsky.social and I walk through the evidence in a new @brennancenter.org analysis:

What Actually Works to Fight Crime The administration’s plans to fight crime by dictating state bail policy or deploying the National Guard won’t build long-term safety, but there are many evidence-based ways to reduce crime.

The Administration's plans to fight crime using the National Guard are not the way to build real, lasting safety. Here's what the evidence shows can work, even as we continue to see national declines in crime. New from the @brennancenter.org:

www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Riots and abuse troubled these former prisons. ICE plans to reopen them. The same operators that closed facilities plan to reopen them to hold immigrants. Advocates say that puts detainees at risk of violence and mistreatment.

Great piece of reporting by @dmac1 and @marianne_levine about ICE's plans to reopen some of the country's most notorious and troubled former prisons as immigrant detention centers. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

Does Bail Reform Impact Crime? The evidence for a connection between bail reform and crime is weak. Here’s how we know.

And to be clear: lawmakers often make bail reform a scapegoat for rising crime rates, despite research indicating that there is no evidence that bail reform affects crime rates. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

And what is more troubling, the threat of jail may even induce false guilty pleas, as some people would rather face a criminal record than spend additional time in pretrial detention vera-institute.files.svdcdn.com/production/d...

Arnold Ventures | The Harmful Ripples of Pretrial Detention A new data-rich study reveals that holding a person in jail for any amount of time before trial may undermine public safety.

Research has found those who were detained in jail were more likely to receive a prison sentence and to receive a longer one compared to one who never spent a day behind bars pretrial. www.arnoldventures.org/stories/the-...

These EOs will not increase public safety. Cash bail creates a two-tiered justice system, one for those who can afford bail and one for those who can't. Tying pretrial release to ability to pay means wealth not public safety safety or likelihood of returning to court determines who stays in jail.

Taking Steps to End Cashless Bail to Protect Americans By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose and

President Trump just signed 2 EOs to force Washington, D.C., and other cities from taking steps to substantially eliminate cash bail as a potential condition of pretrial release, threatening to withhold federal funding from cities that fail to end these policies www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

The Detention of Families Facing Deportation Proceedings The expansion of ICE detention facilities raises concerns about the treatment of children.

The new budget bill raises fresh question about the decades-old court settlement that sets standards for how immigrant children are treated in federal custody. A new explainer breaks down what’s changing and why it matters:
bit.ly/3THmGGH

Crime-Prevention Efforts Face Setbacks After Federal Cuts The Justice Department’s withdrawal of funding for long-standing public safety programs and partnerships is an alarming reversal.

The sudden loss of federal support for community safety programs that supplement or complement policing threatens to derail these efforts, just as research is beginning to show their value. Congress should push to restore this funding.
www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

The budget bill allocates billions to lock up immigrant families (mostly mothers and children) while the admin cuts oversight, the minimum needed to make sure the system is humane. I was honored to collaborate with @lbeisen.bsky.social, who has written extensively about mass incarceration

Debunking the Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Wave’ Data does not support claims that the United States is experiencing a surge in crime caused by immigrants.

As @brennancenter.org has noted before, the reasons why crime rises and falls are quite complex and can rarely be reduced to one driver. Politicians and government officials should refrain from blaming immigrants. Data does not support those claims. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

And when we look at who is in ICE detention right now, more than 70% of people in ICE detention have no criminal conviction tracreports.org/immigration/....

65% of People Taken by ICE Had No Convictions, 93% No Violent Convictions ICE’s deportation agenda is not what is being advertised to the American public.

They also found that more than 93% were never convicted of any violent offenses www.cato.org/news-release...

65% of People Taken by ICE Had No Convictions, 93% No Violent Convictions ICE’s deportation agenda is not what is being advertised to the American public.

The CATO Institute – using nonpublic data from ICE – found that of the people ICE has booked into detention between Oct 1, 2024 to June 14 of 2025, 65% had no criminal convictions. www.cato.org/news-release...

In fact, many studies show that immigration is not linked to higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite. www.antoniocasella.eu/nume/Adelman...

Debunking the Myth of the ‘Migrant Crime Wave’ Data does not support claims that the United States is experiencing a surge in crime caused by immigrants.

Some politicians and gov officials continue to push a narrative that recent immigrants, especially undocumented ones, are driving crime in the U.S. Research & data do not support the view that immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Habeas Corpus, Explained The centuries-old tool is a bedrock principle of constitutional democracy that protects against unlawful detention.

The right to challenge one’s detention in court dates back to 1215, when it was meant to keep kings from arbitrarily locking people up in secret dungeons. Today, it’s still a vital protection against unlawful detention.
bit.ly/3T6Mv2A

The law demands humane conditions of confinement and gives members of Congress the role of making sure it is followed.

Budget Bill Massively Increases Funding for Immigration Detention The influx of money comes as the administration is resisting congressional oversight of conditions at ICE facilities.

Interfering with oversight of immigrant detention is unacceptable. It's particularly troubling as ICE just received $45 billion in the federal budget bill to expand its immigrant detention capacity. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...

Trump administration closes three DHS offices focused on civil rights and oversight On March 21, 2025, Bloomberg Law reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was dismantling its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), as well as cutting staff at the Of...

This clampdown on congressional visits comes on the heels of the Department of Homeland Security eliminating the Office of the Immigration Ombudsman and the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, both of which performed critical oversight of immigration detention. www.epi.org/policywatch/...

ICE Bars Congressional Reps. From Immigrant Detention Area in Manhattan Claiming people being held are “in transit,” the local deputy director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement asserts a federal law allowing visits by members of Congress does not apply in Lower Manh...

Reps. Adriano Espaillat, Dan Goldman, Jerry Nadler, and Nydia Velázquez were denied access to enter and visit detainees – some who were held overnight - at 26 Federal Plaza in NYC, because the location is considered a field office by ICE. www.thecity.nyc/2025/06/18/i...

ICE Imposes New Rules on Congressional Visits

The law also says no prior notice is required. But in June, ICE issued a new policy asking for at least 72 hours’ notice for a visit and claiming that ICE field offices, like the NYC site, are not covered by the oversight law www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/u...

The law says that members of Congress and their staff must be permitted to “enter[], for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” www.congress.gov/118/plaws/pu...

DHS tightens rules for congressional visits to ICE facilities DHS said that while Congress members have the right to make unannounced visits to detention facilities for oversight, ICE field offices “fall outside” that purview.

ICE has denied numerous members of Congress access to detention facilities and field offices as the lawmakers attempted to check on conditions for detainees. Federal law provides members of Congress the legal right to do so. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

‘They’re killing us’: Immigrants complain of inhumane conditions inside NYC holding site Immigrants complain of cramped conditions, inadequate food and bathing facilities and sleeping on concrete floors.

Immigrants detained in ICE holding rooms at 26 Federal Plaza in NYC allege inhumane conditions, including just one meal a day and sleeping on the floor. This comes as the administration has defied congressional oversight. gothamist.com/news/theyre-...

Local Election Officials Survey — July 2025 Sixty percent of local election officials are concerned about federal cuts to election security services, and 87% say it’s important for state and local government to provide additional resources to m...

For the fifth year since 2020, the Brennan Center conducted its survey of election officials this spring. Some unsettling, interesting and important findings this year! /1 www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

The budget bill that passed today makes ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency. The influx of money comes as the administration is dismantling federal oversight of conditions at ICE facilities. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ana...