Thread by @GalvinAlmanza

Good morning everyone. I'm joining @JoshuaBHoe to stage a 24 hour effort calling on @POTUS to #KeepThemHome. You may not know this, but several thousand people were screened to be sent home from prison to weather the pandemic. forbes.com/sites/walterpa…

Now, @POTUS is signaling that they will be sent back--many for years. These are folks who were screened for safety, released, and have had a 99.9% success rate. They have jobs, families, lives. There is zero safety reason to return them to prison. forbes.com/sites/walterpa…

If this seems unfair to you. If this bothers you.If you want to end mass incarceration. If you want kids to be with their parents. If you want families intact. If you want more potential workers in a community. Join us in asking to #KeepThemHome.

First fact: @POTUS has the power to commute the sentences of those sent home under the CARES Act. Legislators are urging it. It's simple. And it is fair, given that these are people who have not given anyone any reason to doubt their safety. #KeepThemHome forbes.com/sites/walterpa…

Second Fact: for those of you who say you're part of "the Resistance", if @POTUS sends these 4,000 employees and parents and siblings and colleagues back to prison, it would be him relying on a Trump-era DOJ opinion, not challenging it. #KeepThemHome nytimes.com/2021/07/19/us/…

Third fact: THE PANDEMIC IS NOT OVER. If @POTUS decides to send thousands back to prison, he's sending them to a space where social distancing and safety is impossible, where thousands have died, and where the Delta variant is raging. #KeepThemHome verywellhealth.com/prisons-covid-…

Fourth: this is @POTUS breaking a campaign promise. He ran on reducing mass incarceration. This is the perfect opportunity to take a step in that direction: thousands of people who have demonstrated their safety with over a year home w/o incident. #KeepThemHome

Fifth: People were sent home because the prison system deemed it safe, and they--like Wendy in this story--have worked hard to prove they deserved that reprieve. Now @POTUS will tell them reality/behavior doesn't matter unless he manages to #KeepThemHome.
nytimes.com/2021/07/19/us/…

Miranda McLaurin, a disabled Army vet doing 5 years on a drug offense, allowed to go home: “I always hear them talking about giving people a second chance,” she said of the Biden administration. “I came home, I got a job. I’m working.” #KeepThemHome
aclu.org/news/criminal-…

More from @UdiACLU: "the Bureau of Prisons did not tell people they were releasing that they expected to send them back to prison. For this reason, people signed leases for homes, bought furniture, started planning their lives." #KeepThemHome aclu.org/news/criminal-…

"If the releases were meant to be temporary...BOP would have been clear by calling them furloughs, and not releases. Home confinement has never been considered a temporary solution. It is meant to prepare a person to go home, not to prison." #KeepThemHome
aclu.org/news/criminal-…

"Everyone released was already determined to be a “low risk”...only about 0.63 percent, or 151 people out of more than 24,000 people, have violated the terms of their release once transferred to home confinement." #KeepThemHome aclu.org/news/criminal-…

Oh and the MONEY. Sending people back to prison could cost about $166,500,000 PER YEAR. To incarcerate people who are actually out there *working* right now, so this figure doesn't even count how these folks are adding to our economy. #KeepThemHome aclu.org/news/criminal-…

Oh also, for @POTUS this move is not only unnecessary and wildly unfair, it's horrible optics: a person who promised to reduce prison populations by half instead presiding over the greatest expansion of the fed prison population in history. #KeepThemHome aclu.org/news/criminal-…

We're halfway through our tweeting marathon to #KeepThemHome at this point so take a minute to check out this thread and consider taking action with @ACLU action.aclu.org/send-message/4…

Let's add another angle to #KeepThemHome: @POTUS promised to reduce incarceration by half, yet has done NOTHING on clemency, the single strongest tool he has. Why not start here with people who have proven themselves for nearly two years? #KeepThemHome nytimes.com/2021/07/13/opi…

"[F]ederal lawmakers who passed the CARES Act wanted to protect older and medically vulnerable people who were not likely to commit crimes if they were freed. 'All of them left with the idea that they were staying home,'" @KevinARing #KeepThemHome motherjones.com/crime-justice/…

“If people are already out ... home with their families, & they’re not committing new crimes...it does seem cruel & unnecessary & unreasonable to force the [federal Bureau of Prisons] to bring them back to prison.” @Inimai #KeepThemHome
motherjones.com/crime-justice/…

The team for @POTUS is still insisting he wants to lower prison pop but won't #KeepThemHome because of...some kind of fear...that people who have proven themselves for nearly 2 years would be bad bet? It's a cowardly refusal to rely on the track record. motherjones.com/crime-justice/…

Oh and the prison population? That @POTUS promised to reduce? It's rising. #KeepThemHome

motherjones.com/crime-justice/…

This is also happening at a moment of inaction on other fronts: on cannabis legalization, on clemency, pretrial reform, pay parity for defense....and let's not forget that inaction in our field doesn't have a theoretical impact. It keeps humans in cages longer. #KeepThemHome

At this rate, @POTUS seems to have already given up on trying to keep his promise. One of the only easy ways to take a step in the right direction is to #KeepThemHome

https://twitter.com/NazgolG/status/1415682474806501376?s=20

Oh let's also keep in mind how EASY it would have been for the folks sent home to be sent back--after all, DOJ almost sent Gwen Levi back for taking a computer class. #KeepThemHome

washingtonpost.com/local/public-s…

Now, pressure from us--you, you reading this tweet--shamed @POTUS into keeping Gwen Levi home. But we have to do the same for the other Gwens. Thousands of other people with jobs, kids, apartments, birthday parties, marriages, lives. #KeepThemHome usatoday.com/story/news/pol…

It's been almost 24 hours of asking to #KeepThemHome but before we end, let's hear from Gwen about her experience. And remember that there are thousands more like her, living in fear of being torn form their lives. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

Thank you for bearing with us as we spent 24 straight hours calling on @POTUS to #KeepThemHome. No matter how you feel about prison, we can all agree that folks who were screened for release, released safely, and have shown a 99.9% success rate have earned their reprieve.

After all, who are we, as a nation? A nation that blindly follows the rules of a disgraced former President? A nation that ignores the potential, merit, and value of her citizens? A nation that breaks hearts and destroys lives because of a memo? #KeepThemHome

Or are we a nation with a @POTUS who will draw upon his evident reserves of understanding and empathy, a President with the heart and courage to extend a hand--and a second chance--to those who have kept their promises?

We'll find out.

#KeepThemHome.