Progressive lawmakers are urging fellow Democratic colleagues to be firm when it comes to negotiating with the Republican Party and the Trump administration on the immigration agenda. Not only are the progressive freshman lawmakers telling Congress to refuse to fund the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but to #DefundHate.
At a rally on Capitol Hill on Thursday organized by United We Dream, Indivisible, MoveOn, and other such groups, progressive lawmakers including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley demand that “Congress defund the agencies tasked with violating immigrants’ and refugees’ rights,” Common Dreams reported.
“We don’t want money for an institution that is demonizing and criminalizing our immigrant neighbors,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), whose immigrated to the U.S. from Palestine with her parents, said. “We don’t want a system that basically has taken away the core values of the American dream.”
According to American Friends Service Committee, “Since their inception, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have separated countless families, caused the deaths of people fleeing violence and poverty, and terrorized our communities.”
More than 300 organizations have called on Congress to #DefundHate by limiting agencies from “raiding other accounts, and [demand] a commitment from Trump to not use emergency powers that undermine Congress.”
“The undersigned organizations are united in fighting for permanent solutions for immigrant and border communities that do not harm our families and loved ones or undercut other community members,” League of Women Voters of the U.S. said in an open letter. “We call on you and all Members of Congress to demand decreased funds for enforcement, border militarization, detentions, and deportations carried out by ICE and CBP.”
“We’re here to say that an agency like ICE, which repeatedly and systematically violates human rights, does not deserve a dime,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Until they can prove that they are honoring human rights…until they can prove good faith to an American ideal, they do not deserve any resources for their radical agenda.”
“I will not give one dollar to black box detention facilities that think some people in this country are deserving of constitutional protections and others are not.” – @AOC demands Congress #DefundHate and reject Trump’s wall and deportation force. w/ @unitedwedream @actdottv pic.twitter.com/caiyUDhhVc
— MoveOn (@MoveOn) February 7, 2019
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