New Jersey senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker says, if elected, he will “virtually eliminate” immigrant detention through executive authority, as he unveiled his immigration reform plan Tuesday. Booker’s plan would phase out privately run immigrant prisons and stop criminalizing immigration. He is also vowing to restore and expand DACA and other protected status programs, reverse Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy, expand legal pathways to citizenship and put in place accountability mechanisms for ICE and CBP.
Other 2020 candidates have also said they would effectively do away with immigrant detention, including former San Antonio mayor and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro. Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders said his first executive actions would undo all of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.