JOINT STATEMENT: Trump Threatens to Hold Government Hostage to Get His Wall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2018

CONTACT
National Immigration Law Center: [email protected]; Juan Gastelum, 213-375-3149; Hayley Burgess, 202-384-1279

Indivisible Project: Emily Phelps, [email protected]

United We Dream: Bruna Bouhid, [email protected], 202-850-0812

Southern Border Communities Coalition: Yesenia Padilla, [email protected], 415-269-3178

JOINT STATEMENT:
Trump Threatens to Hold Government Hostage to Get His Wall

WASHINGTON — The National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the Indivisible Project, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, and United We Dream released the following statement:

For two years, President Trump has demanded funding for his deadly, harmful, and wasteful border wall while continuing to attack immigrants, refugees, and communities of color. Today, he proudly declared “I will shut down the government” if he doesn’t get his way. Immigrants’ rights groups and allies have made it clear that we reject this administration’s racist policies and oppose any amount of funding that would build Trump’s vanity wall or increase the number of detention beds and immigration agents.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi should reject any and all funding for Trump’s border wall or for additional immigration enforcement.

This past year, Congress approved $1.3 billion in wall funding that has already devastated border communities. We aim to bring this number down in the next Congress. The current Department of Homeland Security budget already represents reckless overspending on agencies that routinely engage in abusive and corrupt practices that terrorize our communities. Congress must include specific guidelines that require an analysis of the harmful effects of a wall to border communities, the environment, and wildlife prior to authorizing any more construction.

When Trump is separating children from parents and tear-gassing families seeking asylum at the border, Democrats cannot give him another dime to wage his war against immigrant families.

Trump made the 2018 midterm elections into a referendum on his immigration policies, and voters overwhelmingly rejected them. Voters want a different type of government that respects all of us, regardless of where we were born.

Our organizations support a clean, year-long continuing resolution that doesn’t fund Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda which includes his vanity wall, detention beds, or agents. We urge Congress to stand up against this false and ineffective style of leadership and consider funding the greater needs of the nation, such as health care for all, addressing the climate crisis, better K-12 education, and modernizing our crumbling infrastructure.

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