… because profiling doesn’t catch the real bad guys
To achieve true safety, especially for the most vulnerable, the Biden Administration must defund suspicion and instead fund relationships.
The second shift moves our resources away from technologies and practices that surveil, scrutinize and profile us, whether that’s stop-and-frisk, mandatory drug tests, or computer algorithms designed to “assess risk.” A suspicious society makes us all spies and suspects; all catchers and the caught. Whether the relationship is between neighbor and neighbor, parent and child, teacher and student, or elected official and constituent— relationships are what keep us safe. Rather than turning on each other, we must turn to each other.
Funds can come from, among other places, the $50 billion we spend on homeland-security programs.
#2 Defund Suspicion; Fund Relationship
- End the for-profit exploitation of privatized surveillance programs.
- Repeal the two major child welfare laws that have devastated Black families: the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). (From the Breathe Act)
- End all cooperation and coordination between State/local law enforcement and immigration authorities
- Demilitarize the enforcement of the border and immigration. Repeal mandatory detention, deportation, child detention and family separation. Spare no expense to reunite families still separated.
- End funding for border security, for interior enforcement, for detention centers. End e-verify, the federal government’s Web-based employment eligibility verification program, which locks people out of jobs
- Immediately end policies that keep and process asylum seekers outside the US. Grant asylum and mental health services to those who fled violence & those who were traumatized getting here. Provide aid to central America for past harms done there.
This is the third in a series of six posts, building up to the launch of my book Defund Fear. Each post draws out, from the book and from the wider community, the specific steps the new administration must take in order to prioritize the safety and security of people in America.