Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently deported a survivor of the 2019 Walmart massacre in El Paso, Texas, Rosa,* who was slated to testify at the suspect’s trial.

So how did she end up in ICE’s custody?

Before she was able to testify as a witness to the murder of 23 people — a murder committed by a man who authored a xenophobic and anti-Latinx manifesto before the crime — Rosa was arrested at a traffic stop by local law enforcement officers and detained for two outstanding traffic citations. According to ICE, the agency issued a detainer, or a request for a local law enforcement department to detain a person for ICE past their scheduled release. As a result, a person otherwise allowed to legally go free, perhaps by paying a fine, posting bond, or simply because there was no reason for their initial detention, is instead jailed for up to two days, so ICE can then detain and deport them.

ICE picked up Rosa and deported her to Mexico the very same day.

Many states have laws that try to compel counties to honor such detainers. Texas, Florida, and many other states have mandatory collaboration laws on the books, increasing ICE’s reach into local communities and taking away local communities’ power to decide how to spend their resources. Some counties also work with ICE by participating in a program known as 287(g), which delegates to local law enforcement officers the authority to perform some of ICE’s work.

The Biden administration can protect people like Rosa, reduce fear in our communities, and save taxpayer resources by ending the use of ICE detainers. As Biden builds support for  comprehensive immigration reform, his administration can move immediately to deliver meaningful and bold change by stopping ICE detainers and dismantling the 287(g) program.

Many law enforcement leaders who have personally witnessed the damage ICE has done in their communities are speaking out against these ICE programs, which undercut public safety by destroying community trust and contributing to a climate of fear. Just last November, voters in Charleston County, South Carolina, elected a new sheriff, Kristin Graziano, who committed to terminate the county’s longstanding 287(g) agreement with ICE and to no longer honor ICE detainers. She did so on her first day.

“We want people to be able to believe that they can turn to us, cooperate with us, when they’re a victim of a crime in our community,” Graziano said. “Our immigrant community currently does not have that trust in us, and that ends today with me.”

Two years earlier, Sheriff Garry McFadden of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, said that he canceled the county’s 287(g) contract “because it erodes trust with our community and ties up critical resources that should be used to ensure public safety.”

Both Graziano and McFadden defeated incumbent sheriffs who entered ICE agreements and supported continued work with ICE.

In November, voters in two Georgia counties, Cobb and Gwinnett, soundly rejected candidates who supported continued ICE collaboration, and elected sheriffs who were critical of ICE’s harmful role in their communities. Sheriff Craig Owens of Cobb terminated his county’s ICE contract in January, citing the fact that many immigrants were “not reporting crimes” out of “fear,” and Sheriff Keybo Taylor of Gwinnett terminated 287(g) and announced that he will stop honoring ICE detainers in order to “eliminate distrust.” Over 30 percent of all ICE 287(g) interactions in 2020 took place in the two Georgia counties.

Steven Carl, the Police Chief in Framingham County, Massachusetts, similarly stated that participation with ICE makes people “terrified of us” and “afraid” to report crimes when he rejected collaboration between his police department with ICE. Indeed, it is no wonder that studies have found that local collaboration with ICE undermines public safety.

Repairing community relationships isn’t the only reason that more law enforcement officials have decided not to help ICE. Local police who participate in the 287(g) program are emboldened to commit racial profiling, where officers target people of color and find questionable pretexts to arrest them on local charges just so that they can later be transferred into ICE custody. Sheriff Graziano said ICE made the Sheriff’s Office in Charleston “complicit in racial profiling of the Latinx community,” and apologized for the harm it had caused.

Local collaboration with ICE further jeopardizes immigrants’ safety by emboldening those who would target and exploit them, knowing that they are too afraid to seek help. Sheriff Dave Mahoney of Dane County, Wisconsin, said he didn’t want his deputies “to become ICE agents” in part because doing so might “empower [those] who are preying on the non-documented who fear coming forward to law enforcement.”

As communities seek to undo the damage wrought by the previous administration, the Biden administration should help local leaders rebuild confidence and trust by ending the use of detainers and other ICE programs that only bring pain and anguish.

*Rosa is a pseudonym used for her protection.

This op-ed was originally published by TIME Magazine and can be read in full here.

On Jan. 6, 2021, millions watched, horrified, as agitators hellbent on overturning the election results and disenfranchising Black and Brown voters staged an insurrection on the Capitol, fueled by demonstrably false allegations of voter fraud. While there are clear problems with our democracy and voting systems that must be fixed, these issues don’t arise from voter fraud. They are instead the legacy problems of our republic: systematic efforts to erect voting barriers and discriminate against voters of color for political gain. The Biden administration has a real opportunity to restore faith in our democracy and move us closer to an electoral system representative of all Americans.

The Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision and the halting of preclearance requirements have emboldened states and localities to enact discriminatory voting laws without the Department of Justice’s oversight, resulting in an increase in racially discriminatory laws that suppress the vote. And right now, after record voter turnout in 2020 and the electoral defeat of Donald Trump, states across the country are generating a new wave of such legislation that can be passed without crucial federal protections.

This latest assault on our democracy must be met with robust action and widespread vigilance, and the Biden administration has tools at its disposal. The Biden administration must work with Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to root out voting barriers built to discriminate against voters of color. Congressional leaders named this legislation in honor of the late civil rights legend, but the real honor to his memory would be the bill’s enactment.

