Rep. Tlaib Defends Bill That Would Empty Federal Prisons Over 10 Years

(L-R) Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) speak at a press conference on the Capitol on July 15, 2019. Holly Kellum/NTD

In an interview with Axios’s Jonathan Swan, progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) defended a proposed bill that would empty federal prisons over the course of the next 10 years.

The bill, called the BREATHE Act, asks the Department of Justice to draw up a “roadmap for prison abolition.” The bill demands  the “full decarceration of federal detention facilities within 10 years” and “a moratorium on all new federal prison, jail, immigrant and youth detention construction.”