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The Democratic senators want the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will begin drafting its own funding bills later this year, to reject the Trump administration's request for additional ICE agents, and include language that would limit what money the Department of Homeland Security could use to detain and remove immigrants from the United States.

"Under current funding levels, the administration has expanded immigration enforcement within American communities indiscriminately, failing to distinguish hardworking individuals with deep community ties and no criminal record from individuals convicted of a serious crime," the senators argue in their letter to appropriators.

They also want the Senate's funding bills to reduce the amount of money available for beds in the federal immigration detention system, arguing that it is "plagued by limited oversight and accountability and inhumane conditions."

"ICE immigration detention facilities and ICE contractors often fail to comply with ICE’s own set of performance-based standards of care for detainees. ... We cannot in good conscience support increased funding for immigration detention beds that effectively sustain such cruel purposes," the senators add in their Wednesday letter.