More immediately, the ACLU will call on the incoming U.S. attorney general to designate an assistant U.S. attorney (AUSA) in each of the 94 U.S. attorney offices across the country to help ensure compliance with federal voting laws. This cadre of Justice Department lawyers would augment the force of the team of attorneys in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. The severity of the challenge demands a major response. After the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, Attorney General Ashcroft required each U.S. attorney to appoint an AUSA as a point person on anti-terrorism. Jan. 6 and the broader, ongoing anti-voter actions are an attack on our democracy, and we must respond forcefully now too. These AUSA designations would be a clear signal from the Biden administration that it takes the threat of voter suppression as a serious, systematic issue for our democracy.

While tearing down barriers to the ballot, the Biden administration should also ensure all eligible Americans in their custody are able to exercise their right to vote and provide voter-registration information and services as part of release. The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) should take affirmative steps to ensure eligible voters are not being stripped of their rights because they are incarcerated. Stripping the right to vote from and limiting voting opportunities for people in the criminal justice system is directly rooted in the suffocating racism of the Jim Crow era and began as a direct blowback from the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to end slavery and enfranchise Black men.

The 2020 election proved that racism-fueled voter suppression is alive and well. The deep racist, historical roots of targeting voters of color have persisted and grown; indeed, even a deadly pandemic provided no reprieve in the assault on voting rights. Instead, the opponents of voting rights have further proved their unrelenting desire to discount the ability of people of color to choose their elected officials, vying instead for a corrupted system in which politicians choose their voters. As John Lewis said in an op-ed published after his death, “The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society.” We must empower Americans to vote and, by doing so, restore faith in our democracy.

I have never had an ID that accurately reflects my gender. The closest I have come to achieving this was when I received my New York City municipal ID (IDNYC). Unlike my state ID, my city ID does not have any gender listed. When applying for my city ID there were four options: M, F, X, and not designated. I was given the autonomy to choose the gender marker that was best for me, and I did not have to provide a reason or any medical documentation for my choice. As a non-binary person, being able to remove gender entirely from an ID gave me a sense of safety and comfort that I hadn’t previously experienced with other identification documents. I felt relief that when showing my city ID, it wouldn’t “confirm” anyone’s assumptions or prompt any questions about my gender.

However, I cannot use my city ID as proof of identity outside of New York City, and even within the city, there are many circumstances in which I must show my state ID instead, such as checking into an airport or making an age-restricted purchase. Whenever I present my state ID, I have to prepare myself for someone to look at my gender marker and make assumptions about who I am and how to refer to me, and when this happens, my gender is never respected, affirmed, or even seen.

The anxiety I feel in these situations is not uncommon among trans and non-binary people. The National Center for Transgender Equality reported that 40 percent of trans people who presented identification that did not match their perceived gender experienced harassment, 15 percent were asked to leave the premesis, and 3 percent were assaulted. The reality is that trans or non-binary people often experience discrimination related to our identification documents, which leads to us avoiding situations in which we need to show someone an ID for fear of violence.

In recognition of the barriers that trans and non-binary people face related to identitifcation documents, cities and states across the country are recognizing the need for more expansive ID options. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have an option for an “X” gender marker on their IDs, and many allow for self-attestation of one’s gender without documentation from a medical provider. On the local level, some municipalities include a non-binary designation as an option, and others have an option to not list any gender on their IDs. Notably, municipal IDs offered in Oakland, Richmond, and San Francisco, California; Little Rock, Arkansas; Poughkeepsie, New York; and Detroit, Michigan do not ask applicants for their gender at all. These cities and states have demonstrated that IDs can function without issue with an X gender marker or without any gender designation.

But I shouldn’t feel limited in where I can live as a non-binary person. I should be able to easily access identification documents that affirm my gender and safety anywhere in the United States.

The ACLU is asking the Biden-Harris administration to issue an executive order that allows for self-attestation of gender when applying for federal identification documents and creates an “X” designation for those who do not want an “M” or “F” gender marker or do not wish to disclose their gender. In addition to the executive order, the ACLU also encourages federal agencies to re-evaluate which identification documents must require gender markers due to national or international standards, and to remove gender markers from being displayed on IDs whenever possible. The proposed executive order would help more trans and non-binary people gain access to IDs that affirm their gender, and would strengthen advocacy for the removal of gender designations on identification documents altogether. Trans and non-binary people know what is safest for us and our individual situations, and should be able to determine if we want to include a gender marker on our IDs at all.

Trans and non-binary people aren’t the only ones who will benefit from these changes. Many gender non-conforming people experience violence if the gender listed on their ID does not match their percieved gender, and some intersex people do not have access to affirming or accurate identification documents. Additionally, Black women are often masculinized and questioned about their gender due to anti-Black and misogynistic stereotypes, and are at a higher risk of harassment if their IDs are perceived as inaccurate. We must keep in mind that more expansive gender designation options on IDs, including those that forgo gender markers entirely, will have positive implications beyond trans and non-binary communities. We all have a stake in protecting each other from the violence that can result from identification documents, and in changing the policies and practices that harm those who are most marginalized in our communities.

We should advocate for gender designation options that grant people as much autonomy, privacy, and safety as possible, and recognize that sometimes the best option is no gender marker at all.