The House Appropriations Committee meets at 10:30 to “mark up” (approve the draft of) the bill that will fund the Homeland Security department in 2018. The bill includes the Trump administration’s full request of $1.6 billion to build 74 miles of border wall, 60 of it new. It also has $100 million to hire 500 more Border Patrol agents, and money to start building up a huge ICE deportation force.

Needless to say, we oppose this bill. Here is WOLA’s statement laying out why this is a huge and cruel waste of money.

As an organization with decades of experience in human rights in the Americas and U.S.-Latin America migration, WOLA (the Washington Office on Latin America) opposes this version of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill. We urge Members of Congress to oppose this bill and speak out against it as long as it includes the harmful provisions listed below.

Read the rest here.