“Trump’s cynical ploy to get his $5.7 billion for his vanity wall in exchange for temporary relief for DACA and TPS recipients is a non-starter and should be immediately rejected by congressional leaders,” Richard Morales, policy and program director for Faith in Action’s immigrant rights campaign.
The partial government shutdown, Morales argued, “exists because of Trump’s white supremacist agenda.” Moreover, “Even if the shutdown were to suddenly end, the deeper crises created by Trump at the border and in the interior would still need to be addressed by Congress.”
“This week,” he continued, “we received proof the administration planned months in advance to separate thousands of children from their parents and jail them as a deterrence to stop immigrants from seeking refuge in the U.S. Children have died while in U.S. custody; some have been tear-gassed by U.S. border agents; asylum seekers are being denied access to the legal system to apply.”