FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Sam Yu | 213-703-0992 | syu@nakasec.org
Dawn Le | 202-549-6798 | dawn@generate.group
Any Politician That Supports the Goodlatte and Ryan-Trump Bills Endorses Trump’s Policy to Separate Children from Their Families At the Border
Americans Must Rise Up To Call An End to Attacks on Immigrant Families and Restore Our Values
It’s a moment of truth for House members this week when they vote on two anti-immigrant bills. The Goodlatte and Ryan-Trump bills essentially do the same thing: both create an underclass of immigrant young people, both grossly reduce legal immigration and stop hundreds of thousands of families from reuniting with their loved ones, both eliminate the diversity visa program which would disproportionately harm Black immigrants, both hire more border agents to militarize our communities, both further exploit farmworkers, both strip due process and protections from children and asylum seekers and most of all, both build Trump’s wall and empower his mass deportation machine.
Will our elected leaders stand up for what’s moral and American, or will they align themselves with Trump and overlook that children are being kept in cages in detention camps, not knowing where their parents are?
Below is a statement by the Value Our Families coalition:
“We are outraged that Donald Trump, Kirstjen Nielsen, or anyone can bear to hear the heartbreaking cries of these children, see the images of children in detention camps, and instead of fixing it, they use it as a bargaining chip to get Congress to pass the Goodlatte and Ryan-Trump bills to carry out Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“Both the Goodlatte and Ryan-Trump bills are set up to criminalize immigrants and keep families apart. And anyone who says these bills fix what’s happening at the border is lying. The Trump administration alone can fix this. It’s HIS policy. He can stop ripping children away from their parents today—he doesn’t need Congress to take action.
“Although Congressmembers on both sides of the aisle are opposing Trump’s policy to separate these children from their families, there aren’t enough of them who’ve come out to actually stop what is happening and protect these children. Instead they want to use these bills to attack immigrants and prevent families from staying together. By default, they are endorsing Trump locking up these kids in cages.
“It is up to Trump to change his policy, and we urge Republicans and Democrats to condemn Trump’s actions and rhetoric. But we also implore the American people to speak out against this administration because we cannot allow this cruel mistreatment and disgrace to continue in our country.”
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Value Our Families is the national coalition that aims to reunite and keep families together, defend family immigration, and protect family unity.
